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Meet the Teacher

Hi there!

My name is Natalie Roman, and I’m a passionate early childhood educator. I earned my bachelor’s degree in Early Childhood Education from Columbia College Chicago and my master’s degree in Special Education from National Louis University. As a lifelong learner, I’m always excited to grow through new experiences and continue finding meaningful ways to support our youngest learners. I’ve been teaching preschool for five years and love it more each day.

Outside of the classroom, I enjoy teaching yoga, paddle boarding with my husband, and spending time with my 11-month-old son.

I’m so excited to join the St. Joseph’s preschool program and become part of this wonderful community!

Amazon Wish List

I’ve created an Amazon Wish List with items to help enrich our early learners’ classroom experience. Everything will be put to great use, often on a daily basis! Donations are always appreciated, but never expected. Whether big or small, every contribution makes a difference as we build our classroom and create meaningful experiences for the year ahead.

You can shop through the link below or visit the Amazon tab on my page. Thank you so much for your support!

https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/2M9G85C8HCRWA?ref_=wl_share

Posts

Today we introduced our new letter, B! We colored a letter B that we’ll turn into a bee on Friday by adding wings and eyes. We also enjoyed our Jolly Phonics B story and song. For our B movement, we pretended to swing a baseball bat while saying /b/ /b/ /b/!

In Music, we continued practicing our name song to the tune of The Farmer in the Dell, while working on patience and taking turns. Mr. Showstead also introduced a new instrument, egg shakers! 🥚🎶 We followed an action-packed song and practiced freezing when we hid our shakers behind our backs. The students especially loved that part!

Today we introduced one of my favorite storytelling tools, the story apron! We read Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? while adding each animal to the apron as it appeared in the story. This helped the students visually follow along with all the characters. They loved it so much, we read it twice! 🐻

The students have been doing a wonderful job ending our day in prayer and remembering to use their prayer hands! It’s been so sweet to see ❤️

The students were excited to use Mr. Showstead’s unicorn puppet as we sang the name song for each friend! We also continued practicing with rhythm sticks during action-filled songs. One song even had us use our rhythm sticks to “make a pizza”—what fun! 🍕🎶

The students had a fun time using paint, brushes, and paper plates to begin their ladybug crafts while practicing our color of the week: red! Next, we’ll add black dots, eyes, and antennas to complete our ladybugs. 🐞

Today was our first day with our Media teacher, Mrs. Hoglund! We met some of her reading buddies, Elephant (Gerald) and Piggie, from Mo Willems’ beloved Elephant & Piggie books. We enjoyed two fun, interactive stories and even searched for another Mo Willems character, Pigeon. The students were excited to spot Pigeon since we’ve already read Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! and The Pigeon Wants a Puppy!

For our science-based circle time today, we made an apple volcano! 🍎🌋 The students were so engaged and excited to see what happened when we mixed baking soda, dish soap, and vinegar!

Our first music class with Mr. Showstead was a blast! 🎶 Students learned about trumpets and clarinets, how to assemble them, and the sounds they make. They also had fun using rhythm sticks to follow along with an action-packed song!

Our students did an awesome job using pre-torn construction paper and glue to create their own apples while learning about the letter A! 🍎

The students did a wonderful job following directions during their art craft with Ms. Swift and staying in their designated centers until the timer rang. I was very impressed with how smoothly they transitioned during center time!

The students did an awesome job using playdough to build the letters in their names and create fun things like skunks, ducks, playground slides, and more!