Mrs. MacInnes Visits New Jersey

Brewer Third Grade Teacher Visits New Jersey

Third grade teacher Mrs. MacInnes visited one of her class rooms she conferences with in New Jersey last week while on her vacation. Mrs. Anderson is the teacher from New Jersey along with her Principal Mr. Montes (shown left giving her a school t-shirt). Mrs. Anderson hopes to utilize one of her professional days to come visit Brewer around Memorial day.

I would like to share Mrs. MacInnes's story with you about her trip to New Jersey in her own words.

I was in New York City with my daughter during vacation. I wrote to Mrs. Anderson and told her I thought it would be really neat if I could visit her classroom. She loved the idea. So, she gave me directions on how to take the bus from Port authority to Paterson. I was so nervous. When I got there, she was standing in the street by the bus door with open arms. I got a quick tour of the town and the school building before the bell rang to begin the day.
She only told her principal that I was coming and kept it a secret from her students. She had asked me not to smile when they first saw me because it would give me away. :o) She did an activity where students wore a word on a piece of cardboard with a string to make it like a necklace. The students had to arrange themselves to make a sentence. It turned out to be, 'Our favorite state is Maine' or something like that. The kids weren't phased and didn't make the connection. Then she had the students ask me questions to see if they could figure out who I was. As soon as I smiled about something, two raised their hands and said, "I know who she is!" So fun. I brought gifts from Maine for the students and Mrs. Anderson. They had surprises for me and our students. We all got the chance to talk about participating in the program and shared more information about each others state. The principal came in and presented me with a school t-shirt. I guess they'd called the newspaper but something came up so the reporter was unable to make it. My daughter and I had tickets for a matinee so I had to leave at noon.

Mrs. Anderson is from Jamaica, so on the way to the bus stop, she stopped at two Jamaican places to get some food for me to sample on my bus ride. It was a really special experience. Mrs. Anderson has put in for a professional day to come here. We will further discuss this project and the use of sites such as classchats.com with whoever is willing to join us. She's going to take photos of underground railroad sites in her town. My class does a Freedom Walk each year to Freedom Park which is the site of a station of the underground railroad. We've already made beautiful signs with our dreams for the world. We are going to wait to do our walk so that she can join us. I think it will be really special. Lets hope the weather cooperates!