Good morning and I hope that you had a great long weekend! Did I do anything? Absolutely not! Should I have? Definitely! I cannot stress this enough: please take care of yourselves, my dear parents. Your children's needs will not be met completely if yours are not either. Think of this whole crazy situation like a plane that is going down and the oxygen masks have popped out. You are not going to be very helpful to others if you don't put your oxygen mask on first. When you are spent, you have nothing to give or offer others. You are all true heroes and I hope that you will push through this last week of school! "Self-care is giving the best of you, instead of the rest of you."

Good Morning and HAPPY FRIDAY! Only one more Friday left of the school year. I can't believe it. All of this has been super surreal, and my brain is still struggling to process with all of the changes and how differently this year has gone. A running joke that I have seen passed around is that we need to find whoever is playing Jumanji and make them stop. :) One more week! We can do it! I will be sending progress notes to all of you today, and I will warn you that it will be full of legal jargon that was mandated by the district. Regardless of what the progress notes say, you have all done so well in maneuvering through this craziness to the best of your ability. People talk about the"essential" heroes working, but please remember that the real heroes are YOU. "Just know that 'successful' parents are not the ones who have never struggled. They are the ones that never give up, despite the struggles."

Hello all! Happy Thursday. I hope that through this craziness that you will find good things in your life. One good thing that I have noticed even more is how truly amazing you all are. You have to shoulder so much and deal with so much in your daily lives, and you come out of it with a good attitude and quite positive. Another positive for me is that my passion for teaching has been reignited and blazes brighter. I feel I was getting a tad burnt out this year, what with finishing my Master's degree, having a new baby, having to teach and somehow have energy for it all. My effectiveness and motivation waned somewhat, and this distance from my students and teaching has reminded me how much I love instructing your students and helping them surpass everyone's expectations. Now working in my empty classroom to wrap up the year has really made me feel that "nothing makes a room feel emptier than wanting someone in it."

Hello all and Happy Hump Day! As we are winding down to the end of the year, I really wish and hope that you are as well as can be expected and hope that you have been able to establish some routines that you will hopefully be able to use to make summer a little easier. I am certainly grateful that in Utah County the risk level has now dropped to zero. That gives me so much hope that I will be able to physically see your students as early as ESY! I'm so excited! As a reminder for you all: ESY will start on June 30th and run until July 23rd. It will be Tuesday through Thursday from 8:30 am-11:30 am. I hope that your day will be awesome and I will be in touch! "Every day may not be good, but there is good in every day."

Good morning all! Back when things were "usual," I felt like Tuesdays were harder than Mondays because it was the first full day of school of the week. If I had student attitude, it would start on Tuesday. A suggestion to all for the day will be that of communication. I have a motto in my class that everyone at the Special Schools knows I have: "Allow room for sass." This means allow your student to say no, to be sassy and have a bit of an attitude. Their personalities are so vibrant and so fun! Also, they are teenagers; it's going to happen anyways. If you are going to give them options, give the options a little bit of attitude, like "heck no that's awful!" or "duh! of course!" You might find your student more willing to communicate and work with you. Tell your students to "be silly. Be fun. Be different. Be crazy. Be [them], because life is too short to be anything but happy."

Good Morning all and HAPPY MONDAY!!! We are down to the last two weeks of school. It saddens me to be so far away from all of you. I mostly have business items today: if we changed ESY factors for your student, you will be receiving an email with the amended paperwork. If you can sign the amendment page and get it back to me, that would be wonderful (if not we can survive. :))You will also physically and electronically get notes on your student's progress on his/her IEP goals by Friday as well. Again, DO NOT feel bad about any lack of progress. Too many changes and too much has happened for any student to necessarily make progress. Remember, "sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together."

Good morning all and HAPPY FRIDAY!!! We made it somehow to the end of the week and I am proud of you all for making it through somehow. I wish that I could do more to help you all and make things easier for you. I hope that you have a GREAT weekend and that you can find peace in all of this unknown and chaos. "There is virtue in work and there is virtue in rest. Use both and overlook neither."

Good Morning all! Happy Thursday! Almost there to the end of another week! In the next week or two you can expect emails from me including ESY paperwork that we discussed last Friday, and also progress reports will be completed and sent to you. Do NOT feel bad if there has not been much progress made; it is a bit unfair for us to expect our students to perform at the same level they were in school. It is too much to ask to have you create a classroom situation and yet have it be home too. Please remember, "Life is about being happy. I want to be happy with you."

Hello all and Happy Wednesday! I hope that life is treating you all well and that things have settled down for you. I know that I am being redundant and repetitive, but it is my honest hope that things are. It's very rough for you to have to handle taking care of your student, making sure that he/she is well-fed, clean, safe, loved on top of siblings and handling their school and instruction and caring for them. It's a lot to have to take on, and I worry about your well-being as well. I hope that you remember to take the time to care for yourself: do something small that makes you feel good, like doing your hair, taking a slightly longer shower than necessary, read a book, eat your favorite treat and not share it, etc. If your needs aren't met, it will be that much harder to meet your students' needs. So, my quote of the day today is, "An empty tank will take you exactly nowhere. Take time to refuel."

Hello all and HAPPY TUESDAY! We are moving along with the rest of this school year and life is slowly progressing to a better "Normal." Mind you, what have we to say about normal, when your lives are anything but normal. I think your lives are extraordinary and you are all superheroes. Your help and involvement with your student is invaluable and why they are successful. "The strongest people are not those who show strength in front of us but those who win battles we know nothing about." You are the strongest people I know! Thank you!

Quick business item: I will be contacting you and asking a big favor to potentially film a short clip of your student saying hi, smiling, being them, etc. to send to me for the Dance Festival. We want to have your student as involved as possible. I will need to have something like that if you can by this Friday.

Good morning! It's so crazy to think that we only have three weeks left! We can push through and do this! I will be in contact with you throughout the week! The quote of the day is: "When it's raining, look for rainbows. When it's dark, look for stars."

Good morning all and Happy Friday! We made it through another week! The quote of the day that I have for you is: “Life is not a PG feel-good movie. Real life often ends badly. Literature tries to document this reality, while showing us it is still possible for us to endure nobly.” Love you all, miss you all and stay safe and healthy!

Hello all and Happy Thursday! Parents, I hope that my seemingly excessive joyfulness isn't irritating to you or seem fake. Life is hard and crazy and exhausting and terrifying and sad and exciting and frustrating and more, but it is good. There is good in everybody and everything. For the last few weeks we have left of school, I will include a quote, and I hope that one of them will resonate with you in some way. "If life gives you lemons, make grape juice. Then sit back and watch the world wonder how you did it." You parents are given so much to deal with and handle, and you have to figure out how to do things a mile and a half out of the box. Let me tell you, the world is wondering how you are making it and is in awe. Stay safe, stay healthy and I love and miss you all!

Good morning and happy Tuesday! My video recording software is struggling again and so it will be just a post again today. A notable thing that might be fun to celebrate is the fact that it is Cinco de Mayo! What is really funny is that this holiday is only really big in American culture and not Mexican. It commemorates a battle that the Mexican Army won against France in the 1800s. In America it has become a celebration of Mexican culture. It also happens to be Taco Tuesday! I hope you celebrate in a way that you all can enjoy!

Hello all and HAPPY MONDAY!!! Guess what everybody? We have 4 weeks of school left! That is crazy. I miss you all and hope that you are staying safe and healthy. I will be checking in with you throughout the week like usual. May the 4th be with you!!! Video

Oh my goodness it is May! Just a few short weeks left and school will be officially out! I don't know how I feel about this, since I haven't physically seen you all in almost 2 months. It is Friday, though, and those should be happy and awesome! Not much to say on my end, so have a GREAT day and stay safe!

I post things here and also say them in my video. I never know what you all will choose to do. I am late posting this because (as I will put it in funny Facebook fad format) my 2 coworkers spilled food, litter and poop all over my bathroom and I had to clean up after them. Cleaning up after coworkers is rough everybody. I hope this made you smile and that you have a GREAT day! Video

Hello all! I apologize for not posting yesterday or having a video; I had some pressing matters to attend to and by the time I was finished it was definitely too late. I have missed working with some of you yesterday and Monday! I hope to be able to see you today. It has definitely helped me a LOT to be able to see and work directly with some of my students. Please stay safe, get outside, relax, take care of yourselves and stay healthy! Video

Hello all and Happy Monday! I hope that as the weather continues to be BEAUTIFUL and warm that you make the time to get outside and take it all in! I hope that you are able to find a rhythm, routine, groove, whatever that is manageable for you mentally, emotionally and physically as well. Love you and miss you all! Video

I CANNOT believe that it will be May next week Friday! Time is going by WAY too fast! I miss you all, stay healthy, and I will see you eventually. Video

Hello all and happy Thursday! I am so grateful for modern technology so that we can still work together somehow during this crazy situation and time. Who knew that we would end up in a new "normal" like this? One thing that is in the works that the secondary teachers are planning up is that we are going to find and post as many different virtual "field trips" as we can. My class was supposed to go to the Tulip Festival yesterday, and Thanksgiving Point is offering a virtual tour of the Tulip Festival right now! So, if you want to get away from your house a little bit, check out our resources page for more information! Daily Video

Happy Earth Day! If you'd like, you can talk to your student about what Earth Day is, and why it was started. I personally feel like one benefit of our having to stay home is that there is much less car travel, less exhaust and pollution in the air, and it seems that our air here in Utah has been MUCH cleaner! So we all seem to be contributing to helping our earth with something as little as not traveling. Here is the official earth day website, and there are a lot of fun virtual events happening all across the country: https://www.earthday.org/earth-day-2020/ Daily Video

Hello all and happy Tuesday! It is so crazy to think that we have been in this situation for over a month! I miss you all and will be in contact with you in some way throughout this week. Video

Good morning and happy Monday! I hope that you had a restful weekend and that life is going slightly smoother for you! Remember I will initially email you to check in, then call if I can if I don't get a response to the email. Sorry, no video today, but I will have one ready for you tomorrow!

Happy Friday everybody!!! I hope that you have survived the week. It's almost over! I still have a couple of you to contact about what schoolwork is going to look like, but I will talk to you today. I am excited to work directly with a few of you and that we have scheduled the time to consistently do it. Remember, I am literally here all day at YOUR disposal. If there is anything I can do to help, I will with the best of my abilities help. I love and miss you all! Video

Good morning and happy Thursday! It has been so nice contacting and communicating with you all during this time! It is definitely helping me stay afloat emotionally because I miss you all and your students. I hope that this week we can get past the break and continue to hopefully establish a routine and have things calm down. One little idea to maybe help you with that routine is if you would like me to either call in and help with school work, or video chat or something I am DEFINITELY available to help with that. I know that some of you have been met with some pretty crazy resistance when you try to work on school things and I want to help make that easier. Maybe the sound of my voice will help. Who knows? Good luck and here's the link to my video!

Good morning all on this beautiful day! I don't know if you have gotten the news, but it seems that school will remain closed for the rest of the school year. Though it is understandable, it saddens me to know that I will not be seeing them for the rest of the school year. I miss them so much, and I feel I have lost my purpose a little bit as a teacher because I haven't physically seen your students in a long time. Here is the link to my video: Hello.

Good morning! I don't know if it will be the same at home, but the second day back to school after a long break is usually more...interesting than the first day back. It's a novelty the first day, then it seems like a mean joke the second. I hope all is well with you, and I will now start contacting you again to check in. I miss you all and hope that you will settle into a sort of routine again! Here's my video today. :)

Good morning and welcome back! I hope that spring break will have proven to be restful and that it was actually a break. It is now coming up on a month that we have not been in school and I miss you all so much! The secondary teachers will be posting instructional videos and materials for you to use for your student in all of the subjects (Math, Science, Social Studies, Etc.) that most likely will align with your student's goals. My video today will show you where that is. Hopefully that will reduce the stress of working with your student and will help you. Video

Happy Friday!!! I hope that you all got through this week okay. I will be checking in on all of you after Spring Break to see what I can do to help you all after the MUCH needed rest from school. I hope that today will be a wonderful day. Here's my video: my camera is still fighting me so here's my faceless video.

Good morning! We all survived April Fool's Day, right? Sorry about my video from yesterday: my computer and I are apparently in a feud right now and filming videos is now officially harder. I hope my computer agrees with me today. It isn't. So no video today. Sorry!

Hello all! Can you believe it's April?! I can't. I also won't play an April Fools joke on you, since nothing I could do would top the situation we are in. :) Tip of the day to maybe put in your routine is to read aloud to the students. I will obtain permission from one or two of my favorite authors to record video/audio of my reading to you. My video is here.

Good morning and happy Tuesday! My tip for the day is a small reminder that if you need more variety in your life, we have been adding instructional videos little by little for you to use in our resources page so that you can use them. Life is crazy and I hope that we add as much familiarity as possible for your student. Good luck, stay healthy! Here's my little morning video!

Good Morning and happy Monday! As we start week three of our new journey together, I want you all to know that I am here for you and I am a call, email or text away! My new video can be found here. Remember I only expect one goal a day with data reported. As I contact you this week, I will find ways to help you with the data reporting portion, and will want to know if you are reporting digitally or on paper.

Hello all to this last Friday of March! I hope that we are not all getting stir-crazy yet, because it definitely could be worse, and it might be. Who knows? Remember to take care of your needs first, and if possible, work on one goal or so for the day. My hello video for the day is here.

Hello all! I don't know if you are checking in regularly, but I hope so! These little daily updates are helping me feel like I am connecting a little bit with you all. My video of the day link can be found here. Also, in class we would watch the student news every day, and it is only ten minutes long. If you'd like to add some familiar routines into the day from school you can watch it daily as well at cnn.com/cnn10

Good morning everybody! The tip that I have for today that I have discovered that I very much need to implement (I'm working on it now) is that of establishing a routine. Since this is going to continue for quite a while, it will be important to establish a sense of normalcy within this irregular time. Make a specific time of day that goals/school is worked on. Have activities together as a family at specific times of day. Still have a sleep schedule and time to wake up (I have not done any of this in particular and am making it now for myself as well) Here is my video of the day: video

Hello all and good morning! I looks like we are going to be in it for the long haul! That leaves me thoroughly depressed because I love seeing your students and working directly with them. It has been so amazing to check in with you all and see that you seem to be handling things well. You are all champions. I have another video that you can see here.

Good morning all! It is now week two of this craziness and I hope that all is well in your life! I hope that you will be able to make time to work on one IEP goal and report it either online or physically. I recorded a video for you to play to your students. I miss you all so much and I will be checking in with you today! Link to video

Apparently my website did not publish my message yesterday! Look for a video by me today about how to give praise/verbal reinforcement in an effective way. I miss all of your students and look forward to talking with you through these hard times. Please be safe and healthy and take care of yourselves!

Also, do NOT worry about addressing all of your student's goals every day. I only would like a minimum of working on one goal and reporting data. If you want to practice the other goals that is totally fine as well. I just want data reported for one goal a day.

Hello all and welcome! I will have everyone's instructions on how to practice your student's goals below on this page. I also have a video tutorial on how to report your student's performance on the goal with the online form included below. My office hours and link to my video chat on Google on the Junior High main page. I will be setting up a time with you in those hours where it is dedicated to just you and your student as well. You can contact me any time of day, but that scheduled time is when I will contact you.