Back to School-PD Day 1 of 5!

One of my goals for this school year is to blog more often.  I am going to start out with the idea of blogging everyday, even if it is to just recap what happened that day.  I know that I will probably fall off but hopefully I will get 2-3 blogs a week and that would be cool.

Today was our first day back and it is really exciting with all of our new staff.  Everyone seems friendly and ready to go, so that is a nice sign!  Our PD today was Curriculum Mapping.  It seems my school has purchased the Rubicon Atlas software.
Since we got the link last night to sign in I had an idea going into it what it was all about.  Even though it seems like a ton of work, I am really excited to start using it.  My impression is that it is just a fancy way to write unit plans, but to tell you the truth my unit plans have never been as structured as I would like them to be.  With our new math series: Math in Focus and the new CCSS, this is a great time to start really structuring them.
I noticed that the Math in Focus really does a good job breaking down the standards, the content and skills so I'm just going through and plugging in the basics.  The fun part will be adding the juicy stuff to it like fun resources and activities.

We had about an hour or so in our rooms, I am SO glad I came in a few days last week!  I am way ahead of some of the teachers even though I don't feel as prepared as I did last year.  I will end this post with some pics of my room!

This will be my student work board. My daughter made an owl to go on it and it will say "Whoo does good work?  We do!"

Here is my SWAG sign! and where my word wall goes.

My IWB, I usually use the two boards on the sides for info 7th on one and 8th on the other: agenda/homework stuff. The posters at the top are the mathematical practices!

Still have a ways to go, but like I said I feel so much more ahead than if I didn't come in last week!  I will laminate my SWAG sign, and start working on procedures.  I love the beginning of the school year!