Summer List 2011

Since summer is about to start for me, I figure I better get a list together to keep me honest. So, here goes nothing.

In no particular order: (Edited with comments June 30th)

• Finish the online course I started last summer. This one has a deadline - I have to get it done in June. (DONE!!!!! Once it posts, I have to get transcripts so I can get reimbursed and move up a lane.)
• Read. I definitely would like to do some reading that I normally don't get time to do. Some professional (we are starting with Understanding by Design on #sbarbook), some personal. (Working on this and not doing too bad. We are up to Chapter 5 in #sbarbook and I have been slowly knocking off the magazine stack I accumlated this school year.) 
• Revise my SBG for next school year. See this post. (Thinking about it. Got some good ideas from Sam Shah that I think I will use next year.)
• Revise my concept lists for Calculus (which I'm not teaching next year), Math 1 and Algebra 2/Advanced Algebra 2. Along with this, put together the concept list for Pre-Algebra (7th grade), which will be my 4th prep next year. (I briefly revised Calculus at the end of the year. I think I'm going to leave it where it is. I will probably start on Pre-Algebra next, but not for a few weeks.)
• Learn more about rich problems and how to incorporate them into my classes. (This has been on the back burner since I had to get my course done. This moves up the list.)
• Revise how I teach in my classroom. I am still very much a traditional math teacher (go over homework, teach/lecture on the new concept, give time for homework). I want to change that, I just don't know how. (I was hoping to get some ideas from the comments in this post but it didn't go very far.Still thinking on this one.)
• I am attending the NCTM Reasoning and Sense Making Workshop in Orlando July 28-30. I have some of the Reasoning and Sense Making books to read in front of that, but I also want to take what I've learned from that workshop and apply it to my own classroom. I am really looking forward to this! (Need to get started on this book. Maybe next week on the plane to Houston...)
• I'm also attending the Making Ohio Schools Work conference in Columbus next week as part of my role on our district's Race to the Top committee. (DONE - but this added to my mental list creating a problem solving course - semester long elective. We'll see how that goes.)
• Try and help my daughter to master her addition and subtraction basic facts. She finishes 2nd grade this week and will need to know them when she enters 3rd grade in the fall. It doesn't help that she has ADHD, but we will need to find a way to help her learn them. (In progress. I have created Addition Fact War for her and I to play - but she has to tell me all the answers. Also found Math Slam for her to help practice.)
• I am taking a course to learn Moodle in early August.
• We have some fun trips planned this year also. First up is the Monte Carlo Nationals in York, Pennsylvania, with a side trip to the Crayola Factory afterwards. Then, hopefully a trip to see my sister-in-law in Houston, Texas. Reasoning and Sense Making is next, followed by a week on Lake Erie with my family right before school starts. Summer always finishes with the Canfield Fair and the annual Henry Hootenanny on Saturday of Labor Day weekend. (We just got back from the Monte Carlo Nationals and the Crayola Factory. We leave for Houston July 7th - this will be my son's first flight and my daughter's second.)

Whew! That's a lot of stuff for my list. Hopefully I'll accomplish most of the stuff on it.