Summer Learning

Well, my first year as a reading teacher is officially over. As always, I found myself thinking about next year and what I want to do differently as I packed up my room. Last year I was put into this position unexpectedly and had no time to plan and prepare for the year. Now I have time to plan. So here are some plans and thoughts.
Summer Learning
I'm currently enroute to ISTE.  (The picture above is from my train ride to Philly.) I have several sessions in my planner that deal with tech and elementary reading so that's where the summer learning begins. Besides the sessions I'll be learning from my PLN as well.
Next up will be two days spent with the other reading teachers in my district. We'll be aligning current technology, websites, and apps to the skills we have to teach. I'm the only one that uses tech so I think it will involve quite a bit of teaching and sharing on my part. I'm not sure what type of document I'll put this into yet but I hope it helps next year as I plan lessons.
I use a wiki for my class web page. It needs some work to make it more attractive and this year's work needs to go on one page and off the side bar.
Next year I'm moving out of my closet sized room and into a larger room. I'm thrilled I'll have room for some of my thousands of books and room for us to move and be more active learners. Part of my summer will involve setting up this new learning environment.
Thoughts for next year
Increase use of tech in meaningful ways.
Invite parents to stop by at open house and at that time explain and hand out permission slips for pictures on the internet.
Plan more lessons that involve movement.
Let kids creativity shine, just not sure how I'll accomplish this yet.
Send home monthly notes to parents with websites, apps, books, and how to help at home ideas.
At the end of the year burn kid's projects to a CD.
Think about an end of the year project for parents to come on and see.
Well, I think that's enough ideas to keep me busy for awhile. What will you be doing to make next year an even better year?

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