Summer 2k14

It's been a crazy year! It's been a long while since I've posted a real post on my poor bloggy! Now that summer is here, I'll have more time to post and update about this past school year.

One thing that was consuming my life for the past couple of months is getting nationally board certified. I decided to take this year to apply and submit my portfolio since I had a student intern and I had many friends that decided to pursue it as well. Getting together the national board portfolio is probably one of the hardest things I've had to do in my career. Part of it was my fault - old college Christine showed up and I ended up waiting longer than I should have to get started. And since I started later than planned, I was getting flustered with the EOG/EOC prep, tutoring after school, and end of year norms. It definitely became a lot to handle. But in the end, I ended up finishing in time (thank you NCDPI for providing 3 free days!) and I was able to dedicated 110% of my time and concentration on prepping my kids for these EOY tests. My last step is to take the national board tests this Saturday and then I'll have to play the waiting game until November to see if I received it or not. Fingers crossed!

Now that summer is here, my mind is racing with all of the ideas I want to implement next year. My brain never stops thinking! I'm super excited because I will still be in 8th grade next year, but even more so because I will only be teaching math!!! This makes me so incredibly happy! This past year, I felt so overwhelmed because I moved to 8th grade from 7th grade and had to learn 3 new curriculums and learn how to teach all of them to the best of my ability (Math I, Math II, Science, and 8th Grade Math). Having 4 preps stressed me out to the max and by the end of the year I was exhausted. I felt like I was stretched too thin. With next year and me only having to teach math, I can focus on just 2 preps instead of 4. I am hoping that since I am focused on less, my students will be able to achieve more and I won't be running around like a crazy person!

Lastly, I want to set some goals for myself for the summer. I am hoping that I will be able to complete most of these. I am already off to a bad start since I just spent the last four days binging on Scandal!

Goals for Summer 2k14:

Work out (switch gyms, lap swim)
Eat better (oops)
Create and post a TPT item in my store at least once a day
Blog more
Join a linky party with other blogs
Plan my 8th grade math class
Plan my Foundations of Math II class
Think of ways to improve the way my classroom runs
Think of better interventions (resources, time for math interventions)
Revamp data collection
Continue to stalk teacher blogs for amazing ideas
Try not to spend too much money on school supplies when back to school sales start (yeah right!)