Summer Bucket List 2015

I was visiting my friend The Teachers Loop over on her blog this morning and I cam across a post she did about her Summer Bucket List. She got the idea from two of my favorite bloggers --Natalie and Rachelle from  What the Teacher Wants! So I just had to link up and participate in this awesome Linky!

As teachers, summer is sacred. Despite what our non-teacher friend think, our summers are not spent lounging by the pool, drinking umbrella drinks and working on our tan. 

Summers are spent in professional development classes, and planning for the upcoming school year. We do manage to eek out some time for ourselves and our families but much of our time is spent working on things for the upcoming year.  

I love this linky because it really forced me to put the ideas that have been swirling in my head since school ended down on "paper" and we all know once it is written down we are obligated to follow through, lol!  So here is my Summer Bucket List....

School: 

I am lucky to work with some very creative teachers who come up with some create ideas for teaching without forcing our students to keep their head in the textbook. One of my fellow 5th grade teachers made and shared some great PowerPoints to go along with our Social Studies curriculum. I love my Promethean Board  and last summer I went to the class to become a Promethean Master Educator. During the class I started the time-consuming process of converting our Social Studies Powerpoints into Promethean flipcharts. Goal #1 this summer is to finally FINISH them so they are ready for our team to use this Fall. 

I also want to get a jump on the school year by writing my plans for the first few weeks. In September i start an internship for my MLIS program and I will be away form my classroom 2 days a week for 10 weeks to work in a Middle School library. During that time my class will have a long-term sub. I figure I can stay two weeks ahead of schedule if I get a jump on next years plan during the summer. 

Lastly, for my school list, I am working with 2 other teachers to write a proposal for our principal to do a big field trip to Washington, D.C. next year. We want to get it wrapped up so we can present it to the parents at Meet the Teacher in August. We also have to start writing grants and plan fundraisers, etc. It is going to be exciting because our school has not done a big trip like this in 10 years and our students rarely get an opportunity like this so we want to make sure we make it happen!

Personal:

I am currently take an intense 4 week class for grad school that requires a ton of reading. That limits how much reading for fun I can do. However I love to read and I jut cant abandon it while I take this class. I have a huge pile of books I want to read, plus more on my Kindle. So I have set a goal for myself to read one book a week. It is a lofty goals and so far I have done most of my reading late at night (which means more than likely I fall asleep with a book in my hands), but it is worth it as I read some fun new books I can share with my class this Fall, and learn new and exciting things I can implement in my classroom, not to mention, read a few just for fun!!

Summer is a great time to get my eating and exercise routines back on track. I have packed on more than a few unwanted pounds and if I don;t set a goal, I may pack on even more. So as part of my bucket list, I want to lose 20 pounds this summer before I go back. I would love to lose more, and I need to but I figure if I can take the first 20 off this summer, I can work on continuing the healthy eating and exercise once school starts again. Fingers crossed....

Lastly, for my personal list, we have a 2 year old Dell laptop that we share as a family. About a week ago, we found a really good deal at Best Buy on another laptop which we purchased for our son who is starting HS this fall. The first thing I did was move all his Minecraft and music files onto his new laptop. In the process, I decided to go ahead and clean up unwanted files and such off the Dell that my husband and I would share. We want to purchase a MAC by the end of the year but for now, ol' Bessie (my husband's nickname for the laptop---long story) will have to suffice so I want to clean up this one and back-up files and pictures (we have thousands of the latter, and I bought a special storage flash rive for those). 

Fun:

Due to grad school, my husband recent surgery and some other unexpected situations, we are not doing a big vacation this summer. Instead, I want to do some day trips once my husband is strong enough. We love Asheville and the mountains and we have some great lakes around here so beginning in July I want to do 2-3 day trips. We have even talked about doing a day trip to Atlanta to go to a Braves game or visit the Georgia Aquarium.

Since I will be headed back to school August 11th, and my husband will return to work at the end of August, I want to plan a surprise trip the first week of August to the outer Banks and Virginia so we can visit friends and family. OBX holds special memories for our family and we have not been in a few years (it is a LONG drive from where we live).  My husband has several close friends in Virginia that he rarely sees. AS he has been recuperating form his open-heart surgery, they have called and checked in on him. I think this trip will be just what he needs before returning to work. Hope fully I can pull it off without him finding out about it until right before we leave. 

Finally, my son, who loves the water, has been wanting to go to the U.S. National Whitewater Center in N.C. for several years. He is going to be fairly busy this summer with Scouts and church but I think he will love a day trip up there to kayak, zip line and raft. They even offer paddle board lessons which I know he would really enjoy.

SO there you have it...my Summer Bucket List for 2015. This has planted a seed that maybe I will host a Back to School Bucket List linky in August. I'll keep you posted. In the mean time, if you want to create your own Summer Bucket List, head on over to What the Teacher Wants and grab the template and go......just don't forget to link up back on their blog when you re done.