Newbie Blog Hop: Better Late Than Never?

Just found a new blog, Grade Three is the Place for Me and realized that she had hosted a Newbie Blog Hop last week. I figured I'd join up now, even if I'm a little late to the game. Hey, I've never been known for being on time...drives some people I know crazy...

Here are my answers to her questions!

1.  what state you are in

2.  your current teaching position

3.  your teaching experience

4.  when you started blogging

5.  share a blogging tip / blogging resource

1. I am in Ohio. (Go Bucks!) Born and raised, and returning to my wonderful hometown to begin Teaching Career, Part 2!

2. My current teaching position is a kindergarten extended day teaching position, combined with After Care Director for the Catholic grade school in which I'll be working. I'm finishing up my thesis this fall, so this should be a great balance of not-as-much-planning but still being in the classroom.

3. I taught preschool and kindergarten for two years in Massachusetts before moving back to Ohio last year to work on my Masters full time. I've also taught second, fourth, and sixth grades while student teaching in Tennessee and Reception/Year 1 combined age class in England (pre-K/kindergarten in America) as a study abroad opportunity.

4. I literally just started blogging a few weeks ago and have only published two posts...oops! I've followed teaching blogs for awhile now, and I love finding ideas and inspiration from those and Pinterest. I figured it was high time for me to join in the fun!

5. Um...I have no blogging tips?? I want to read all of your tips! Although, try as hard as you possibly can to use "to/two/too" and "your/you're" correctly....we're all teachers here, after all. :)

Looking forward to "meeting" some of you and getting ideas from so many other teachers!

Early Childhood vs. Middle Childhood

During my teaching career, I have only been an early childhood teacher, with one year in kindergarten and one year in preschool. Honestly, though, in college, I never imagined myself teaching the little ones. I attended Vanderbilt, where an elementary degree is K-6, so I taught kindergarten, second, fourth, and sixth grades at various points. I taught kindergarten in England as part of a student teaching study abroad opportunity, and that amazing experience will have to be another blog post entirely. Believe me when I say, though, that it was an unbelievable learning experience, and I can't believe it's been four years since I was there. In fact, four years ago, at this exact time, I was wrapping up my abroad experience by touring the British Isles with my sister....and missing England/my school immensely. Sigh... And now I'm off track! Oops...

Back to my point, I can distinctly remember senior year of high school, when I applied for college, I listed my intended area of study as ECE. However, when I noticed that this would certify me PreK-3rd and an elementary degree would certify me as K-6, I immediately switched majors, saying to my mom, "Well, I'm never going to teach preschool!" Lo and behold, less than six years later, I was given the opportunity to switch from K to PreK. My school was cutting a kindergarten classroom, and I was out of a job unless I wanted preschool. I have to say my principal truly went to bat for me with the preschool director, and without my principal's support, I would not have had this opportunity. Basically, my thoughts were, "A job! Great! I'll do it!" And...I loved it. Loved. It. Preschool is everything kindergarten used to be. I was able to design my own lessons and basically design a whole curriculum with the other preschool teacher. It was an amazing experience, and most importantly, when my students were screened for K at the end of the year, all of the K teachers raved about their social, emotional, and academic skills and immediately began adjusting curriculum expectations and determining lessons/activities that were unnecessary for these children. I was so proud of my kids!

So...early childhood is definitely a passion. And I'm a talented teacher with the little ones. I respect them, I understand them, and I am extremely patient with them. (With adults, though, that's a whole other story!) That being said, I also love teaching the bigger kids, fourth, fifth, and sixth graders, specifically. I taught fourth grade math and science and sixth grade language arts, and I can definitely say that my passion is language arts. I love reading and writing, and I want my students to feel the same way. I am in a graduate course right now, and we're reading The Multigenre Research Paper by Camille Allen, and it has really sparked a yearning to teach L.A. in the middle grades again.

Just some thoughts...I have many more years of teaching ahead of me (I hope!), and I would love to have the opportunity to try many different grades. We'll see what happens!