Introduction Into the Blogging World!

Well, hello to all my hopeful and currently non-existant blogging friends!  

My name is Elyse D'Andrea and I am a third year, first grade teacher!  I graduated from Purdue University in 2010 (Go Boilers!) and was fortunate to obtain a teaching position my first year out of school.   I remember my first year teaching.  At the time, I was teaching 2nd grade and completely overwhelmed with the normal stresses that come with a first year.  I was spending hours upon hours working in my classroom (though I guess that hasn't changed much), endless amounts of time researching ideas and lesson plans and well, let's get real, tears of stress were shed on more than one occasion.  During one of my normal "it's way too late to be at school working when it's just you and the late night custodian" nights, I stumbled upon the blog of a fellow first year teacher who....completely blew my mind.  I know I'm not the only loyal follower of the teacher wife but SERIOUSLY how did this girl do it?  She was a first year teacher like me and had the time to blog about her unbelievable ideas?!  It was from there that I discovered some other remarkable teacher's blogs (The Inspired Apple, The First Grade Parade, Step Into 2nd Grade, etc...) and decided that this blogging world was something special.  

I found myself following tons of blogs daily and getting inspiration for my own classroom.  From there, I decided that blogging was something that I wanted to use to inspire others just like they had inspired me.  Though it wasn't as simple as I thought it would be and just figuring out how to get a blog template was completely mind-blowing, here I am!  I thought with teacher appreciation week rapidly approaching, it was the perfect time to share my appreciation for all my fellow teachers out there and hopefully initiate myself into this blogging community!  I can hardly believe that I only have 2.5 weeks of school left but I can't WAIT to start sharing my ideas and look forward to developing an addiction to blogging which, knowing myself, I most definitely will!

On a final note, I wanted to share this awesome blog post that I stumbled upon several days ago.  It is the perfect dedication to teachers everywhere and expresses so thoughtfully the appreciation that I and so many other people have for people in this profession.

Here it is:  http://jenhatmaker.com/blog/2013/04/30/dear-teachers-everywhere#.UYG-u05mu0Q.facebook

Ta Ta, blog world!  Until my next post! :)