Welcome!

Welcome to my updated blog! I'm super excited for this upcoming school 2019-2020 year.

A little bit about me that you can't read on my bio page:

So currently I live in Las Vegas. I'm from Utah but I moved here about two years ago. When I moved down here, I became a 6th grade teacher at a charter school. It wasn't my original intent, but once I started the position, I ended up loving the school. I really found my stride and fully intended to keep teaching 6th grade. However, things changed when the charter announced that they were opening up another charter closer to my house. I applied for a teaching job there, but I was offered a position as an Instructional Coach.

Okay here's the thing about Instructional Coaching: I actually had NEVER heard of that before! We didn't have those in Utah. Anyways, I did accept the position and I will admit, it was a rocky year for me. I would say that even though I have the teaching skill set and I am a very successful classroom teacher, this year of Instructional Coaching felt very much like my first year teaching.

You can probably relate to my first year teaching:
August - Super excited, have a plan in my head how everything is going to go
September - Awesome, but that didn't go as I intended
October - Wow this class is really hard. I thought my procedures were great. Okay I got to redo this. (Lots of crying this month)
November - I can't wait until Thanksgiving Break. After this round of Parent Teacher Conferences, I need some SLEEP!
December -  Okay my October plans to redo my class didn't work. I'll figure it out over Christmas Break!
January - Ah! Refreshed! Its cold outside but I got this.
February - Uh! No I don't! Can winter be over yet?! I can't have another day of indoor recess! (Another month of tears everyday)
March - You know what? This year wasn't so bad. Next year I'm going to change this.. and this.. and this... and this.. .
April - Why wait until next year to start making changes... lets start trying them out right now! I can figure out what works and what doesn't.
May - Testing and making copies for next year. Can't wait 'til this year is over!
June - Yay! I made it!

Oh and by the way, my first year teaching there was no TeachersPayTeachers or Pinterest. I had to figure out everything on my own or try to collaborate with teachers who were ready to retire and didn't really want to collaborate.

Like I said, my first year as Instructional Coach went very much the same. But even though my first year teaching was super hard, my second year rocked! And my third got even better. Each year there has been progress and I always improved. I also learned a ton.

So this upcoming school year is about to start and I'm super excited for what it will bring. I got a plan in store, but I'll share that with you later!


Thanks for reading! Comment about your first year teaching and what it was like for you!