To Do… Someday

We all have those lists of things we want to get done, want to read, want to bake, want to make… someday. And I will tell you that Pinterest hasn’t helped me in that fact at all! I’ve blogged before about my “Want to Make” board on Pinterest but I could probably add in my Recipes  or Dairy Free Recipes boards as well because it’s all a “someday“.

Well today it’s all about the books that I want to read. You may be thinking, “But you said this is your “someday” list.” Well someday is now and I’m giving myself a goal to read them this school year!

First up is Building Mathematical Comprehension by Laney Sammons. I actually bought this book this summer and have it ready to read now that I have completed my Book Blogging Buddies book.

I am excited about getting into this book and seeing how I can further connect strategies that students learn and hold onto for dear life in literacy and then carry over in math. This is so crucial for our middle school kiddos because math is frustrational for so many of them. Don’t even get me talking numbers that aren’t understanding basic concepts and have weak foundations.

Next up is Guided Math by Laney Sammons. {Maybe we just need to sit down and have a pow-wow together…} When I was in the classroom last year, I started implementing a set of Workstations once a week for my Middle School Resource Math students. I want to look further into the research and continue to create this although I am not in the classroom this coming year as I will be presenting on Interactive Learning in the Math Class in some upcoming workshops.

I have always been interested in creating menus to use in my classroom and I think that piled along with Guided Math these would work great to my next book is Differentiating Instruction with Menus by Laurie Westphal. She has these available for Language Arts, Math, Science and Social Studies for K-2, 3-5 and 6-8. I also did see she had them for the Inclusive Classroom which might be highly beneficial for my Special Education teacher friends.

Next up is an all to familiar book that I have seen in blog land this summer, Teach Like a Pirate by Dave Burgess. I am really excited to read this to help excite me and give me some ideas on how to be even more engaging and creative in my professional development that I am doing. I figure that if I can model this to teachers in 3 hour and even 6 hour sessions that they can then take it back to their classrooms piece by piece.

And last, but certainly not least, is I’d Like to Apologize to Every Teacher I Ever Had by Tony Danza. I watched the short-lived show on A&E “Teach” while it was on and it left me hanging to say the least. I wanted to hear how things changed for this one group of students over the course of the year.

I was deeply impacted by Freedom Writer’s Diary and how it made me feel about where I was teaching at the time (a suburban Title 1 School where I had 19 2nd graders) and I’m interested in how Mr. Danza reflects on his time with 10th graders in an inner-city school.

As you can see, I have a lot of books to read over the course of the next year. Reading to me is not always just about learning but also for pleasure.

What is one book that is on your “Must Read” list right now? Why should I add it to mine?

Oh, and are you interested to see who won the comment contest from the July INB Linky? Check out my Facebook later today for the reveal!