All+About+Mrs.+Baird

Hi! I am pleased to be your child's teacher this year. This is my tenth year teaching first grade after teaching preschool for eight. I am a graduate of Rosemont College back when it was only women! I earned my Masters of Arts in Education in '07 while I worked on my Pennsylvania certificate in elementary/ special ed. from LaSalle University. I am married to Tom and we have two children, Tommy and Marielle. My husband is the finance manager at O'Neil Nissan. Tommy is in his second year as Director of Technology at St. Hubert's HS and Marielle studied dance and psychology at De Sales University. She hopes to go to grad school become a dance therapist. In the mean time, she is working here at OLGC as a kindergarten aide for Mrs. Esbensen I can't forget my black lab, Lola who loves everyone who comes to visit.

My family and I love to travel. Marielle's Irish dancing has taken us to Anaheim CA, Chicago, Dayton, Ohio, Harrisburg, and Ireland- twice! We enjoy visiting Frank Lloyd Wright designed houses and major league baseball parks. We have been to the old Shea and Yankee Stadiums plus Camden Yards, Wrigley field, Fenway, Toronto, PNC in Pittsburgh, The Great American Ballpark in Cincinnati, PACBell in San Francisco (well it was called that 12 years ago!) and of course CBP in Philly. For our 25th wedding anniversary my husband and I went to Italy. That was incredible! Four summers ago we were fortunate to take our children and a niece and nephew. They are planning a trip back in a few years. While we didn't go anywhere this summer, last summer,we traveled to London and Paris. While in London, we went to Wimbledon and toured the grounds while they were preparing for the tournament. We also got to meet Bradley Cooper. Yes, thee Bradley, with the most beautiful blue eyes, Cooper. I am rarely without words but it happened this time. My daughter and I were star struck! We took the Chunnel to get to Paris. London to Paris in two hours! In Paris, we went to several art museums and saw the most beautiful art work. Venus de Milo, Van Gogh's Self Portrait and the Mona Lisa herself! She, like Bradley is more beautiful in person. We also traveled to Giverny, where Monet painted his famous Water Lilies. Of course, we climbed the Eiffel Tower. (Actually, we took the elevator!) We went at night and got up to the second level just in time to see the lights start to flash. Gorgeous!

Since we didn't vacation anywhere this year, I had plenty of time to read. I read 10 books this summer! 10! And I got to travel without getting jet lagged:) Being an art major, I enjoyed //The Marriage of Opposites// by Alice Hoffman. It is about the mother of Impressionist artist, Camille Pissarro. This took me to St. Thomas and Paris. So beautifully written. I Went to Australia with a character named Don Tillman who is hilarious! Oh yeah the books are called //The Rosie Project// and //The Rosie Effect//. The Pacific northwest was the setting of five of the books by Debbie Macaomber. If you like the Hallmark Channel like I do, you may be familiar with her. I think my favorite book this summer was written by the same woman who wrote //Me Before You//, Jojo Moyes. //The Last Letter From Your Lover// has a lot of surprises and twists that I really enjoyed. Plus it is set in London, Paris and the French Riviera. Gotta love being an armchair traveler. It's second to actually traveling.

One of my all time favorite books is called //Unbroken//. It is written by the same woman who wrote Seabiscuit. This book is about an Olympic athlete/Navy bombardier who survived the horrors of a Japanese prisoner of war camp. It is a true story which made this book even more incredible to me. It is thick and daunting but worth it. You know- in your free time! :) //All the Light We can Not See// is another excellent book. It won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction last year. It's about WWII. The two main characters are a blind French girl and a young German soldier and how their lives intertwine. Incredible read. I promise you!

Some other books that are good reads and are becoming movies are //The Girl on the Train // (If you liked //Gone Girl //, this is a good read.) and //A Light Between Oceans//. I'm not sure if I will like the first book's adaptation because they changed the setting to New York instead of London. I think the mystique of London made it creepier but that's just me. A Light between Oceans is set in Australia and is about a lighthouse keeper and his wife who are trying to have a family and find a baby in a boat washed up on their shore. I guess you can tell I like thrillers. I have another thriller on hold at the library. Can't to start that one!

My undergraduate degree is in art so I love to add the hands-on element to the classroom. My idea of an ideal classroom has children who are working together to solve a problem just as we would in the adult world. The best way to do this is to constantly have the students working with manipulatives and building on each others success. This is we will learn how to be explorers and discover the world around us. I know we will be successful and well prepared for the future.