Chief Joseph School

      I have taught many grades in my career, from first through fifth grade.  I always love the grade I am teaching, and enjoy meeting new children or looping with past students.  I bring fresh ideas to my lesson plans each year, and I do my best to respond to what the students want to learn more about. 

      I care about your child's emotional well-being, academic growth, and desires.  I work to guide students to be independent, make positive choices for themselves, be ready to learn, be organized with their class and homework, and make goals and reach them.  This year in third grade we made a bag of self-soothing objects to calm their five senses--sight, sound, touch, smell, and taste.  This way students have power to keep or get themselves calm, feeling safe, feeling confident, and ready to learn at school. I allow gum/mints/snacks, music, soothing small stuffed animals, photos, soothing things to smell (vanilla, orange, lemon and peppermint extracts, as well as cinnamon).  The children enjoy having this comfort in the classroom, and they use it appropriately, to help them put their best effort into learning and work.  I coach children to make choices when they are distressed, improve a painful mood to a lighter one, and to distract themselves from difficulty with joyful activities or helping others.  I also teach children to solve their own problems, so they get empowered by knowing they can come to agreements with another child, or use their skills to say what they feel, even when the other child cannot acknowledge it or change behavior.  That way, when they reach adulthood they have effective ways of coping, making decisions, and working through things with friends and family. I encourage the children to question, and find their strengths and activities that they are interested in.

       I teach a full curriculum to your children--health, art, reading, math, writing, social studies, and science.  We have read aloud with Mrs. Van Fleet on Thursdays and Show and Tell on Fridays.  We learn what the pledge of allegiance means, when we salute the flag (I respect the right of children to opt out of this because of religious or family beliefs).  We have jobs in the classroom, so we all feel like the classroom is our home away from home, and that we belong to a class community.  All children learn in class with partner work, whole group work and discussion, individual work time, small group work time, help from the teacher, and through tailored leveled work by skill and speed of learning to meet their needs and have the right amount of challenge.

Here are a few facts about me you may not know: