This is my first year teaching fourth grade and our county changed the curriculum. So, I had a lot to learn. Now that I am comfortable with fourth grade and the new curriculum I have time to blog!
There is a lot happening in our county! Summer Professional Development started off with over 60 elementary school teachers attending Code.org Training. It is exciting to see so many teachers ready to implement code in their classroom next year! We are also starting Makerspaces in our media centers! Folllow us as we take this journey.
I wonder... where will education be five years from now? I have personally seen many teachers hang up their hats in teaching. In the district I work in and many district around the state of Florida. You may say or think, they were not good teachers, but they were. They worked hard every day to help their students be successful. They arrived at work early, stayed late, and you could find them at the school on weekends. They truly cared about their students and wanted to give them the best education they possibly could. Unfortunately, due to many obstacles out of their control, they chose to leave the profession. Not only are teachers leaving the profession, but new teachers are not entering the profession. According to the Orlando Sentinel in January 2019, they wrote, "Halfway through the school year, Florida's public schools need to hire 2,217 teachers to fill open jobs in classrooms across the state, a sign of Florida's growing teacher shortage, according to the stat...
Classrooms across the district have been sharing and collaborating through Hangouts. One of our fifth grade teachers wrote a grant for a weather station and invited all fifth grade classroom in the district to check it out through Google Hangouts! We had four classes participate! The students from the other classes were excited to see other fifth graders in the district and had great question! What a great way to bring the district together!