Hello! Welcome to Thankful for Third Grade!

That's Me!  Your new 3rd Grade Teacher

First off, my name is Allison Kreider and I have been teaching 3rd grade for 8 years now.  I love teaching 3rd grade.  When ever you talk to anyone about teaching 3rd grade, they always say that they loved their 3rd grade teacher and that is the only grade in elementary school they actually remember.  I say I love teaching 3rd grade because the kids aren't taller than me yet (I'm 5'1''), they still like you and they haven't hit puberty, so their hormones are still somewhat in check.  There are so many new experiences happening at this age and you are able to open the minds to so many new ideas and concepts. 

I have taught for 10 years in the public school setting.  I have taught kindergarten, 1st, 3rd, and 5th grades.  I have also taught graduate classes at the University and various technology courses throughout our district. I have also done a lot of work with school gardens and implementing STEM into schools. 

I love using technology in the classroom and am part of a target group of teachers piloting iPad mini's in our classroom.  We are going on our 3rd year of using 1:1 iPads, from using 1:1 MacBooks.  It has been somewhat of a transition from laptops to iPads, but we all transitioned quickly and students were excited to use a new exciting tool for learning.  We first began with a second grade teacher and myself trying to implement iPads, iPods and Macbooks into the classroom.  This worked, somewhat, but managing all three devices at one time proved to be very difficult, at least for me.  When funding became available, we shared our other tools with teachers in the building, and committed fully to iPads. Our second year of implementation, we added the other 2nd and 3rd grade teachers and had a team of 4 teachers using 1:1 iPads in our classrooms.  Next year, we will be adding our 4th grade team and sharing extra iPads with 1st grade.  This is so exciting to see our entire school transitioning to this new tool.

The hope for this blog to to inform parents and other teachers about the life of 3rd grade.  The all consuming, ever changing, technology rich, wackiness of Mrs. Kreider's classroom.  We also are going through another huge change.  A new building!  As we speak, bulldozers and a ton of heavy equipment is prepping our old playing field to build a brand new, state of the art two story building!  We are all so excited, but nervous about all the changes that will be happening in this next year.

I hope you enjoy following along on the journey!