If you are an up and coming blogger (300 followers or less) and would like to be showcased in my "Budding Bloggers" series, shoot me an email. You can find my address in my left sidebar - just click on the yellow button with the envelope on it.
Hi, friends! My name is Catherine Reed and I am The Brown-Bag Teacher.
I am a Kentucky girl at heart. In my
spare time, I love photography and have a special love for old Kentucky barns.
Aren’t they beautiful?!
Also, I am a nerd at heart, so I love
all things lectures, books, and pod casts. Just this week I attended a lecture
on “Finding Your Inner Fish” (what fish nerves tell us about human development)
and it was out of this world. These are my four favorite current reads -
No pets for me, but I am the proud mom of four bell-pepper plants. Mascato is the oldest and is my pride-and-joy. He has led a touch-and-go life for the last six months, but standing at 15 inches tall –he’s made it!
I am brand new to the world of
education and am currently student teaching in 1st grade. However
new, I am in love and cannot imagine spending my life doing anything else.
If I could only teach one subject for
the rest of my life, it would definitely be math. Although it has never been my
best subject, it’s certainly my favorite. There is something really beautiful
and amazing about being able to learn more from and about the world through
numbers. Plus, in math there is SO much room for manipulatives, centers,
hands-on-learning, and lots of partner work!
If you stopped by our classroom…well, right now, we are practicing for the upcoming
Dinner Theatre – so you would probably hear us singing “Let it Grow” from the Lorax. :) Other than that, we spend most of our day in work stations. We are all about
Debbie Diller’s Math Work Stations and have incorporated *the feeling* of Daily
5 for our reading block (read- we are not doing full-blown Daily 5…but I would LOVE to try with my own classroom). You would find me in a guided reading group
or working with a specific small regroup (i.e. re-teaching).
For days when there are 187 knocks on
the door (we have to keep our doors locked and only the teacher is allowed to
open the classroom door!!!!), a tornado drill, picture day, and a guest visitor
ALL in one day, I eat chocolate and drink Diet Coke.
One teaching resource I cannot live
without is honestly my cooperating teacher. When you are a small child and
picture the perfect 1st grade teacher, she is it. She is kind,
absolutely lovely, willing to let me make my own way within the classroom, and
with 26 years in the classroom, she is always up-to-date on trends in
education. She’s actually the person who introduced me to the blogging and TPT
worlds!
Now, for a tangible resource that
everyone can access- definitely TPT! Specifically, make sure you sign-up for
the 10 FREE Downloads newsletter that comes every Sunday. It is crazy and
awesome how many spectacular teachers there are around the world!
One of favorite moments in the classroom
was Place Value Bootcamp inspired by Teacher Tipster (I blogged about it here).
I dressed up as an army Sergeant and shouted, our friends stood up straight and
repeated, and fun was had by all. Plus, it was our firsties first introduction
into place value, and they thought it was hilarious. It was so great to see and
hear them singing the song several days after when counting tens and ones.
Plus, who doesn’t love the line – “Miss, remember the time you dressed up and you
yelled at us and called us cadets.” Perfect. :)
A close second memory is when our
letter from the President arrived in February (we initially wrote letters in October
and sent them to the White House). It was such an out of this world experience and after doing
it once, I will make sure every class I have will write letters in the future.
Wow! Talk about long-winded. :) Thanks so much for taking the time to learn about me
and my classroom, and thank you, Amanda, for hosting! If you want to learn more
about me or join me for my journey in 1st grade, I would love for you to stop by The Brown-Bag Teacher. :)
I seriously love her!! Glad you featured her! :)
ReplyDeleteJivey
ideas by jivey
What an excellent feature!
ReplyDeleteThe pictures of the barns are beautiful and I love Humiliy by CJ Mahaney - what a great book.
I did my student teaching a couple of years ago and my cooperating teacher was INVALUABLE! She was an incredible mentor - I would not be the teacher I am today without her.
~Jessica
Joy in the Journey
Amanda! Thank you so much. I just logged on to find your email. Such a fun surprise! :)
ReplyDelete-Catherine