I began blogging for Scholastic's Top Teaching website around fall 2012. Over the next 6 years, I was privileged to share what I did in my classroom. Sometimes blogs were weekly, sometimes biweekly, and occasionally monthly. Sometimes I was able to write whatever came to mind, and other times I was provided direction.
A few years ago, as my blogging time was wrapping up, I started moving a teaser from each of my blogs to this site with a link to Scholastic (they own all the work, after all). I didn't ever consider saving the posts in a PDF format. They exist, somewhere, in various drives, jump disks, and computers I've had over the years. The reality of being a mom, teacher, and blogger is that I simply didn't have the time or bandwidth to conscientiously save them. Scholastic decided not to have the Top Teaching blog site, and recently, have removed most of the posts. I'm not confident I even reposed teasers of them all. Six years is a lot of blogging! Some of the posts are modified and reposed with "Scholastic Editors" as the writers. Unfortunately, this means the also remove key details, such as pictures of the final product.
While I'm disheartened I didn't have the forethought to save everything in a PDF for myself, I also realize that I've done a lot of learning and growing in the last 10 years. I'm proud of some of the work. I think my resources for planning and standards stand the test of time and scrutiny. But some of my work I would never write today. I realize some of my early posts talk about multicultural lessons that were really just cultural appropriation for the sake of a holiday and some clicks. Some of my "cross-curriculum" lessons were just slapping a dinosaur on a worksheet. Hey, when you know better you do better, right? (shoutout Ms. Angelou for the insight)
If you are searching for something you've always used - and thank you to those that reach out with such kind words - I'm happy to try and find it for you. Send me a message! I have many of my documents saved in my files, and many more can be accessed on the Wayback machine.
Why don't I remove them from here? Honestly, it took me a long time to transfer over as much as I did. I'm just not willing to give up the work. Plus, it's the only place the compilation exists now, albeit a partial collection, and I suppose I like that it still is somewhere outside of my harddrive in the world. Thank you for reading and supporting me all these years.