Planning by the Pool Blog Hop!

Hello, everyone! Thank you so much for visiting my very first blog hop! Make sure to work your way through the entire blog hop because every participant is offering an amazing freebie! (Not to mention their great ideas about planing over the summer.)

I don't know about you, but I always have big plans for the summer. If I end up getting half of what I plan done, then I consider that an accomplishment.

One big thing I am working on this summer is planning an entire curriculum for the year. My goal is to have every worksheet, test, exit ticket, and homework assignment created and ready by September. This sounds absolutely crazy, but I have to try because I know how good life will be next year if I can get this done. Our school district does not have a curriculum for anything, so things get pretty hectic throughout the year!

This year I used Engage New York (or Eureka Math), and I really liked some parts of it. However, my biggest complaints were that I didn't really like the order, especially at the end of the year and it didn't spend enough time focusing on elapsed time or area and perimeter. So, I am taking what I like from there and reworking it to fit my needs.

Another area that I really want to focus is my literacy block. I started the year doing Daily 5, but that kind of fell away as I worked to teach all of the standards. This summer I am going to spend some time researching and thinking about how to do Daily 5 and teach all of the standards. If you have ideas, I would love to hear them!

Finally, I want to refine how I do Genius Hour in my classroom. We have been doing this to end the day most days, and I love that it offers kids some choice right when they are getting restless. It made the ends of our days so peaceful and refreshing. However, I feel like I gave them too much choice this year. Next year, I want to have kids come up with a plan and work towards a goal. For example, learning how to knit and then knitting a sweater, drawing a comic book, scoring a certain number of points in chess. I think that I will come up with sample plans this summer. Kids can choose these plans, or create their own plans. That way their progress can be measured throughout the year, and Genius Hour doesn't become synonymous with "free time".

Now, for my freebie. This product has become one of my biggest sellers, and as a big thank you to all my readers as the summer starts, it will be free for one week. You can get it at either Teacher's pay Teachers.

I hope you enjoyed reading about my summer plans! Now, please visit the next stop on the blog hop!