Sunday, January 1, 2012

Happy New Year! Looking forward to 2012



I just took a look at my New Year's Day post from 2011.  Wow!  it seems so long ago.  As I read through it, I was pleased to see that I actually met some of my goals.

In 2011, I had hoped to read 800 books.  I met that and exceeded it by 400 books.

In 2011, I wanted to read more children's non-fiction books.  I nearly doubled what I read in 2010 by reading 55 non-fiction books.

In 2011, I wanted to read more early readers and early chapter books.  I read 112 early readers and early chapter books which is 3 times more than I had read in 2010.  And I am excited to say that I found some really well done early readers.  

And in 2011, I hoped to inspire more children to read than I had the year before.  Check out my blog post with an animoto that shares about how many authors/illustrators we connected with over the year.  We also connected with three different schools via Skype.  It is exciting to see how my school is transforming itself into a reading community.

Another big goal was to expand and connect more with other individuals and organizations to promote books and literacy.  In 2011, I co-founded Bridge to Books with Alethea (@frootjoos, Read Now, Sleep Later) - a grassroots movement which has connected teachers, librarians, bloggers, booksellers, and publishers in an effort to connect kids to books.  I am so excited about what Bridge to Books has been able to do and where we are headed in 2012.

Over the course of 2011, I discovered that reading more is wonderful but makes carving out time for reviewing more difficult.  I reviewed less books than I wanted to and hope to change that in 2012.

For 2012, I am excited to co-host The Non-fiction Picture Book Challenge with The Nonfiction Detectives.  This is the first time that I am organizing a book challenge and excited to work with The Nonfiction Detectives, Cathy and Louise.

I am also participating in two other book challenges - #Nerdbery hosted by Colby Sharp and John Schu, and #Nerdcott hosted by LibLaura5 and A to Z Library. There is also a #Nerdibert (Sibert) Challenge that I hope to do alongside the Non-fiction Picture Book Challenge.  It is hosted by Shannon of Ms. Houghton's Class blog. 

Here are a few other things I hope to do:
1. Continue to connect my students with students from other schools to promote literacy partnerships.

2.  Reinstate my "Hot Off the Press" post on a weekly basis.

3.  Feature some student reviews of books that we are reading.

4.  I am looking forward to continuing to connect with my on-line PLN and encourage everyone else in their goals to develop a reading role models for children.

Hope everyone has had a wonderful first day of 2012 and what are your goals for the new year?