Hi, my name's Amanda, and I'm a dork.

I love grad school. I love school really, but grad school has been a whole new ball game of learning and pushing myself. Yea, I'm one of those dorks who loves learning.

Right now I'm mid-way through my 4th grad class. This one is all about integrating reading and writing to further student success and I'm loving it. I love the articles I'm reading, our textbooks, and the conversations I'm having with my classmates. Already I'm coming away with tons of ideas I can use in my classroom and a new understanding about how kids learn to read and write.

Teaching writing has always been an area I felt like I struggled with, but between this class and the new writing curriculum my school is starting in September, I'm really excited to teaching writing this year. That's definitely a first for me.

Each class that I take in my master's program seems to occur at the perfect time for my professional development needs and personal learning goals. It's been really cool. I actually don't mind the workload. Some weeks it can be stressful, but with summer vacation right now, it's been easy to fit in the time to complete my course work. I have a harder time during the school year, but even that is manageable because I put together a work schedule and I'm really good about sticking to it and getting work done on time. In fact, dork that I am, I usually have things passed in 2-4 days early.

While I started working on my masters primarily for the raise that comes with getting it, I'm loving every step of the program and all the things I'm learning that I can use with my students. And now I'll stop, because I'm sure you all think I'm nuts. I'm cool with that. 

Our day on the farm

A local farm does an all-ages "Friday on the Farm" event that a woman from work told me about. 4 of us decided to go together (with our combined 7 kids). I could not have asked for a better activity to do with a two year old- or really any young kid that loves animals. 

We got to collect eggs from the chickens, visit with pigs, miniature horses, dwarf goats, and  milk cows. Fynn was in heaven. This girl is obsessed with animals. She loves watching them, petting them and feeding them. This place was all her dreams come true. For about a week after she kept telling Drew and me about "the babies". 

The farm does an awesome education piece, explaining the different animals, what they're used for, what they need to grow well, and they get the kids as involved as possible. Fynn was even allowed to collect eggs and put them in a basket (with my help, obviously). I love the focus on engaging the kids and letting them experience these animals.