July 10th, 2018
Dear First Grade Student and Families,
Welcome! This letter brings warm wishes that you had a fun and enjoyable summer. I am thrilled to be your first grade teacher. I am looking forward to a great school year, and know that we will have many awesome and exciting learning experiences in the days ahead. We will be exploring many new and interesting things this year, and will be diving in and learning so much about the amazing world around us.
My name is Heather Christensen, and I have been married to my husband, Erik, for 12 years and have 3 beautiful little boys that are age 5 and under! My oldest 5 year old son’s name is Ethan, and we have fostered to adopt him since he was three days old. We are so proud that we were able to legally adopt him in April of 2014, and now he is a permanent member of our forever family. I have two biological children as well, Micah and Elijah, who are 4 year old fraternal twin boys. All of my boys are high energy, lots of fun, and sure keep me hopping, but I am the luckiest mom in the world! I also have a 10 year old black Labrador retriever named Chloe, who is a big sweetie pie.
I graduated with honors from Springfield High School in 2002, and in 2006, I earned my Bachelor’s degree from The University of Findlay. My Bachelor’s degree was in Middle Childhood Education with an emphasis in language arts and social studies, and later achieved the Generalist Endorsement for science and math. Then in 2009, I completed my Master’s degree in Educational Curriculum and Teaching at Bowling Green State University. That same year, I also received my Colloquy degree from Concordia Ann-Arbor. This past school year, I completed coursework through Ashford University and received my Pre-K to 3 Early Childhood Supplemental License from the State of Ohio. I am very excited and eager to be moving to teach first grade! I look forward to using all of this wonderful knowledge to enhance our classroom and make it a more dynamic and successful learning environment.
I plan to incorporate many of these teaching ideas and techniques into our classroom learning environment to make the year productive, fun, and exciting. This will help me to enhance classroom learning activities and continue to grow as a teacher. All students will learn how to make their own daily contributions through fun learning activites, interactive learning notebooks, homework, discussions, synthesizing information, and formulating their own opinions, beliefs, and ideas. Students will need to be motivated to create, communicate, organize, and act upon the knowledge that they acquire. Students will be encouraged, throughout the year, to work cooperatively to complete projects, assignments, review and edit work, and help each other to comprehend new material. I use teacher monitored group work and individual class work to encourage and develop students’ enthusiasm for learning.
Constant communication is the key to a great classroom. Updates will be sent home in your child's Home Folder, and information on Google classroom will be sent home frequently, along with all graded papers. Please feel free to drop me a note, schedule a conference, or call me at the school’s telephone number (419) 536-8329 extension 2331. You can check out my class website at and you can follow my class on our website fabulousinfirstgrade.yolasite.com and see fun pictures and videos on Instagram at hchristensen1st! You can also reach me by email at hchristensen@ohschools.org. I know that we are going to have a fabulous school year together!
Lots of love,
Mrs. Heather Christensen
