Welcome to MY World

                             Welcome to MY World

 
After 8 years of teaching I’ve decided to take the plunge and invite people into my world! Blogging isn’t something I’ve chosen to do frivolously; I’ve thought about it for a while but never really shared that with anyone… until my coworker expressed that she thought I should start a blog. (Be sure to check her out at Shepherd's Shining Stars) Erica sort of pushed me over the edge. I’d wondered if anyone would read it, would I be wasting my time, would anybody even care. Then I messaged my past two student teachers who gave me a resounding yes and with Erica’s encouragement and their enthusiasm (and promise to read…) I have decided to welcome you all to Primarily Pelafigue.

That’s me – Ashleigh (J Hi!) And yes, this picture truly encapsulates my personality. There really is no such thing as a shy person around me. I’m a nearly-30 wife and teacher of all little things! With no children of my own (except for my fur-baby…) I pour the vast majority of my energy into the twenty-something little ones I get to spend ten months with each year! I love my job – like seriously, LOVE my job! There is no other profession in the world that I can say I am eager to try… or where I can say I get to play with kids, make a difference in their lives and impact the future of our community all in my work day! And I get to do it over and over again each day! Teaching and learning is my passion – so much that I am still working on my own education. With 4 classes and a dissertation to go part of my blogging adventure will be documenting this final leg of my personal education journey as I finish my Ph.D. Then this might just turn into Primarily Dr. Pelafigue.

Now, to the important things… in order to get to know me, I figured I’d start with introducing you to my home away from home. My primary workshop full of primary colors for students in primary grades (second to be more specific but I bet you see what I’m doing there… right?)… my classroom!

My space... I really don't like a desk. My table is my little personal classroom sanctuary!

My data wall and first set of desks... see those rolls on the shelf... that's another post - my love affair with Anchor Charts!

Spinning to the right comes our Play for Pay board and more desks!

File folder games on the wall, Leadership Based Jobs on the cabinet and "my" desk...
the kids will be using my desk this week as a reward! (Who doesn't want to sit in the teacher's desk!)

More desks, student library and my materials stashed behind my
beautiful new custom curtains!

Ahh... now the good stuff... my teaching space! So thankful for technology!

View from the back

Entrance to the room: tiered weekly words, a Discussion Train for conversation
building that another colleague and I developed, and space for classroom rules.

One last picture! Now you've come full circle :)

I love primary colors (and teal...) so rather than a theme, I stick with a color palette. Like all the colors of a palette... and this year I'm implementing lots of new things I've discovered through reading teacher message boards, blogs, Pinterest, Teachers Pay Teachers, etc. We're venturing into the Leadership Based Classroom for our classroom jobs and responsibilities, beginning a modified Classroom Economy plan in conjunction with my classroom management, and learning money management and saving skills by bringing these new ideas together while the children learn to count and save money well before I need to teach it to them!

Now that you've seen all that is Primarily Pelafigue, I'll end this for now... next up, I'll introduce you to my plans for bringing money management to second graders! We'll see how this works! Maybe I'll show you our Discussion Train, too!  Encourages the students to talk to each other and helps them to remember appropriate academic conversation! (And it's a lifesaver for teacher evaluations... reminds the teacher what to encourage and model and is a pictorial representation for students to use and adapt for conversation!)