July Blogging Challenge and Start/Stop/Continue

I can't believe that it is July 1st! Our last day of school was June 2, so I've technically been out of school for a month, but I have yet to start my summer break! Throughout the month of June, I had the AP Reading and AVID training, so every day of June was either filled with being at school, traveling, or preparing for my traveling. I have already promised myself that this 3 day weekend will be a veg out time where all I do is read novels and chill on the couch :)

With that said, I am going to challenge myself to blog every day of July. My hubby has done this for over a year and while I'm not sure that I can keep up daily for a month, I'm going to try. Feel free to join in my July challenge.. post your blog link in the comments and I'll do my best to visit your blog and encourage you! I think the part that really scares me is coming up with something to talk about every day! *sigh*

One of my favorite prompts from a few years ago was Start/Stop/Continue, so here goes Day 1 of 31!

3 things to START

I really want to work on literacy strategies this year and one of the things I plan to implement in AP is reading the textbook. Each chapter, I already give out a chapter sheet with the essential questions, vocabulary, and practice problems, but I'm going to include a reading guide for each chapter as well. I'm hoping this will help preview the material and provide some "sticky-ness" when the lecture comes around.

After spending time on Pinterest the other day, pinning lots of AVID ideas, I found some great quotes on determination. The "ID" of AVID stands for "Individual Determination", so I want to compile a list of 36 quotes to send out each week to our AVID teachers and site team as the AVID Quote of the Week.

As I mentioned above, I want to work on literacy, so I want to start using more writing in my classes. We have read several articles on writing in math with #EduRead, so I need to go back over my notes and work on how to integrate the writing component more in my classroom.

3 things to STOP

I don't think I can fully stop, but I am going to cut back on paper. Since my school is going 1:1 with Chromebooks, I am going to try to transition to more of a paper-less classroom for as much as I can. I am pretty fond of paper though, so we'll see how it goes!

I am going to try to stop focusing on my never-ending to-do list... again, not sure I can do it, but it's worth a shot! :)

I don't know that I will actually follow through with this one, but I need to stop taking things on. I wear a lot of hats at my school and I have a tendency to take on more and more to try to alleviate other's stress.

3 things to CONTINUE

I want to continue participating in #EduRead. I love reading professional literature, but reading an entire book can be overwhelming. I really like how we have set up #EduRead to be a weekly article that we discuss instead.

This past year, I tried to work on formative assessment strategies such as exit tickets and the Red/Yellow/Green cups. These are definitely strategies I plan to continue in my classroom.

I started the 2013-14 school year with a 180 blog and I did pretty okay until about February and then it fell to pieces. I would like to continue using a 180 blog because I liked looking back over my year in photos and honestly, it helped me in lesson planning because I wanted something picture-worthy each day.

What will YOU Start/Stop/Continue?