This is a great question. Actually, I’m starting this blog because I didn’t have this when I started out. There were no blogs, no social media with Pinterest ready classrooms. In fact, there wasn’t much of anything. I had no way to communicate with teachers outside of my own building, let alone in another state. I was limited to the rather expensive specialty items in teacher stores and my own art. Which I am really bad at. There was no TeachersPayTeachers with quality lesson plans and worksheets. I had a book (often many years old) and my own brain. It was fun because we had a great deal of freedom, but frustrating because I was missing a lot of the research that we have today about brain research, how kids learn best, how teachers teach best, growth mindset…the list goes on and on. But there was something we DIDN’T have back then. Cell phones, tablets, games and constant entertainment. So I had to learn how to entertain kiddos the hard way. Through getting excited about what I was teaching. In fact, I found that the MORE excited that I was to teach a subject, the more excited my students became. This is something that I think about a lot. In fact I think it’s one of the true keys to being an excellent teacher. And if you DON’T love what you are teaching, you better find a way to get excited about it, because the kids will know. Heck, I’ve even learned how to get excited about teaching math, and I NEVER thought that would happen!