New Year - New Goals

My Reading Goals

I will be working to get more diverse reading into my hands this year. To that end, I will be participating in the Latin@s in Lit reading challenge for one. I will also be participating in the 2014 Diversity on the Shelf Challenge. I will be aiming to read at least 50 books by or about people of color.

In addition, I would like to continue to work on finishing the Printz winners. I started reading them in 2013 and should be able to finish them this year. During January, I will continue to read through the books on Anderson's Mock Newbery list. I think I have 7 more left. Finally, I will continue to chip away at the Caldecotts as they come my way. I have been working on those since 2012, but that list is very long. I may finish the list this year and I may not, but I will try to read a few each month.

I went through my To Be Read list on Goodreads and prioritized about 100 of them for this year. Some will help with my reading challenges and some are just for fun.

I accomplished some of my reading goals this year:  finishing all of the Newbery awards, reading 523 books (though I had a goal of 800 initially), I read some of the Caldecotts (though didn't finish them), and I read all but 3 of the 2012 Nerdy Nominees (they aren't available in our area).

Professional Goals
I would like to start a club for computer coding. I introduced The Hour of Coding with my fourth and fifth grade students and now would like to provide a time at least once a week where students could be learning coding. I am not sure if that will be before school or after school, but would like to start soon.

After reading Donalyn Miller's book Reading in the Wild, I want to help my students become more independent in choosing reading materials. I will introduce some of the resources available and I hope to help foster a reading community that will support that.

I will start planning for WRAD. I have really enjoyed connecting with classes around the country for WRAD in the past.

I am also entertaining the idea for having a summer checkout. I am considering allowing students to take home books over summer break, but would also like to enlist volunteers to help with a few hours of checkout at least once a week over the break too.

Exercise Goals
I am aiming for 5-6 days a week of exercise whether it be yoga, zumba, running, or some activity I have yet to discover.

We'll see how much of this gets done, but it is fun to make plans.