I'd like to say that I'm new to this blogging thing. But, that's not entirely true. About a million years ago, my Biffle (who is a writer) convinced me to start a personal blog. I kept up with it for a little while, but quite honestly, my personal life is just not interesting enough to justify having a blog. I am a married mother of two young children. I have a 3 year-old son and an almost 5 year-old daughter, and my family and I live in a beautiful town on the Eastern Shore of Maryland.
My professional life, however? That's a different story! My husband and I met at work ten years ago, and we have both been working for the local public school system since. Our two little ones actually attend the elementary school where we first met. In fact, my son's preschool classroom is my old first grade classroom. Cute, right? In the time that I have been teaching, I have taught Pre-K, Kindergarten, first grade, and third grade. It's hard to say which grade has been my favorite to teach. Having my own children completely changed me as an educator. I will be the first to admit that I am a strict teacher, and I believe very strongly that effective classroom management is the key to successful teaching. With that said, since having my children, I have become much more nurturing toward my students, sympathetic, and understanding of parents' situations. Most importantly, I have far more patience now than I did when I was 23 years old!
On to my present professional situation: I currently teach first grade at one of the smaller, outlying schools in our county. I am one of three teachers on our team. Thankfully, I am blessed to work with an amazing teammate. SpurDog (don't ask how that name came about!) is an exceptional educator; she is a second-year teacher with endless enthusiasm and creativity. Also, she is just as obsessive-compulsively organized as I like to think I am (having small children has really forced me to let go of some of my nuttiness). I am so lucky to work with her!
So, I've created this blog for several reasons. First, it is a great way to document some of the great things (and the not-so-great things, too!) that we've been doing in our classrooms. I'm also looking forward to sharing all of the neat things that we have been creating to meet the new Common Core Standards.
When I get a free minute, I'll share the Spelling Notebook packet that I've put together as we begin assigning nightly spelling homework.
I'm totally the biffle! Yay for your blog! I love it. I'm going to print it all out and take it to parent-teacher conferences and act like I know more than the teachers! That's totally going to go over well. :)
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