Amy Newkirk

Thanks for visiting my profile. If you don't know, I am a fifth grade teacher in my hometown of Litchfield, Illinois. We are a small school with funding issues - as are so many small public school districts. I share my teaching duties with a team teacher, and together we teach 48 students a day. During my day I teach reading, word work, writing, and science. Our student demographic is a wide-variety, but many of our students (over 60%) live in a home situation that is below the poverty level.

Because of this, in order to make sure our kiddos have a positive learning environment, we are constantly supplying them with necessary educational materials - pencils, paper, erasers, art supplies, etc. Along with this, we are constantly looking for many ways to engage our students in their learning. One of these is through STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) activities. These activities require a great deal of additional hands-on supplies that the district does not supply or pay for. We do ask our students families to help through donations, but many of the supplies come out of our pockets. Last week I spent close to $100 to pay for STEM activity items.

I love teaching and helping my students daily, and there is so much that goes beyond "education". Teaching them to be kind, caring and productive members of society is always a top focus in the classroom.

Thank you for taking your time to see what my teaching life is all about. I appreciate any support you might give. Thanks for visiting my profile. If you don't know, I am a fifth grade teacher in my hometown of Litchfield, Illinois. We are a small school with funding issues -... read more