July Blogging Challenge-Day 1

I always read about these blogging challenges and really want to do it, but never follow through.  Being that it is summer break I don't have the usual excuse of "I'm just too busy". So I am going to give it a try and hop on to ST's July challenge

Since one of my downfalls in these challenges is figuring out what to blog about, I am grateful for the idea of prompts and I am going to follow ST's lead and start with Start/Stop/Continue.

3 things to START
Daily Blogging-I know that daily blogging will make me a much better reflective educator.  I love going back and reading my blog posts to see how far I've come, ideas that I had and want to look further into when the time is better and what worked/didn't etc.  Its just when I start I get extremely self conscious, like if anyone reads my blog they are going to think I am a rambling idiot.  Then on the other hand, who cares!  I need to blog for MYSELF anyway.  However, I am hopeful that I will share something that will be useful to someone else, since I have found so much from reading other teacher's blogs, part of the reason I want to blog is to give back a little.

Immersing myself in the 5/6 standards-Since I'm changing grade levels this year, this is a pretty big priority!  I feel the urge to do a lot of prep work over the summer so that I can fully enjoy this new age group.  So much to learn, even though it shouldn't be too scary since I have a 10 year old at home right now.

 Math Club-This is another biggie for me this year.  I registered with MathCounts  last year but didn't really follow through with it other than taking group of students to a local math competition which they absolutely loved.  I am going to give MathCounts another try this year, and I am especially excited because I will be able to work with the 7th and 8th grades as well.

3 things to STOP
LOL and !- One of the first things I think I blogged about was how I was going to try and keep from using these in my blog.  I will not totally eliminate the exclamation point, but I am going to try to limit it in use.  You have no idea how hard it was for me not to use both of these in this paragraph.

Perfectionism-There are so many things I need to do, clean up my diet, workout more consistently, make my house spotless, tutor my son, etc, that I know will be so much more successful if I adopt a "progress not perfection" attitude.  

Wasting time-This is specific for summer.  When I have no structure in my day I am the worst time waster.

3 things to CONTINUE
ISN's- I felt like this should go in the start category, however, I did start them the year before last and just put it on hold last year while we adopted our new textbook series.  I am excited to bring them back again.

Studying Growth Mindset- this started last summer with the How to Teach Math with Jo Boaler course.  I love this so much and can't wait to work with my new students on this. I did a PERTS study and was given assignments to try with my class to encourage growth mindset in my students and I will continue to use these activities along with what I learn from reading this book.

Using Ipads and Laptops-We have laptop carts and access to Ipads and in the past I just haven't used them much because I hate the idea of using technology for the sake of using it.  This year I found some ways to really incorporate them without it feeling weird.  Things like having the students make paper slide videos, math stations where they practice on sites like xtramath.org, etc.

Whew! Day 1 down, wish me luck!