I'm Janet from Bloomin' Bees, and I'm excited to have the opportunity to be a guest blogger on Resources with Altitude!
I've just finished up my twentieth year of teaching. (No I'm not old, I'm just "seasoned.") Lol! I'm currently a fourth grade teacher, thus the blog post title of "Friday in Fourth." I've also taught grades 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, been a technology specialist, and a reading/writing interventionist. So, needless to say, I have a great understanding of the scope and sequence of where my fourth graders have been and where they need to go. The crazy part of all my years in teaching is that I double majored in college in elementary ed and early childhood ed, because I KNEW I was going to be a kindergarten teacher. What haven't I taught? That would be kindie and first grade! When you're right out of college and are offered a job as a 5/6 combo teacher, you take it! After a couple years I (1) became labeled as an intermediate teacher and (2) was financially invested in intermediate. Several people have asked me what my favorite grade is, and quite honestly, I love them all for different reasons.
Speaking of college, I attended the University of Nebraska at Lincoln for my bachelor's degree and University of NE at Omaha for my master's degree. Being born and raised in Omaha, NE I naturally had that HUSKER blood in me. GO BIG RED!!!! I was lucky enough be in Lincoln during the Tom Osborne era and witness back to back national championships in 1994 and 1995. (I know-- a lot of people reading this blog were probably still in elementary school at that time).
I live in SE Aurora with my husband of fourteen years and my three adorable meowing children. Due to an extremely rough battle with cancer shortly after being married, we are unable to have any children except the four-legged variety. Although this has been tough at times, I find I can be so much more of a loving and patient teacher for my students. They are always excited in August when I officially "adopt" them for the year as "my children."
Sad to say, but I'm a bit of the nerd type teacher. I enjoy spending my evenings and summer scouring the web for fun teaching ideas and producing resources to help students interact and understand the standards better. Teachers Pay Teachers and Pinterest have proven to be MAJOR time suckers for me!
When I'm not nerding out, I love to spend time in the mountains with my husband (hiking and camping), visiting family back in Nebraska, scrapbooking, and gardening. (Oh right, we can't forget Candy Crush--the BIGGEST time sucker of them all!)
You can expect blog posts about ideas, tips, and resources to incorporate into your intermediate classroom from me.
A project that I'm working on this summer arose out of a need to conserve on the transition time it takes for children to move from their seats to the kidney table when I pull small groups. Since we don't have enough chairs to have extras around the table, I have to patiently wait for students to clink and clank their chairs from their desks to the back of the room. Wouldn't it be nice to have readily available seating? So, I'm now channeling my inner carpentry skills as I create these fun stools. Right now I'm just drilling one screw through the top to hold on each leg. If anyone knows a better way to secure the legs on, such as a brace or something, I'd love to hear about it. I'm thinking these will start to wobble a bit after awhile if I don't reinforce. My best bet may be to take one up to Home Depot and pick their experienced brains. My next step is to buy padding for the seats and sew a denim (durable) cover for the top of the padding. I plan to adhere is to the wooden stool with velcro, so I can wash them occasionally. (sew velcro to cover and staple other side to underneath of stool)
That's all for today. Thanks for taking the time to read my post, and I look forward to getting to know other teachers, bloggers, and TpTers through this blog site!
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