Meet the Teacher Monday

I'm excited to be linking up over at Blog Hoppin' today for Meet the Teacher Monday!

My husband and I. Our 13th anniversary is on Sept 5th!

My oldest and youngest :)

My two middle children :) (the red hair was a total surprise btw)

Tell us a little something about you...I started my teaching career late in life - after a stint in the Army and several starts and stops along my degree path. I have always wanted to be a teacher, it just took me a while to get here! My husband is still in the U.S. Army and we have 4 beautiful kiddos together. We've lived in Texas, California, Germany and now Oklahoma. My favorite hobbies are reading and watching tv while cutting out lamination.

How long have you been teaching?

This is my 3rd year teaching. After 2 years in kindergarten I got "promoted" (as my husband puts it!)  to first grade with less than a days notice! Our first day was not much fun (from my point of view, I think I played it off to the kids pretty well). I felt inadequate and still do, I need about 2 months to prepare for this! It helps that I have some former students in my class - they are the oasis in my sea of misery lol!(mixed metaphor much?!)  I am sure I'll adjust - I just have to blog stalk more 1st grade teachers!

What are you looking most forward to this school year?

Writing! I think that will be my saving grace this year. I love, love, love to teach writing. And, let's face it, most kinders don't really excel at it. While I love to see my little kinders attempts, I am really looking forward to sentences that actually make sense and have something to do with the topic! I think it is also fabulous that all 3 of my boys are now attending my school, it is so much fun to see them throughout the day and see how they are doing. My youngest snuck out of his classroom for a quick hug and kiss on Friday - of course I had a talk with him about it, but there's that little part of me that loved it lol! BTW, he's probably the most popular kinder kiddo this year since he hung out with my class several times and I always talked about "Baby Joshua" to them. Can you tell I'm not quite ready for him to grow up yet?

What do you need to improve?

The list would be shorter if I only listed what I didn't need to improve! In kinder we didn't have to keep weekly grades, so that will be a challenge for me this year. Organization and filing skills are also in desperate need of help. Procrastination is my worst enemy and my best source of inspiration. I also need to learn to balance home and school. My own kiddos get the short end of the stick sometimes because I wear myself out on school stuff.

What teaching supplies can you *not* live without?

My Smartboard, cd player and Diet Pepsi. The Smartboard for obvious reasons (who doesn't love them?!). My cd player because if all else fails, putting on music works every time! I ran out of material on Friday and threw in a Dr. Jean cd for a rousing rendition of "Itsy Bitsy Spider" - my kiddos ate it up lol. As for the Diet Pepsi, it is going to be even more important this year I can tell! I made an emergency run to the vending machine Friday afternoon and nearly had a heart attack when I found it was out of order and it will be weeks before it is fixed! So I have to bring my own - which is hard to remember when getting 4 kids and myself ready for school in the morning!

Alright, that's it from me, head on over to Blog Hoppin' to link up. I can't wait to read more about you!