Crowley's Blog

Hello everyone!
I am going to try out this blog as a "practice" for starting one in my classroom. I think this is such a great tool to use for communication between teachers and parents. When I do start a blog in my classroom, I think I may try separate ones for my students and a separate one for parents. We all know how much parents like to comment about what we're doing in the classroom, this will be an easier way to answer the same question once for all parents to read. Same goes for students. This is a great tool for students to ask questions that they may have come up with after class or just too embarrassed to ask during class.This is also a great tool for working with ESOL/ ESL students and parents. I personally do not speak any languages other than English and often have a hard time speaking to parents of other languages. Once again blogging can be very useful in a classroom and school if the teacher can translate information through blogging.

Now, a little about my teaching experience:
I began my teaching at Belle Witter Elementary (http://witter.mysdhc.org/) in Tampa, Florida. I had taught 4th grade for two years, and I believe that’s all the time I'd like to put into 4th grade. There are three FCATs that the teacher must prepare the students for by February of the school year. This was a lot of pressure on a teacher of any experience and at any school, and for now I'd have to say I'd like to focus more on my schooling than the pressure!
My third year of teaching has been a little strange so far. I began this year out at Davie Elementary (http://www.davieelementary.com/) in Davie, Florida. I was teaching 3rd grade for about 7 weeks when I found out I was being transferred to a different school to teach a different grade. I was so upset when I found this out. Davie had such a great staff, excellent students, and supportive parents. I hope that at the end of this school year, I'll be able to return to Davie.
My new teaching assignment is at Fairway Elementary (http://www.broward.k12.fl.us/fairwayelem/) in Miramar, Florida teaching Kindergarten. I can't say too much about my experience because it has only been 4 days. I do love the children so far, they're so innocent and ready to learn!
I'm looking forward to the rest of the school year and learning more about blogging. I'm not sure how it will work this year because of the age of my students, but I'm excited to learn what the parents think.