My Favorite Quote

It's time for another link-up with Miss Monica over at I Heart Grade 3!  This week I am sharing a favorite quote.  While there are many, many great quotes out there, one of my favorite is from one of my favorite authors, C.S. Lewis.  He has written so many gems, especially from The Chronicles of Narnia, but this is one of my favorites from Mere Christianity:

"Enemy-occupied territory---that is what this world is. Christianity is the story of how the rightful king has landed, you might say landed in disguise, and is calling us to take part in a great campaign of sabotage."  

Check out the link-up to find favorite quotes from other bloggers!

One Item that Means the World to Me

Once again, I am linking up with Miss Monica over at I Heart Grade 3!  This week the topic focuses on an item that means the world to me.
Well, once again, I can't pick just one thing.  However, I will pick a collection of objects that I don't know if I could live without... my books.  I love to read.  I developed a love a reading from my parents.  When I was a kid, you could only check out 20 books from the public library.  We went to the library every two weeks.  I often read all 20 books in only a couple of days (especially during the summer).  Fortunately, we had a very large library of our own at home, so I was never without reading material.  I also learned to reread books I love.  There are books I have read so many times (such as the Chronicles of Narnia), that I can practically recite the entire book from memory.  Even now, I often feel that I single-handedly have made our school book fair profitable.  I save money knowing that the book fair is coming and that I will be buying books.
When people come to our house, they often say that we have a lot of books.  I suppose that is true, but, for all of the books we have on shelves, we have boxes and boxes of books in storage that we simply do not have shelf space for.
A love of reading is something I try to pass on to my students.  We routinely talk about favorite books and authors.  I make sure my students know where to find favorites in both the classroom and school library.  I give my students lots of opportunities to read.  When we read, we get to explore worlds that we would never be able to visit otherwise.  I think this meme explains my life pretty well.

Photo Credit: Grammarly

Check out the link-up to find some other fabulous bloggers!

My Teaching Quirk

Once again, I am linking up with Miss Monica at I Heart Grade 3.  This week's topic is "My Teaching Quirk."
As my former students and colleagues can tell you, I love to be silly with my students.  I like to laugh in my classroom!  So much of the day is very academic, and, frankly, no matter how hard I try, there are some things that are just not that exciting to learn.  However, my students can settle down and be serious because they know there will be silly times as well.  I dance like a crazy person to Go Noodle videos with my students.  I act out new vocabulary words with very exaggerated movements.  I come up with crazy examples of words for word work or silly math problems when we are tackling something new.  I play dodgeball and six square (my school's version of four square) with them.  At our school's recent sock hop, I had a good chunk of the students dancing to "Footloose" with me.
I enjoy teaching.  Sure, there are tough parts and times when it is important to be serious and really get down to business.  I can't be silly all day long.  All the same, I want school to be an enjoyable place for both my students and myself.  I am a little bit crazy myself, and I bring that into my classroom.  (The fact that I was a camp counselor for four summers probably contributes to my craziness with my kids as well!)

Check out the link-up to find some other fabulous bloggers!

An Accomplishment I Am Proud Of

It is time for another link-up with Miss Monica at I Heart Grade 3! This week the topic is "An Accomplishment I Am Proud Of."   I admit, this is a tricky one.  There are certainly many accomplishments I am proud of.  I am proud of the fact that I completed my MS in Early Childhood Education a few years ago with a perfect GPA.  I am proud of the fact that I managed to survive living apart from my husband during the week for 7 months.  I am proud of the fact that I finally mastered playing Matins for school chapel on the piano (even the tricky Te Deum).  I am proud of the book exchange I was able to implement at school.
However, it is hard to pick an accomplishment of my own.  While I am proud of my own accomplishments, I am much more proud of the accomplishments of those I care about.  I am proud of my husband for making it through seminary and for being a great pastor to his people.  I am proud of my mom for her continual writing and of both her published and unpublished manuscripts.  I am proud of the students I've had, particularly the ones who have worked so hard, even when learning did not always come easy to them.  These are the accomplishments that make me the most proud,

Check out the link-up to find some other fabulous bloggers!

Why I started blogging

It is another Monday, so, once again, I am linking up with Miss Monica over at I Heart Grade 3.  This week the topic is "Why I started blogging."
I started blogging before it was a "thing."  Anyone remember the Live Journal days?  When I was in college, I posted very frequently to my Live Journal account.  It was a way to express myself and share my ideas with others, although they were really all people I knew.  I mostly took a break from that when I finished college.  Life got in the way.  After my husband became a pastor, I decided it was time again to start a personal blog.  My friends were quite far strung, and it seemed like a good way to let many people know what was going on.  However, I got busy, and the blog writing was very infrequent.  I still technically have that blog, although I don't really use it.
I started this blog for several reasons.  When I have searched for teaching blogs to read in the past, I always had a hard time finding anyone that was in a similar situation to me with a multi-grade elementary classroom.  I know it is not super common, but I also knew I wasn't the only one out there.  So, I decided to blog myself to hopefully help fellow teachers as well as provide a way for me to put my own thoughts together and think things through.  While I don't promote my products super often on here, I also wanted to use it to market myself a bit.  While that is not my primary purpose, I am not going to deny that side of the blogging as well.
I really do hope to be better.  I want to apologize for my followers for the hiatus, especially to the wonderful teacher who sought me out last August to tell me to not stop writing.  I know I did for awhile, but I hope to be regular again.  I really do appreciate all of you who read this.  And, I promise, a classroom related post is coming soon!

Check out the link-up to find some other fabulous bloggers!