Hi Kids,
Welcome to our class. I am so excited to be back in the classroom after a break from full time work. I loved relief teaching, but I really missed building relationships with students and parents and seeing amazing growth throughout the course of the year.
I began my connection with our school back in 2004 as a neighbour, listening to the bells and hearing the children play. In 2007, my daughter Kaitlyn started prep (Rebecca was her teacher) and so I began the journey as a parent at the school. When Ethan started prep I began doing some relief teaching, then some longer contracts and now this year I am excited to be back in the classroom with my own class of amazing learners.
A little about me….
I have been married to my wonderful husband John for 21 years. We met when I came to Melbourne from the country to go to university and have been together ever since. We have 3 amazing children. Kaity, who is now taller than me, is incredibly creative. She spends a lot of time drawing, often using programs on the iPad, but also with pencil and now paint. She loved the Warrior series of books so much that she has created a similar story, with brilliant artwork and maps along with character descriptions. Jared (who many of you know) has just started year 7 and loves it. He has made new friends already and is looking forward to being part of the school production this year. Ethan, a fellow grade 5 student, is a very caring and considerate boy who is never without a bat or ball in his hand. He loves any and every sport, but at the moment is limited to playing Futsal and cricket.
I have 2 younger brothers and 2 younger sisters and I am really close to them all. I love catching up with them all in many different ways. My brother Matt and I play in a tennis team together (we don’t win much, but we have lots of fun). My sister Jenni is a teacher, so we share lots of ideas, encourage each other and solve problems together. I admire my brother Jon immensely; he works in the Accident and Emergency area of a busy hospital, a highly stressful but rewarding job. My other sister, Felicity, is my baby sister and definitely one of my best friends. I love nothing more than catching up with her for a coffee or a walk. She is the one who always encourages me to try new things. A few years ago, we began running together and entered a number of running events. Last year we went swimming every week. I wonder what new challenges we can come up with this year. Along with my siblings of course comes the rest of my extended family with 10 nieces and nephews and an amazing Mum and Dad. I am very blessed.
I love reading. In my spare time, I always grab a book, whether it is an old favourite I have read many times or something randomly grabbed off the shelf in the library.
I have coeliac disease, which means I can’t eat a protein called gluten. Gluten is found in many, many things we use every day so I need to read food labels carefully. Luckily, I love to cook and bake, so I often experiment with different gluten free recipes. Sometimes my efforts are rewarded, sometimes we have failures, but it is always a learning experience.
I guess that is the way I would like to see you approach your learning this year. Try lots of new things. Some will come easily, some will be challenging. Sometimes you will succeed, sometimes you will need to try again, and try again, and try again. Every time you make a mistake you can choose to learn from that and improve next time around. If you don’t try, you will never achieve.
Over the holidays I did lots of relaxing. We have a hammock set up in the backyard which is a lovely place to lie and read. My new favourite book is called Counting by 7’s written by Holly Goldberg Sloan. It was definitely worth reading. We caught up with friends, went to new parks and took our puppy Coco for lots of walks. One day we took a group of Kaity’s friends to the Adventure Park in Geelong where I had my first go on a waterslide in a very long time.
See if you can find it on the map of the grounds. It was called the Gold Rush Rapids. It doesn’t look that big here, but believe me, it was! I would have put a photo in, but we were too busy having fun to take photos.
I didn’t want to go on it, but Jared needed someone to go on with him to balance the inflatable. I am so glad I did. I think camp this year will provide me with many more opportunities to try new (and a little bit scary) things.
I would love to hear a bit about you now. Tell me about your family. What did you do over the holidays? What are you looking forward to about this year? What do you enjoy doing? What is something new you would like to try? Write an entry onto your blog – show it to a family member and make sure you review it to fix mistakes before you publish it. I am really looking forward to hearing about you!
From Libby