Hello Students and Welcome to Miss Manuel's First Grade Classroom.  I have several years of teaching experience, which includes 5th grade, 6th grade, and 1st grade! I am committed and I look forward to providing a quality education in an inclusive community.  The reason I selected a career in teaching is because I want to positively affect change in the future.  As an educator, my role is to lead, learn, and assist in bringing forward children’s learning.  I believe that all children are exceptional and learn best by engaging in experimental learning (learning by doing).  As an educator, it is very important that I provide a warm, positive, family-oriented, and safe classroom atmosphere for the students.  I will continue to set high learning and personal expectations for my students, which will continue to encourage them to reach their optimal goals through hard work and perseverance. 

My philosophical approach to education focuses on teaching the whole child, by allowing each student to grow physically, mentally, emotionally, and socially, as they are encouraged to share their ideas.  In terms of balancing restorative justice in my classroom, I tend to take a more collaborative and proactive approach to meeting the student’s needs.  This approach helps me understand the deeper meaning behind the students’ behavior and their environmental conditions.   As an effective educator, my focus is on educating the whole child and being able to work with students who need to learn more than just content-area materials.  I will continue to check in with my students and work daily to maintain a safe learning environment with a process of inquiry to allow students to critically think. 

My approach utilizes the different styles of learning, in order to meet the needs of all of my students.  I will engage my students in hands-on activities to stimulate the whole child, giving the student choices and inspiring or motivating a spark of curiosity to guide their learning.  As a Kinesthetic learner, I understand the importance of presenting materials to students through all of the different styles of learning in an effort to meet the needs of all students.  By offering a variety of learning styles, each student will be able to learn the materials in a way that works best for them while also allowing an assortment of activities to keep students interested.

When I am not teaching, in my spare time, I love hanging out with my family, vacationing, walking, watching movies, and simply relaxing.