Of course it would end up being 90+ degrees during the last week of school. Ugh.
All sweatiness aside, here's what I'd like to do this summer:
1. Sleep. More than 6 or 7 hours of sleep a night will be a welcome change. I'm actually thinking that I'll need to set my alarm to get up at a reasonable hour each morning. (8 or 8:30, probably) Otherwise my children will spend their mornings watching Sponge Bob and eating poptarts.
2. Read. Haven't been able to do much of that this school year and I have a pile of books waiting for me!
3. Run. I started running in January 2010 as a way to lose weight. I'm down 16-ish pounds and now need to go shopping for some new shorts. (Yay me!) But the most surprising thing (other than that I've stuck with it, which is amazing) is that I enjoy running and am now planning on completing a half-marathon in the fall. But that means I'll have to start training for it this summer; my every-other day 3 mile runs aren't going to cut it!
You know how "they" always say that teachers "only" work 9 months a year? Yeah, I wish. Here's my school summer work:
4. I totally want to re-do my precalc class. I'm the only one teaching the honors precalculus next year, so I feel like that gives me a lot of freedom.... and yet pressure, too. I started by giving summer work for the first time ever - hopefully that will reduce a lot of the review work that we do starting out the year. My goal is to get more project-based in class, so I'm trying now to compile projects into one document. Here's my starting place. If you have anything to add, please let me know! :)
5. Same thing in Algebra 2. I don't feel like I made it fun this year (except for my sparkling personality, of course!). More projects? More activity? The hardest thing for me will be that I only have one Alg 2 class next year, so I may not want to invest my time in it. Shame on me.
6. I have a new course in the fall - Honors Algebra 1. This year I taught the general level so I have the basic bones of the class, but I should be able to do a LOT more with these kids. Projects? Investigations? Real-worldy stuff?
Let's see if I can fit this in with trips to the pool, zoo, King's Island, a cruise (woo hoo!), and baseball games. I think I need a nap.
1 comment:
Assuming that these kids in the honors classes are math geeks, you might want to look at some math contests for cool ideas of problems to challenge your honors students with. Some honors math students are good at everything, and your project ideas should work well for that group. Judging from the math-geeky high school kids I know, however, I'm guessing that some would into the math contest problems in a way that they wouldn't connect as much with applications and projects.
I haven't looked at them yet (it's on my summer reading list), but I've heard good things about the art of problem solving books as a good source for math contest type problems.
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