I’m not really a resolution type of person. I believe if you want to change something, you make the decision and action steps to make it happen. So, this is a resolution, but also because it happens to be landing right when I’m starting to think about what I want to do this upcoming school year. I always want to make so many changes, so for the purposes of making it doable, here are three of my Back to School Resolutions for 2019.
- More Play-Based Learning
Seems like a no-brainer to me. But, when curriculum, common core state standards, teacher performance assessments, kids with specialized needs compete for your time, it can be harder than it looks if you’re not prepared. So, my number one goal is to provide more intentional play-based learning opportunities. As a result, I buckled down and bought new play centers. I bought a vet clinic that is also a pretend groomer. I also bought a pretend play kitchen, new puppet theater and kid-sized picnic table. Yep, that’s right. I brought it all back to my classroom. There are so many ways to engage children in learning, if I’m more prepared to integrate current curriculum in those sections of play. For example, we teach Journey’s as our reading curriculum. There are several animal units. The vet clinic will fit right in. Now, I just need a wonderful volunteer to assemble these centers for me!
- More Student-led Self-Assessment Tracking
I love formative assessments, because it lets me know where kids are at in their learning and where to go from there. I’m not always the best at helping kids tangibly track their learning with the use of bar graphs and the like. I’m still in the process of formulating how I want this to look this year. They love some of the ideas I’ve used in the past already. Now, I just need to make it work with my schedule so it isn’t another great idea that falls by the wayside because of the complications of the daily teacher-life.
- More communication with parents via the Remind App
I used the Remind app for the first time this year and loved it. It’s great to be able to take a photo of a student doing something amazing throughout the day and send it to their parents. They loved it and so did the kids. I could show them the picture and then delete it. Great app for communicating. It doesn’t work for all families who don’t have consistent phone service, but for many, it’s a wonderful communication tool.
What are some of your back to school resolutions? Some of the same or completely different?