What I'm reading..

I'm pretty sure everyone is finally on summer vacation!  It is much deserved!  Woohoo!! School is through!!  Teachers, if you haven't yet, go outside, get a sunburn (or be like me and smell like a Coppertone everyday!), laze around, grab a book that has nothing to do with your job, spend time with your families... Do something that isn't work related!  I spent my first weekend of summer vacation out with my friends and my second weekend (Memorial Day) camping with my friends and boyfriend.  Cooper Lake is beautiful, right? :)

My dogs sometimes like camping, too.  Haha!!  (The black one is afraid of water.  What kind of lab is afraid of water? Geez! Only my dogs... Haha!)

So after some much needed "me" time, I came home, showered off all of the camping grime, and picked up a book.  My boyfriend suggested Born to Run.  One of his friends gifted it to him, and he enjoyed it.  He knew that I was a runner for a long time, so he thought I'd like it.  I have to be honest, I didn't at first.  I couldn't really get into the storyline.  But then, I don't know what happened... It took me like 856 years to get through the first chapter, but once I did, that was it.  Even with the enormous to-do list I had, I finished the book within two days.  If you have a passion, or even just a small curiosity, about marathon running, this is a good book.  I don't run marathons.  I'll do a 5k here and there.  The last one I did was the Mud Factor Obstacle Course.

But I'm no marathoner... or so I thought.  This book will tell you why you're actually a marathoner, why you're wearing the wrong shoes, why you're having pain in your ankles and knees, why you can't seem to get farther than you did the last time you ran.  I won't tell my boyfriend, but it was pretty good. ;)

Professional texts that I've read so far this summer include The Read-Aloud Handbook (more like a skim because I read it two summers ago), The Writing Thief (which you can read about [here] and [here]), The CAFE Book, which is of course the supplement to The Daily 5 (which you can start reading about [here]), Introducing Reader's Workshop:  Supporting Our Youngest Readers, and Conscious Discipline which I attended a training for during the four days after Memorial Day.

I definitely recommend all of them, but if you have to choose just one, please choose The Read-Aloud Handbook.  Then share it with other teachers everyone you know!  I buy a copy for everyone that I know that is having a baby, educator or not.  It wasn't written for education; it was written about education!

As some of you are aware, I'm currently in another round of grad school.  I'm working on a Graduate Certificate for Teaching English as a Second Language.  (I haven't decided yet if I'm going to turn this into another Masters program... I only need the grad cert for the state to give me the endorsement on my teaching license, and do I really need another Masters degree?  Probably not. Haha!)

Anyway.  The assignment that I'm working on has me reading these two books:  The Literature Review:  Six Steps to Success and Living the Questions:  A Guide for Teacher Researchers.  I don't know if either are any good.  I'm sure they would be extremely useful if you're also trying to complete an action research project.  But that's what I'm reading now.

As for my reading plans for once this literature review and research design are complete... Well, I've got some pretty lofty goals.  These are the books that I want to read (plus several more on my bookshelf next to my chair), but I know that I won't be able to read them all.  I don't know what to start with, though... I guess I've got until I finish my homework to decide.  :)

What's on your summer reading list?