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?
