New school year, new blog format!  I will be using this blog as my primary form of communication with parents/guardians throughout this year.  Check in regularly to view what is coming up, how to best prepared for it, and how you can help out! 

I am so lucky this year to be working with the same students I had last year.  This is called looping in the education world.  While some might question my sanity, I say this is the best adventure yet in my professional career!  There are many benefits to looping.  We know each other very well.  The expectations are already set and we can jump right into the learning process.  Students and teachers alike have a comfort level with each other allowing for deeper discussions and learning experiences. 

How am I keeping things fresh this year?  That is the big question!  Well for starters, I got married and changed my name!  I joke that this is the one year that I don’t have to learn any names they do!  We moved classrooms.  Yep, we are a whole 30 yards, give or take, down the hall.  We got a technology upgrade.  You read right, we finally got the smartboard!  We added in a few new faces to keep things lively and replace those who moved over the summer.  I researched, read, gathered, and created a ton of new material to share with my students this year.  We are learning in a whole new way utilizing the Daily 5 lesson format for language arts and math. 

I am so excited to go a little loopy this year.  I think it is a great experiment in how far we as a class can go and how far I can take each as an individual towards their own academic goals.