Welcome to Francie's Focus!

Welcome to my blog, Francie’s Focus. Many of you know me from the DonorsChoose webinars I have worked on with Laura Candler, and my online posts regarding DonorsChoose.

Maybe you are a member of the Caring Classrooms DonorsChoosegiving page or Facebook page that I administer with Laura. I do live and breathe DonorsChoose, and am a TAS screener.
 

I have received wonderful resources for my classroom and my school through DonorsChoose: 132 funded projects and $72,000 in resources. DonorsChoose has become my favorite charity to donate to. I love to help other teachers get their projects funded, and am always donating to my own projects too!

But that is not my only focus for this blog. Instead, I also plan on sharing great ideas and projects I have used in my fifth grade classroom. I hope you will be able to incorporate the ideas and cool math tricks I will be sharing into your classroom.

I always look for great teaching ideas, and tweak them so they fit with my teaching style and classroom. I find no need to “invent the wheel” when there are so many fantastic resources and great ideas out there. I would much rather tweak someone’s idea than start from scratch. Do you agree? If you want a quick look at some ideas I have found online, go to my Pinterest board and follow me.

I am married to an artist, Kerry Kugelman, and our daughter will be off to her first year in college in a few weeks! Our daughter and dog both are much younger in this picture!

This is my 14th year teaching; unfortunately there is not much sharing going on between teachers at my school. Since I love to share ideas, over the years I have sought friendships from online teachers and a few local teachers I have met at professional development training.

I am so glad to welcome you to my blog, and I look forward to sharing great projects and ideas with you, and hearing your ideas too! A huge thank you to Christi Fultz for doing a fantastic job in designing my blog and for Laura Candler for inspiring me to begin blogging.