Hey there, welcome to my first post on my new blog!



I just finished my third week as a third grade teacher so "month" is a bit of a misnomer, but I'm just rounding.

Before this year I was a librarian for four years. Before that I was a technology teacher for three years. Before that? First grade. Before that? Kindergarten. I begged asked my principal in a very professional way to please let me teach third grade. I've always always always wanted to teach third. This was reaffirmed for me when I was a technology teacher and got to work with kids in pre-k-sixth. Third was always my favorite. The kids are a nice balance of sweet and independent. Third grade is also the year where boys stop considering themselves readers. That's crazy and totally preventable, but I'm sure I'll get into that eventually.

I found out a mere week before I went back to school this year that my wish was granted. I was so very excited and then I panicked. What on earth did I know about third grade? And to top it all off third grade was going from team teaching to self-contained. I'd have to teach all the things! Me teach third grade math? Yikes. To make things even a bit more interesting, on my team of seven third grade teachers, only two of us were not new to the grade level. It's a bit funny really and nothing team-builds like needing each other even for the simple things. I taught the longest in kindergarten so the questions I was asking were a bit silly. Turns out third graders don't need bus tags for their backpacks, and they all knew how they were getting home just fine. What a difference a few years makes.

We started off with a bang. I've implemented 4 out of 5 Daily 5 centers, Math Workshop is in place, and CAFE is a bit slow, but I'm working on it.