Meet the Teacher

I am a single mother and grandmother. I have been a 1st grade teacher for 5 years, but I have been in education for 17 years.  I began volunteering when my daughter was in first grade. Later, I became an assistant teacher.  When I realized my destiny was to be a teacher, I enrolled in college and began a long journey.  At times I had to work two part-time jobs in addition to my full-time job as an assistant while taking 1-2 courses per semester.

My 25 year-old daughter is a massage therapist and the mother of my beautiful grand-daughter.  They live with me, so I get to spoil my grand-daughter and my daughter gets to spoil me.  I am the oldest of six children.  Our family loves getting together on Sundays and any other chance we get.  I have been blessed with a loving, caring, and supportive family.

 This was taken as a Mother's Day Gift for my daughter.  The book is "I Say a Little Prayer for You", which I gave to my daughter several years ago.

Q: What would you be doing if you weren’t a teacher?                                             
A:  I would probably be a librarian.  I still have hopes of opening my own small-town bookstore/coffee house, too.
Q: What are your hobbies?                                                                                    
A:  Sewing, scrapbooking, arts and crafts, and photography.                                                                 

Q: When you were little, what did you want to be when you grew up?                     
A:  I wanted to be a teacher until I started high school.  Then I wanted to be a fashion designer.
   
Q: What are your guilty pleasures?                                                                 
 A: Krispy Kreme Doughnuts, Dr. Pepper, the show; Weeds, Krispy Kreme Doughnuts, blogging and blog stalking, my wine of the month club, and Krispy Kreme Doughnuts.

Q: What is your biggest fear?!                                                                      
 A: OMG! Caterpillars, slugs, snails, worms, and driving across long bridges. It's crazy that snakes and flying don't bother me.

Although caterpillars give me the creeps, I couldn't pass up a photo op.

Q: When you’re on vacation, where do you like to go?                                  
 A: Quiet, non-commercialized beaches.  We would go to the Outerbanks 1-2 times a year when my sister lived there. The waves would put me to sleep at night and drown out the rowdy children during the day, so I could read.  I loved watching the dolphins in the mornings, and sitting at the top of the world on Jockey's Ridge.  I also love the beautiful waters of the Bahamas.  One day I would love to go to Italy.
                                                         
Q: What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?                                                   
A:  Do something nice for yourself.  That's one reason I take off for my birthday every year. 

Q: What do you value most in others?                                                                   
A:  Integrity and a sense of humor.

Q: If you could choose one of your personality traits to pass down to your kids, what would it be?                                                                                                        
A: My optimism. I try to steer clear of negativity.   

Q: If you could have lunch with anyone in the world….living or dead…who would it be?                                                                                                              
A:  I would love to have lunch with Ron Clark, and spend the rest of the day with him at his school. 

I have Ron Clark's book.  I was able to hear him speak last March. His energy is contagious.

Now tell us one random thing about yourself:

I've been hang-gliding, and would like to do it again.  As a matter of fact, I want to learn to fly a plane.

No Shadow

This is the first year that I've actually done some Groundhog Day activities.  To get things started yesterday, we did a math activity  that a ProTeacher friend created.  The math activity helped students practice their math facts and even/odd concepts. Once the math activity was complete, we had our predictions.  Most of the results said the groundhog would not see his shadow or more sums were even.

We gathered information about groundhogs and Groundhog Day.  We made a graphic organizer, and the students wrote about groundhogs and Groundhog Day.  We also made a mini, accordion book about Groundhog Day.  During computer time, the students played a groundhog game.  We watched a video clip of Punxatawney Phil's appearance.  

The groundhog activities were a welcome break from all the testing we've been doing for the last two weeks. 

The Crayon Box That Talked

To teach about diversity and honor Martin Luther King Jr., I read the poem, The Crayon Box That Talked. Before reading, I had the students draw a scene with a brown crayon.  Then I told them to draw the same picture using a variety of colors.  During circle time, I told the students to hold up their favorite picture.  All students held up the colorful picture, except two.  When I asked why they choose their pictures, the students with the colorful pictures said, "There are more colors.", etc.  The two students who choose the brown picture, didn't know why they choose that picture (just like the poem).  I'm sorry that I didn't think to take pictures of the illustrations. 

As I read the poem, I stopped and asked questions.  I also told the students to imagine they are crayons.  In the poem, some crayons did not like some of the other crayons, but they didn't know why.  After seeing the colors being used to make a beautiful picture, they decided they did like each other.  We talked about how we're all different, but together, we can make the world a better place.  We watched Martin's Big Words.  Then the students wrote the definition for diversity for our Word Wall. 

Today was the first day the students have been at school this week, due to snow and ice.  We had a 2 hour delay, so I wasn't able to do everything I planned.  We will watch Our Friend Martin next week, revisit diversity, and write about our Dream to make the world a better place.  We are saving the Martin Luther King biography for Black History Month.  These snow days have put us behind schedule.

http://www.christysclipart.com/wwwroot/Crayon_Poem.html