Welcome to the 2012-2013 school year! I am very excited to come back, and I'm sure the students are excited for the school year to start as well (even if they don't show it)!
For those of you who do not know me, I want to give you an introduction to myself. I am originally from the Fox Cities, and have lived in Appleton for just about my entire life. I grew up in Catholic schools, starting with pre-school at St. Bernadette, moving on to middle school at St. Joe's, heading to Xavier for high school, and finally going to college at St. Norbert in De Pere for Elementary Education, Spanish, and Music.
This will be my third year teaching first grade at St. Edward. Before that I taught multi-grades and multi-classes at St. Edward and Spanish to the 6th, 7th, and 8th grades at St. Mary in Greenville. Preceding that I ran the aftercare program at St. Bernadette.
Outside of school, I enjoy knitting, sewing (my new hobby), reading, being creative, and being active. I belong to St. Bernadette Parish in Appleton, and direct the Renewed Spirits choir there, as well as accompany some of the masses.
If you explore this blog a big further, you will notice links to Ms. Hermus's Sqworl and to Pearson Successnet. Let me explain those a bit further.
A "sqworl" is like an online favorites list. You can make folders in which to put links to websites that you like. The advantages include the fact that you can access this from any computer, so you can find your favorites anywhere, and, as a teacher, it's very handy if I want all the students to be able to access the same site, because instead of putting it on each favorites section of each computer, I just put it on once, and I'm done!
One disadvantage is the url. The url you get with your sqworl is incredibly difficult to remember. I myself always to go this blog first, then click the tab. This way is much easier!
Included in my sqworl are enrichment games for math and reading, as well as many websites that I use to help in my lesson planning. If you notice, there are many sites named for countries, and these are sites that I use to teach about many different countries in social studies class.
Pearson is the company through which we get our reading series. The students each have a login and will nearly daily go on the computers in the classroom to do some of their reading work right on the company's website. Some of the books they will be reading in class will also be on there, as well as some other activities. More information will be coming home in the first few weeks of school about how to use this, including your student's login and password.
If you need to get a hold of me, you may email me at ehermus@stedwardk5.org. You may also call the school and ask for me, but emailing is best. I do my best to reply promptly to emails.
I look forward to working with you, and especially your students, this year!
Ms. Hermus
