I come from a long line of teachers. Well, a line of two – my mother was a middle school English teacher and my grandfather taught various subjects in the area of vocational agriculture. For a long time, I thought I also wanted to be a teacher, following in my mom’s footsteps to teach English/Language Arts.
Shortly after college, I took a long-term substitute teaching gig in a middle school English class and realized a few things: Teaching is rewarding, amazing, and just plain hard in all the good ways. Teaching is also a round-the-clock job that is challenging in all the ways I am not cut out for.
I now find myself in a more formal teaching role with my own children (and appreciating the hard work of homeschooling families on a whole new level). I’m lucky to have technology and the support of the school system, but this is still a difficult role to adjust to. (My kids are a lot sassier than the students I had all those years ago!)
We’re trying to find a balance between goofing off, learning, and me working from home. The library’s resources have come in handy! My kids are too young to get much out of our LearningExpress resource (it covers 4th grade through college), but I highly recommend it to older learners. We are enjoying the Tumblebooks and Overdrive collections, though, and are watching Autumn’s Facebook storytimes on repeat.
We do physics experiments to see how sturdy pillows and blankets are as building materials and go on excursions to discover (and name) the wildlife outside. “Football,” the assassin bug, and “Rarous,” the barred owl, are our favorites.
Your library staff is still available to answer phones, emails, and messages, so if you need help navigating our online resources or figuring out what wildlife you’ve found in your backyard, let us know.