Hi I’m Joy, I have taught for over 18 years in elementary and middle school. I started my career teaching 1st grade. Then I moved on to teaching 3rd grade than 2nd grade.

I always thought I would teach forever in the K-3 primary grades. I never saw myself as an intermediate or middle school teacher.

However, I had 2 different administrators over time, tell me I would also make an excellent intermediate teacher too!

So I moved on to 4th grade to give that a try! And to my surprise I enjoyed it.

Then I decided to loop with my 4th graders to 5th grade. This was during the COVID- 19 pandemic. It was March of 2020 when I was teaching my 4th grade class and everything moved to remote. I felt as if I didn’t have closure with my students. Plus with the unknown of what the next year would look like in regards to the pandemic, I decided to loop with my students and teach them 5th grade.

This was very helpful since we began the year virtually. While teaching 5th grade, I began to think about what it be like to teach middle school.

Since my teaching certification is for grades K-8, I was able to have this flexibility! I moved on to middle school teaching 6th grade ELA. I enjoyed the new schedule, which was way more flexible than the elementary schedule.

I also enjoyed being able to just focus on reading, writing, and grammar!

Since I taught the majority of my teaching career at the elementary level, I have taught all subjects. But since I personally love to read and am always reading a book, ELA was a good fit for me!

While teaching I have come up with many strategies and routines to help me in the classroom.

I created this blog to share with teachers what I have learned over the years, to give them tips and ideas to use in their reading classroom!

When thinking about what I would blog about, I decided to focus on what I believe to be the most important aspects of teaching; interactive activities, classroom management, and classroom organization. Without a foundation in these areas it can be very difficult to teach.

Having interactive reading activities, consistent classroom management strategies, and  classroom organization as a teacher you will help gain control of your day, weeks and school years! Read my blog to find out more about the strategies, routines and activities I have used throughout the years that have helped me to be successful in the classroom.