This will be my eighth year of teaching and I am so excited to be teaching Kindergarten again! This year brings a few changes for me the first of which is that my husband and I now have a beautiful baby girl Grace who was born April 7, 2012. I was on maternity leave from spring break until the end of last school year and now that I am back, another change is that I will only be teaching morning Kindergarten so I can be at home in the afternoons with this little cutie!
A Little Bit About Me: I moved to Portland in 2005 and taught preschool in a bilingual Head Start program until I started working for Tigard Tualatin School District in 2006 at Tualatin Elementary. I taught First Grade at Tualatin for three years during which time, I also got married. In the summer of 2009, my husband and I moved to Germany where I worked as a K-12 Support Services teacher at an international school. It was a fantastic experience to work in an environment where the students and families come from all over the world. While living in Europe we traveled to Ireland, Prague, Austria, and, Spain, Italy, London, and Amsterdam in addition to some fun cities in Germany. My husband also got to visit Madrid and Paris on business (lucky man!) I learned quite a bit about different cultures and strive to create a classroom and learning environment where all cultures, language, and differences are valued. After moving back to the US, I joined the staff at Durham and have been teaching Kindergarten since then!
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Berlin, Germany--December, 2009
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Ireland (Cliffs of Moher)--March 2010
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Austria--August 2010
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Wearing a traditional German Dirndl
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I graduated from Villanova University in Pennsylvania (this is one Oregonian who is neither a Duck nor a Beaver!) and I received my master's degree in Special Education and endorsements to teach English to Speakers of Other Languages and special education from Portland State University. I speak Spanish and learned a little bit of German while I was living in Europe. I am also currently working on my Doctorate in Curriculum and Instruction because I never want to stop trying to improve my skills and learning how to be a more effective educator. I am hoping to finish my dissertation this school year, so who knows, maybe I will be Dr. Toppel before the year is out!
(No, I will not ask you or your children to call me Dr. Toppel!)
I love to read, workout, cook, travel, do crafty things and write. And, of course, I love nothing more than to play with Grace and spend time with my family.
I grew up in Connecticut with a wonderful family and an older brother who now has three little girls...
My mom and dad
My nieces
Alyssa (3.5 years old) and Aubrey (2 years old), and Adrianna (7 months old).
