I am currently in my 18th year of teaching in an urban, public school district. This is my 16th year at Central Academy, a multi-age, democratic public school, which serves students from Kindergarten through 8th grade. We are a very diverse learning community, as we have students from varying races, cultures, and socioeconomic backgrounds. That is one of my favorite parts of Central! :-)
For my first 10 years at Central, I taught 8, 9, and 10-year old students, or the equivalent of 3rd and 4th graders. I now teach 9, 10, and 11-year old students, or the equivalent of 4th and 5th graders. Since moving to the 4th/5th grade level, which we refer to as Intermediate, I have taught in a team teaching setting, where we have a large double room and have shared anywhere between 43 and 58 students! Both my teaching partner and I teach all curricular areas, as well as both grade levels.
I was born in Bowling Green, Ky; however, I have lived in Ohio since around 1980 or so. I have an older brother named Chris, a younger brother named Seth, and a younger sister named Lindsay. My dad, Gary, still lives in Bowling Green, as does most of my family on his side. My mom lives two doors down from me (Can you say Mama's girl?), Chris lives in Indianapolis, Seth lives about 30 minutes away in Beavercreek, and Lindsay lives all the way down in Cape Coral, Florida! :-(
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| Abigail, Sally, and Skyler |
I have been married to my husband, Chris, for 12 years now. My step daughter, Aubrey, who is 17 lives with us, as she has since she was 5! She is like my own daughter! My family and I live in a small township located between Dayton and Cincinnati, where we built a house six years ago. Also residing with us is our Beagle mix, Sally; our Giant Schnauzer, Abby; our cat, Skylar; and our ferret, Kramer. I can't forget our 20-ish goldfish in our decorative pond out back and their new babies! :-) Our animal family provides quite the entertainment for us!
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| Aubrey ready for homecoming |
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| Kramer next to Abigail's paw |
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| Liam, Keira, Caleb, Kyric, and Mamaw |
One of my other favorite roles, aside from Mom and teacher, is being Aunt Kimmy. I have four wonderful nephews and one beautiful niece. Unfortunately, they don't live close enough for my liking! My nephews, Caleb (8) and Liam (5) live in Indianapolis. My niece, Keira (6), and my nephew, Kyric (4), live in Beavercreek, Ohio, which really isn't too far away! My nephew, Randy (5), lives in Cape Coral, Florida, so he lives waaaaaaay too far away! I so enjoy spending time with them, which includes lots of spoiling. Of course, I'm allowed to do that...I'm the aunt!
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| Kyric and Randy |
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| Mom and me at a game |
In my spare time I love reading, taking walks, gardening, and watching the NFL! I am a huge Cincinnati Bengals fan! Who dey! My mom is also a huge Bengals fan, so we get to do lots of mother-daughter bonding during football season! There is nothing like putting on your fan gear, going down to the stadium, walking around with all the cheering fans, and rooting for your favorite team! Needless to say, August through December (always hoping through February), is one of my favorite times of the year!
I decided to create a blog about effective teaching strategies because I feel so passionate about making school as engaging for students as possible. There are so many things I want for my students. Just to name a few, I want my students to...
- look forward to what they're going to be doing when they walk through those doors at 8:00 AM
- feel empowered to make decisions about their education
- learn about things that are important to them
- know how to respectfully disagree with somebody
- become decision makers and problem solvers
- discover ways they can be productive citizens and give back to their communities, even at age 10
- know how much I love and value them
Speaking of that last bullet, I had somebody ask once if I feel it's important that my students love me. My response was, "No, what's important is that they know I love them." I feel that our job as educators is to not only provide students with what they need academically, but also to provide them with what they need socially and emotionally. Those three components play a role in the child's overall success, so we need to work on building all three of them!
Teaching is by no means a 9:00 -5:00 job. While, yes, I often put in 10 hours at school, just to then come home and put in another 1 to 3 hours, I'm actually referring to the fact that it's almost impossible to turn off teacher-mode once you walk out those doors. How many times do we lay awake at night thinking about how to engage a student, worrying about a student, celebrating a student's success, figuring out the best way to involve a parent, determining how to tweak a lesson or activity to make it better, deciding how to best meet students' individual needs, etc? My mind rarely turns off to teaching, so I thought, Hey, why don't you just write about it?
I feel blessed to have the opportunity to work with children, and I can only pray I truly make a difference in their lives!
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| Jaden, Taichy, and Trennedy just built their cubic meter! |
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