Hello and welcome to sixth grade!
I am Mrs. Downs and I will be the Language Arts teacher in sixth grade. I am so incredibly excited to work with all of you this year; I know it is going to be a great time. This is my fourth year working with all of the amazing students at Wells Junior High school. Before that, I had the opportunity to spend four years teaching at Massabesic Middle School.
My husband, Tim, and I have been married for four years. My daughter, Eleanor, just turned four in August. She is a whole bundle of crazy and loves coming to visit Wells Junior High. She especially loved joining in on our Zoom meetings in the past few years. If we are virtual again at some point, I am sure you will all get to meet her! My son, Teddy is due to be born on July 2nd. He is going to be the first boy in our family out of 7 different grandkids! I'll have some great pictures to show you all when school starts.
We love camping and four wheeling. If we could spend our whole summer outside, you wouldn't see us again until September! In the winter we love to go snowmobiling to keep ourselves outside. I am the perfect example of someone who loves something even if they aren't really good at it! I think I have fallen more times than I haven't, especially snowmobiling. I definitely learned the hard way that you can't turn out on the lake without tipping over!
As well as our human family, we have a crazy dog, Maya, two cats, Louise and Elvira, and a whole flock of chickens. In fact, I think we may just have gone past the 3 dozen mark. There is always something going on in our house it seems like!
I absolutely love reading and can't wait to share that love with my students. One of my favorite things is to share a favorite book with a student and see them really get into it and love it as well. My favorite novel is Gone With The Wind, but my favorite novel we will read together is A Long Walk to Water.
I am encouraging each student to read 40 books this school year. The best novel I read last school year was Truly Devious and I highly recommend everyone grab it from my shelf at some point this year! I have also encouraged them to challenge their parents to set a personal reading goal. As adults, we tend to forget to read. I know that I am always wishing I had read more books.