My First Two Years

Hello to whoever is reading!

As I approach the end of my second year, I have decided to revamp my teaching site. This is mostly because of the overwhelming amount of freetime I have during this Covid-19 Outbreak quarantine.

I Student Taught in the fall of 2017, at Garton Elementary in Des Moines Iowa. I was part of the TRINECT Program, and was able to be in the same 3rd grade classroom for 16 weeks. My cooperating teacher was Mrs. Heather Welle, and I know now that I am so blessed to have had her as my teacher. To this day, I still apply several of her teaching and management strategies in my classroom. I was in a class with 25 very diferese and intelligent children. My fondest memories are of our time winning the bridge building competition at The Science Center of Iowa, and CRAYFISH! I am still in touch with HEather and her team, and I believe she will always be a teacher of mine.

After graduation in December of 2017, I went on to get my initial license and substitute license. I was required to do 5 associate sub positions fist before I was able to sub in a gen. ed classroom. I subbed at several schools around Des Moines Metro, and some that I remember include Pleasant Hill, Findley, Monroe (where I met one of my future fourth graders for the first time as an associate), River Woods, and of course Willard. I accepted a long term 5th grade position at Willard in February, and that experience is at the top of my list of favorites. I took over the 5th grade classroom, which had extremely structured management and high academic expectations. I grew so much through that experience, and I believe that it has lent to my success tremendously. I learned my notorious "Position 1" and "line order" strategie from that classroom.

Anyways, this leads my to my time at Studebaker!

My first interview ever was there, and I went up against two others from my college, and luckily they called me the next day with the news. I was granted a fourth grade position! I also was a long term sub there as well in second grade with several kids that would be in my fourth grade class this year.

I spent days upon days designing my first classroom and getting ready for my first class. My library was my favorite part, but I later learned that I went above and beyond... haha!

I remember on my very first day the feeling of " OH MY GOSH... What happens when these 18 kids walk in and I'm alone with them all day long?!" It was a wild feeling, but after the first I knew it was going to be a PHENOMENAL year. And so it was. I had a great class and I successfully implemented several teaching strategies, my test scores were outstanding, and ALL of my kids cried on the last day, as did I!

My second year was a whole different ball game, where my classroom contained 7 students receiving Special Ed services. This was a phenomenal experience for me since my first year I didn't have any students receiving special education services. Having this dynamic allowed me to adjust my management and instructional strategies to differentiate for students with more varying needs. After this year I feel like I have grown tremendously as an equitable educator.

My second year was a whole different ball game, where my classroom contained 7 students receiving Special Ed services. This was a phenomenal experience for me since my first year I didn't have any students receiving special education services. Having this dynamic allowed me to adjust my management and instructional strategies to differentiate for students with more varying needs. After this year I feel like I have grown tremendously as an equitable educator.

As we all know, school was closed Mid-March due to the Covid-19 epidemic. Unfortunately, there is a high chance that we will not be able to go back until the fall. I hope we will so that I can have a proper goodbye with my students before the summer. At this point, I am just taking this time to meet with my fourth grade team and planning what we can do to help our students now and grow as educators!