Can I Do This?

Although I am new to the blogging world, I know that letting almost a month go by without posting is not the way to draw in an audience. Truth be told, for the past few weeks, I have been second guessing my decision to jump in the blogging world. What if I don't have anything of value to contribute to the teacher blogger community? What if the school year starts and I get so overwhelmed by the day-to-day demands that my blog slips into the cracks? So many questions and so many doubts... Well, this morning I woke up to a rainy summer day in Southern California and realized it's time to wrap my mind around the fact that school will be starting in a matter of weeks. That realization brought me back to the core reason I started this blog: for my students. 

I chose to start this blog so that I can join my students as we jump into exploring the the world of Genius Projects a.k.a. Passion Projects or 20% Projects. I think my self-doubt has come from snooping around on all the other great teacher blogs that are out there and comparing my little baby blog to their's. I am not sure how this blog will evolve over time, but I am going to focus on making sure that I create something that remains true to it's original intent and is a true representation of me and my life as a teacher. I'm just going to remind myself to enjoy the process and let everything else fall into place.

Thanks for reading!

La Tawnya

Teacher Love

I want to give a major shout out to Elizabeth Polo @firstgradestripes for all of her support during my first few days in the blogging world. She's given me a couple of shout outs on Instagram as a new blogger, and helped me today with a technical issue I was having with my blog set up. It's great to be a part of a profession that offers so much peer support. Thanks Ms. Polo!

La Tawnya

Who is Miss Robinson?

Welcome to my blog, Smartie Style!

For the upcoming school year I am going to attempt incorporating Passion Projects in my classroom. As a part of the process I will be working on my own Passion Project, which is starting a teaching blog to document my experience implementing Passion Projects with my students, as well as my general day-to-day adventures in the classroom. Now that I officially have 10 years of teaching under my belt, I think this is the perfect time to do something like this. I'm excited, yet nervous so see if I can actually pull the Passion Projects off. I hope so because I think it will be such a valuable experience for not just my students, but me as well.

I figured the best way to get started is with an Infographic I created about myself a couple of weeks ago. I will use this to introduce myself to my new group of fifth graders. I learned all about the power and fun of using and creating Infographics in the classroom at the CUE Conference this past March.

With that being said, I hope to see this blog grow so that I have the opportunity to interact with other teachers out there and share in the joys and challenges of teaching.

Talk to you soon!

La Tawnya