It was a great experience getting to talk with my friends, Debbie Mendoza of Froggy About Teaching, and Christy Gandara of HomeSchool Holidays, as well as Danny and Tavis. They were definitely more relaxed and succinct than I was!
If you know me, you know I enjoy talking about pretty much anything. I've been known to become rather excited about whatever I am discussing, and becoming a bit long-winded - and I admit that it is true. However, in this case, while I did get to talk about our novel study guide for Rumble Fish, and making connections between the novel and students, I also got to sit back and listen, and enjoy the love of teaching that these great people bring as well.
Deb loves the littles, no doubt about it. I would pull out the rest of my hair if I had to spend a month teaching third grade again, but she makes it sound like so much fun! And her entire teaching philosophy is reflected in this! She even makes MATH fun!
Christy, the Happy Hive Homeschool-ing mom, has a similar philosophy. She creates lessons designed specifically for the home schooling parent or group, but that can be easily adapted to the "normal" classroom - not always an easy task! Her family, and she actually homeschools her kids, have forced her to become an expert at all grade levels! And she managed to integrate them all into a single differentiated curriculum, all based on the "Holiday of the Day" theory! How fun is that?
The thing that I found really inspiring from these great teachers is this - although school was not very challenging for some of us, and extremely difficult for others, we are all able to successfully reach our students, create relationships that lead to learning, and HAVE FUN! Thanks for inspiring me at a difficult time!
What a wonderful way to summarize our time together in the classroom, as teacher authors and as guests on the podcast! We do have a way of making everything FUN!
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