Hello!

So I know I am a little late on the blogging front, but here I am! Can you hear me? Loud and clear? Good! :)

I'm so glad to have all of your wonderful, smiling-faced students in my class for this school year! It has been a blessing to work with them for the past twelve weeks and I know our time together will only get better as the year progresses on.

So now, a little about myself.  My name is Allyson Townsend and this is my second year teaching here at Lawrence.  I graduated from Baylor University in Waco, TX in May 2010 and moved to Dallas when I got this job.  My family all lives in Houston, so it was a bit of a change moving up here, but I have loved every minute of it! I have always wanted to teach first or second grade, and now that I'm in second, I can't imagine ever leaving! I originally started learning sign language when I was in middle school.  I had a friend who was Deaf herself and was mainstreamed in my Home Economics class.  I begged her to teach me sign language and it wasn't long after that, that my dream began to form.  In high school I took ASL for three years and the fourth year, I became ASL Club President.  It was a joy! I organized events with the Deaf and Hard of Hearing kids in our district to meet up and sort of have "buddy time" together to chat with them.  It was then that I decided I wanted to be a Deaf Ed teacher.

In college, I majored in Deaf Education with a minor in ASL Interpreting and I did my student teaching for eighteen weeks in Round Rock ISD in a middle school self-contained class, and then another eighteen weeks at the Texas School for the Deaf in a fifth grade math classroom.  Both internships were extremely different, yet I loved them both the same.

So, that's a little about me, and I have (for the most part) learned a lot about you from your students and from our brief meetings together.  Thanks for tuning in, and be sure to be on the look-out for any cool updates involving your sweet 2nd graders. :)

I hope to add projects, and things of the same nature so that you are able to sign on and come to an "Open House" without ever leaving the comfort of your home!

Thanks again!