Meet the Teacher Monday

I am linking up to the Blog Hoppin' party! This post is a day late, so I may have two posts in one day (to catch up)...

Tell us a little something about you...

I am thirty-something and have been married for fifteen years. We have three wonderful, bright, happy kids; Elizabeth (15), Abbigayle (13) and Logan (8).  We live in rural NorthWestern Ontario (nowhere near Toronto) and love it. Yup, I am CANADIAN! Our nearest neighbour is 1/2 km away and happens to be my brother and his family. I have five nephews and zero nieces. We don't travel but someday I hope we will...this summer we are going to Minneapolis (which is only a 6 hour drive south). 

How long have you been teaching?

I graduated in 2002, supply taught for one year and was hired permanent full time in 2003. I feel very blessed to have been hired so quickly-some teachers wait years before they get perm. f/t in our area. I have taught grades 2, 5, 6/7, 8 rotary and 2/3. Most of our classes in our board are split. I have been teaching 2/3 for the past three years and am staying put because I love it!

 You might not know...

Hmmm....I have a smallish (lol) addiction to online shopping :)  I love Amazon.com (not .ca) eBay.com (not .ca), Tpt, Kijiji, and now Etsy. I think it drives my husband a little crazy, but I have saved lots of money this way. I also have many, many projects on-the-go...and plan on finishing them up soon.

What are you looking most forward to this school year?

I cannot wait to try out the wonderful ideas that I have hijacked from the wonderful worlds of Pinterest and teacher blogs. I am getting a little overwhelmed and really need to sit down and figure out when to introduce what, but I am excited. I am going to try the Butterfly Project that my awesome Aunt Allyson (k teacher in BC) has told me about and am looking forward to it.

What do you need to improve?

First, organization. I am kinda all over the place. I really need to work on that...

Secondly, not taking on too much. I have been lucky to be part of three action research projects and on different school committees, but am looking forward to concentrating on my class this year by taking a step back...

What teaching supplies can you *not* live without?

Markers, binder clips, clear packing tape and a colour printer. I love markers-they are wonderful and make charts look so pretty. My kidlettes use EXPO markers for whiteboard work-which they love. 

Binder clips. Love them. I use them for Agendas, keeping work together, student boards, to hang sentence strips...I have the black ones and fancy ones from the dollar store. 

I use clear packing tape to cover Journal covers etc...kinda like cheap laminating. It has worked wonderfully well. I also use it to tape down nameplates and number lines.

My colour printer. I discovered an uber cheap seller on eBay who sells 4 cartridges (2 black, 2 colour) for $20 including shipping to my home. Can't beat that.

Don't know if it's a teaching supply, but can't live without my Smartboard. Enough said.

Thanks for reading...I hope I wasn't too rambly...loved linking up to this party.