Hello!
After over a year hiatus I am attempting to be back on the teacher blog scene. I wrote one post in 2021 and never actually published it, but here we are! As the school year is wrapping up I am trying to figure out what I will do with myself over the summer. I'm planning to tutor privately, teach some swimming lessons (16 year old me is thrilled), take some more classes toward my Master of Education degree and take two additional qualifications (Special Education pt1 and Intermediate Division-Family Studies) so that I will hopefully be employed in the Fall (fingers (& toes) crossed!!)!
This year I've had a wonderful position in a Grade 4 gifted class. I have been with these kiddos since part way through March and thinking about the year ending in 3 weeks makes me so sad. They are hilarious, brilliant, and really keep me on my toes. They have challenged me in more ways than I anticipated but I have learned so much from them... even this morning. They are a chatty bunch so in the mornings to keep them a little more quiet as they are coming into the classroom, I post a question on the board that they will respond to in their 'morning work books.' After announcements I will ask a few to share their ideas. It's a small community building (& quiet keeping) activity I tried that honestly has worked so well! I feel like this has helped me to build relationships and get to know them better. Sometimes the questions are related to current events in the world (the recent election, world ocean day, etc), our curriculum content (what fraction of your weekend did you spend sleeping) or sometimes they're just silly. Today, my question was: "Would you rather eat only bananas for the rest of your life, or live on a banana farm forever?" I thought they would have some funny answers, and they really did. But, the clarifying questions I got about my question were even funnier. "Can we ever leave the banana farm," "What if we go on a continuous vacation," "Eating that many bananas is so unhealthy we won't last long," "Can I build a condo building on my banana farm." Oh the beautiful and brilliant gifted brain! Everyday I am reminded of the privilege it is to learn with and lead these incredible young people!
Over the next few weeks and into the Summer my hope is to post more on here and keep up my teacher Instagram (@learnwithmsarmstrong). On this blog I'm excited to share some of the activities I did with my students this year and hopefully some downloadable content too. I have another goal of starting a TPT store with resources I've created this year and in my undergrad and BEd placements but realistically I should probably just start with 2 posts in a 1 year span ;)!! Stay tuned for more teacher content as I learn, unlearn, and relearn (and finally publish my post from over a year ago) in this wild profession.
