First Day of School

This little scene popped into my head months ago and I've been holding it close. I can picture these precious people in their standard public school classroom so clearly and I hope I've given them justice. The beginning of this school year in the States was anything but ideal. But we can still do small …

Getting overwhelmed and setting a particular goal

I woke up this morning with a lot of positive energy. Then I spent the last 30 minutes sobbing through the end of Paper Butterflies by Lisa Heathfield. Now I need to sit down and process through some feelings. // It's really easy to get overwhelmed in life, isn't it? I have a tendency to …

Having tattoos, being a balloon, and the wilderness

My first full time job out of college was as a Preschool English teacher at a bilingual Christian school in the Dominican Republic. My job was to go into each of the 6 preschool classrooms every day for 30 minutes and teach an English lesson. It was fun and exhausting and hard and awesome. The …

Memory, Work, Change, Peace

I'm doing a Gratitude Writing Challenge in lieu of NaNoWriMo this year. What a fitting four categories to be grateful for all at once: memory, work, change, peace. Memory // Work I remember when the life I have now was a life I dreamed about. I remember dreaming not so loudly about being an administrator. …

Gratitude Challenge

Every November for the past six years I have participated in NaNoWriMo. If you don't know what it is, just Google it. Last year I wrote just over 20,000 words and then just... stopped. This year, out of habit, I was planning on participating, but as October went on my excitement for November to arrive …

Here’s the thing about asking for help

In addition to learning how to say no and learning how to stop apologizing for things that aren’t my responsibility, I realized this week that I am in the midst of learning how to ask for help. I’m not talking about asking for help doing things I don’t know how to do. I learned that …

First day of school!

Most teachers like to get out of their classrooms during their break. They go to the library or an empty specials classroom or the cafeteria to get work done or to do something that is not at all school related. I, however - and this is the homebody in me - love to be in my classroom. …

Moved to Act

A few weeks ago in First Grade A we studied the time when Jesus turned five loaves of bread and two fishes into enough lunch for thousands. I have so enjoyed teaching Bible for the first time. I was nervous, as I have mentioned here before, but armed with my Jesus Storybook Bible and the …

What Dreams Are Made Of

This morning I listened to a sermon on my favorite passage in the whole bible, Ephesians 3:14-21. It’s so good, so here it comes. For this reason I bow my knees before my Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of His glory He may …

The Easter Story (as told by a First Grade Teacher)

For the first time in my educational career, this year I have been responsible for teaching my students Bible. Unfortunately I don’t have a Bible curriculum, but I do have a bilingual Jesus Storybook Bible and a random Bible activity book that have been doing us just fine. For the most part I have been …