Welcome Mariposa Family and Friends to 1st Grade! 

I am looking forward to my 34th year of teaching, and my 30th year teaching 1st grade.  I have a Master's Degree in Education and I am GATE Certified.  It is my goal to make this a fun, exciting, and eventful year of learning for your child! I am looking forward to meeting you all on the first day of first grade!

As the year progresses, you may notice that our classroom doesn’t run like other classrooms. We will be learning through Whole Brain Teaching, a research-based system that utilizes all areas of the brain, keeps children engaged throughout their lessons, and helps them retain much more information than the standard lecture-discussion model.

Whole Brain Teaching is a highly interactive form of instruction that delivers information to students in short “chunks.” Kids then teach what they have just learned to their partners, using hand-gestures to help remember specific vocabulary.  While students teach each other, the teacher walks around the room to discover who understands the lesson and who needs more instruction.

Research shows that children retain more information when they have an opportunity to put it into their own words and use gestures to emphasize key instructional units …plus, it’s amazingly fun! For more information about Whole Brain Teaching please contact me, come by for a classroom visit and/or go to www.WholeBrainTeaching.com.

Sincerely, 

Miss Hemme