Meet the Teacher Monday!

Can I just say how very exciting it is to refer to myself as "the teacher"??? It fills my heart with joy.

Moving on, this week is Teacher Week hosted by the teachers at Blog Hoppin' and I am very excited to join in! So here is some info all about me. :)

[Here's me and my brother earlier today! We dropped him off at Purdue so he can start his last semester of classes tomorrow morning. I will miss him because we had a nice summer living at home.]

Tell us a little something about you...

My name is Jill and I have been waiting my whole life (at least since first grade) to be a teacher! Besides teaching though, I really love to read (A LOT) and spend time with my boyyyyfriend. We like to eat a lot and go on walks! I also like beginning crafts, not necessarily finishing them. I am very easygoing and positive and nothing ever gets me down! It's awesome.

How long have you been teaching?

I have been teaching for exactly 4 days - well, actually, 3 and a half! This is my first year with my own classroom but of course it's not the first classroom I've been in since graduation. A few weeks after I graduated, I started my job as an instructional assistant/one-on-one paraprofessional in a first grade classroom in the suburbs of Chicago. I learned a lot because the teacher I worked with was really good! She had a tough class but she made it work. After that, I subbed on a day-to-day basis for a few months and then I landed a 7th/8th grade maternity leave position, which led to my job now - 1st/2nd grade combination class! My school is small and I only have 12 students, which really is perfect for my first year. I know that someday when I have 35 or something, I'll look back on this time in my life and cry. Haha!

You might not know...

One of my dreams is to teach in the inner city. Right now, I teach in a private school in a low-income community, so although my students aren't wealthy by any means, they can afford to go to my school so they're not as low-income as most of the town. However, I want to teach in a school where I can really feel like I'm affecting my students' lives and helping them to create a better future for themselves. I know the challenges are HUGE so I hope after some years of teaching, I will be up for it.

What are you looking forward to most this school year?

I just asked this question to my students for their first dialogue journal entry! One boy said "a puppy"........ whatevs. I obviously am very excited about having my own classroom. But I am also really excited about the Daily Five! I started it on Thursday with Read to Self and we are up to 2 minutes and 37 seconds. They are really motivated to beat their old time, which is good, because I had to stop them a few times at 17 seconds... ay caramba. I can't wait to see it all come together!!!!!

What do you need to improve?

Just from my first week, I know that I need to improve my consistency in classroom management. It is hard to stay on top of the students (even when you have 12!), but it is really important to me that they listen when I'm talking and respect their classmates when they are talking, so one of my goals this week is to really crack down on the extraneous commenting and chit-chatting that goes on while I'm teaching in the whole group setting.

What teaching supplies can you *not* live without?

First and foremost, books! Chapter books, picture books... nonfiction books, fiction books... I love them all! I had to box up a ton because my shelves didn't hold them all! And of course the students are going through the two boxes that I didn't hide in the coatroom, haha! Besides books, though, I do love Sharpies and post-its! And white-out tape! And cardstock, because god knows you need to keep your printables sturdy!! I am also really into bullet tip dry-erase markers, which apparently no one makes.

So that's me! I am super excited for the rest of this week! Go link up!