Newbie Blog Hop!

I came across a fun little blog hop over at Grade Three is the Place for Me!

Thanks so much for hosting; what a great idea to "meet" other new bloggers!

Here's what we are supposed to share for this party:

1.  what state you are in

2.  your current teaching position

3.  your teaching experience

4.  when you started blogging

5.  share a blogging tip / blogging resource

So here we go:

1.  I'm in North Texas

2.  I will be teaching 2nd grade this year

3.  I taught 3rd grade for 3 years, and this will be my 3rd year in 2nd.  LOVE IT.

4.  I started blogging personally back when I moved to NYC to finish college in 2002.  Yes.  I've been blogging for a VERY long time, and in that time I've had probably about 5 different personal blogs (due to privacy and other issues).  I've had a classroom blog as a means of parent-teacher-student communication for about 3 years now.  To visit that blog and see some of what goes on in my classroom, check it out at: Mrs. Cockrell's Class.

5.  I think it's really important to have an uncluttered blog where it's easy to find the following things:

--how to follow you/become a member

--past posts/archive

When I'm trying to decide if I want to follow a blog, I always look at lots of their past posts and even at the titles of old posts to see if it's things that I might find helpful/interesting.  If you don't have your archive on your sidebar and easy to find, then I have to scroll down and click "older posts" every. single. time.  Which is time consuming and unhelpful.  At which point, let's face it, I'm just gonna click on over to the next blog, because there are SO many blogs out there, you have to pick and choose.  Just my personal opinion.  :)

Thanks again to Grade Three is the Place for Me for hosting; love this idea!  Be sure to click the icon at the top to visit the Blog Hop and meet other newbie bloggers!

-Mrs. C.