New Years Resolutions 2015

Can you believe 2014 is just about over? Fast away the old year passes. 

This was a big year for me: Getting married, running my first half marathon, starting my blog and TPT store... wow! Here's hoping that 2015 holds even more excitement. 

Now I'm linking up with Mrs. Miracle's Music Room to share some of my resolutions/goals for the upcoming year:

1. Personal: Read more for pleasure

For Christmas, I received a copy of Artie Almeida's Parachutes, Ribbons, and Scarves book, and I am so thrilled to dig into that. Thanks, Santa! However, I realized that it's been several weeks since I read a book for myself. Any suggestions?

2. Professional: Create an Orff ensemble

This year, I'm glad that one of the schools where I am teaching has a nice Orff instrumentorium. However, the instruments are housed in the other music teacher's portable. I'm free to use them, but it's not exactly practical to transport a large number at a time back and forth between general music classes. I recently came up with a solution to this problem: an after school Orff club! It's still pending administrative approval (I only brought up the subject right before the holidays), but I am hoping to get it off the ground when we get back to school. 

3. Classroom: Student-driven learning

I had my first formal observation of the year at the beginning of the month. It went OK, but my AP had some concerns about the number of students actively participating versus those who were sitting and watching. It made me realize that a LOT of my lessons on the SmartBoard involve students taking turns at the board individually. I'm going to try and re-vamp some of my existing lessons to fix this problem, and create some new activities that will be more student-driven and therefore more engaging. 

4. Blog/TPT: Finish Sight Singing product

I've been cooking up a new product for Sight Singing, specifically for the upper elementary levels. I want to make it more appealing to the older boys, since a lot of my products are kind of "cutesy," so I went with a construction/toolbox theme. It's still a work in progress, but here's a little preview:

5. Just for me: Lose the "honeymoon weight"

In 2012, I started exercising and eating well, and between 2012 and 2014 I am proud to say that I lost 60 pounds! But after my wedding in July I got waaay too relaxed with my healthy habits. In the five months since my wedding, I've gained back almost half of the weight I lost. Yikes. So for 2015 I resolve to shed that and get closer to my goal. 

That's it for my resolutions. Hail the new, ye lads and lasses!