Tales-of-a-First-Grade-Teacher

Tuesday, July 24, 2018

On Becoming a Principal ....One day

For the last 18 months I have been back in school working towards my 2nd master's degree in Educational Leadership. I have been taking online courses at American College of Education www.ace.edu . When I first began in February of 2017 I truly had no idea what I was getting myself into. The last time I had written a scholarly paper was in 2002! I learned quickly, but not without a lot of hard work, studying, research and late nights. Needless to say in the last 18 months I have learned so much about research and evidence-based strategies, the many roles and responsibilities of a principal and have challenged myself in more ways than I can count.
While I am excited to one day be an assistant principal or principal next year, I will be teaching 5th grade reading and social studies. I still must take the Florida Educational Leadership Exam (FELE) before I can continue on my path. My 12 year old son, (the blue butterfly up their on the title) asked me to wait to try and get an Assistant Principal job until he graduated 8th grade. (He goes to the school where I teach). So, for the next two years I will be teaching a different grade where I will familiarize myself with the Florida Standards Assessment, and work with students on their reading skills. I am looking forward to this change and am excited for what my future holds.

Sunday, July 22, 2018

West Gate K-8 Promo

This past year, our school district was making little commercials to promote each school. I was asked to speak on the video, and have a short cameo towards the end.
This was my first time ever doing something like this. As I am sure you will be able to tell, I did not know which way to look. My eyes are looking to my assistant principal who was to my left, and then back to the camera! lol! Needless to say the highlight to this was that I had a 4th grader come up to me at parent pick up and tell me I was famous because I was on You Tube! haha! If only it was that easy.
West Gate Promo

Monday, May 2, 2016

Teacher Appreciation Sale

May 3rd and 4th !!

Monday, April 4, 2016

Joy Cowley Classroom Giveaway

I am so excited to share with you 2 characters from The Joy Cowley Collection

Mr. Tang and Smarty Pants.

Mr. Tang has a taxi cab in which he goes on a variety of adventures. The taxi cab has a variety of special features and can do some pretty incredible things. In each different story the cab introduces the children to different phonics skills as well as different vocabulary. It can add skis when it snows, jumping legs at the zoo, or become a submarine in the ocean.

Smarty Pants is a silly clown that can teach children about a variety of emotions in Smarty Pants at the Circus. In Smarty No Pants, the silly clown loses his pants in the wind, but never gives up. Lastly in Smarty Pants at the Talent Show, Smarty pants shows the listener to just be your self.

My favorite part of all of these books is it comes with a page full of information about what you can do with each book. Here are a couple of examples in the back of the book.

Each description includes:

Features of the text

Before Reading (making meaning and analyzing the text)

During Reading and

After Reading (Using the Text, making meaning, and cracking the code)