About Me & My Classroom

Welcome! I hope you find my blog post and resources helpful in some way. I love creating learning activities that help all my students to succeed while having fun. 

When I’m not busy being “teacherly,” I like to spend time with family and friends, while checking off my travel, concert, and restaurant list. I also love trying new recipes, finding deals on fashion, hiking as much as possible, film festivals, and adventuring around my city. 

A little about my teaching background: When I was a little girl I wanted to be a writer, hairdresser, or teacher. I can say all of my dreams came true except that dying and cutting a few friends' hair doesn't make me a legit hairdresser because I never went to cosmetology school. Lol. They were just crazy enough to let me experiment on them. Thanks to TpT, I'm now able to say that I'm an author of lessons and curriculum activities for other teachers!  

I've been teaching elementary school since 2000, primarily in third grade (16 years), but I have also taught second, fourth, and Dual Immersion Spanish 5th grade temporarily, before becoming a Reading Intervention and ESL Teacher. 

I studied Spanish for three years in high school and college, then I studied more Spanish abroad in Costa Rica. Pura vida! My goal was to able to communicate well with the families of my students or any newcomers who spoke Spanish. 

I have a BA in child development, and psychology and almost pursued becoming a school counselor, but I couldn't shake the teaching bug. All of my jobs during college were working with children in some capacity. I was a teacher assistant and sub for preschools, a camp counselor, and even an after school program director for at-risk youth. 

After finishing my teaching credential, I took a break from further studies to focus full-time on teaching. Eventually, I took on mentoring new teachers too. I've had the opportunity to mentor six new teachers and host several student teachers. 

Eventually, I went back to school to earn my TESOL certification, and then on to complete my Master's in K-12 Literacy. It's something I always wanted to do and I love learning!

For the first decade of teaching I took part in many Whole Brain Teaching trainings and even presented at conferences and school PDs. I believe it is the best classroom management system out there. I enjoy being able to mentor new teachers in classroom behavior management and motivational techniques to excite and engage their learners. 

I am passionate about the growth English Language Learners make and how proud their families are of them by the end of the school year. I'm exceptionally good at developing readers and creating math fact fluency. I've also presented PDs on these topics as well.

Finally, I really enjoy playing with technology and using it with my students, as well as using it to create cool stuff that benefits my own classroom and other teachers. I was on my school's tech team for a few years and also became the chair. I have training in coding, robotics, and Google Classroom and I have presented a few times on the implementation of technology in the classroom. 

My blog has gone through some updates over the years and originally had a fifties theme based on my love of music that my parents gave me. Also, my blog used to be Third Is the Word, kind of a take on the Grease song and movies. I began changing up the look of my blog because I realized the music theme led some to believe I was a music teacher and I've changed positions since then. 

I hope you enjoyed getting to know me. Please drop a comment if you have any questions or just want to say you relate in someway!

Teacher Ms. H © 2014-2020 ~ All contents of this blog belong to me and are copyrighted. If you like one of my ideas, pictures, freebies, or anything else I have posted feel free to share it as long as you provide credit and a link back to me. Thank you.

Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited and is in violation of Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

These are some pictures from my 3rd grade classroom a few years ago!