It is that time of year – many new teachers are graduating and getting their very first teaching certificates. Maybe you already have a teaching job lined up for the Fall, or going on interviews or searching for a great first teaching role. It is an exciting and nerve-wracking experience. Especially now, when teachers are faced with challenges day after day while trying to do the most important work of caring for and teaching children. My first year in the classroom was exhilarating, confusing, eye-opening, fun, and scary all in one. You can read all about it here: https://rosiethehistoryteach ..read more

Working mom + stay at home mom = work at home mom. Many more parents got a taste of working at home with their children during the pandemic. I have worked from home full-time for several years, but only became a mom in November of 2020, returning from maternity leave in February 2021. So now I am a WAHM. The experience has given me insight into what many of my students’ parents juggled throughout 2020 and 2021 while working at home while taking care of their little ones at the same time. I have found that since working from home, a lot of people just don’t understand that I am actually workin ..read more

Many teachers have unexpectedly gotten a taste of teaching online in the past few months due to the Covid-19 pandemic. As the 2020-2021 school year approaches, many teachers are still unsure whether they will be in their classrooms with students or logging on for more virtual teaching. I am one of the lucky teachers who did not have to figure out how to change all of my lesson plans and adapt to online teaching overnight, because I have been teaching at a virtual school for a couple of years now. I admire all of the teachers who worked incredibly hard this spring to make it happen and who have ..read more

This morning as I cooked bacon for breakfast, I was transported back in time. No, I don’t have a cool time machine stove. The smell of the bacon frying sent me back to 1996, to a hotel room at The Sun Viking Lodge in Daytona Beach, Florida. Every few years my grandparents would take the entire extended family down to Florida for a week in the summer. The five of us kids would spend the days building sand castles, jumping over the ocean waves, and speeding down the hotel’s water slide. It seems like the smells of saltwater, chlorine, and sunscreen should be the ones associated with our trips, b ..read more

You might have seen all of the memes about the full moon, Friday the 13th, and the week before winter break all happening in one big whirlwind – and I hope you are making it through this eventful season of teaching! I teach in a virtual school, so I didn’t notice the full moon or Friday the 13th creating any unusual student behaviors, but I did notice a much lower attendance/participation rate in my virtual class sessions! Full Moon = check Friday the 13th = check One more week until winter break = in progress! My school’s last day before break is a half day of school on December 20th, and the ..read more

As I write this on a Saturday afternoon, I’m looking ahead to this week and see two days of school and then a glorious 5 day break for Thanksgiving! Thanksgiving falls very late this year, and I know that many teachers and students are so ready for this time to rest and recharge after a busy back-to-school season. Some of us might be pushing to finish a unit before Thanksgiving break or maybe we are at a point where the focus before break needs to be on reinforcing historical thinking skills or classroom relationships. I just finished my Progressive Era unit last week and will be working on so ..read more

Depending on what subject you teach, we all have a goal in mind for how our teaching impacts students. As a history teacher with a background in museum work, my biggest goal is for my students to learn to curate their knowledge to be able to share it with others. This involves so many of those important historical thinking skills: making connections, periodization, analyzing sources, and crafting arguments. It sounds like a lot to ask of high school students, but here is one simple activity I use throughout the year to help them build skills in curating knowledge. Smithsonian Learning Lab Last ..read more

I have always been fascinated by the Victorian Era. My first exposure to history was reading the Samantha American Girl books when I was in first or second grade. I quickly became obsessed with petit fours and fancy dresses and my love of history has never gone away! And I keep finding myself coming back to the Victorian Era recently. This past weekend I volunteered at my local historical society’s annual cemetery walk. I portrayed Sarah Flowers, who died in 1892 at the age of 29 due to childbirth complications. I spent hours digging into the census records, her marriage record, death certifi ..read more

Has anyone else noticed that birth stories are super popular on blogs all of a sudden? And for some reason people want to read all about the birth story of a complete stranger on the internet? (Not judging, I totally read them myself!) Well, this is my version of a birth story – the birth of my teaching career. My first year was rather unconventional for many reasons and 4 years later I am excited to put it all into words here. No, I’m not still at that school, but those students, colleagues, and classroom walls will always hold a very special place in my heart. My Job Hunt I graduated with my ..read more

Wow, today is the first day of my fifth year of teaching! Today the students are doing a lot of orientation activities, so I’m just leading home room sessions and will start my US History classes later this week. Here’s what the first day looks like for me: Yep, that’s my classroom! I teach at a virtual school so my students and I are all doing school from our own homes all day. I got my office freshly cleaned and organized and I’m so ready for the year! When we start our actual courses this week I’ll be using my “A History of Me – Historical Thinking Skills Back to School Activity” as an inf ..read more