About Me! How Prairie & Pencil Came to Be!

I'm Carlee, owner and creator of Prairies & Pencil Learning Co!

Now lets get started with the icebreakers (literally the WORST part of any PD or new group introduction):

-I am married to the love of my life that I met when I was 28.

-I have a very busy and intuitive two year old (AKA future CEO) with a little one on the way due in August! And yes- I am incredibly uncomfortable and impatiently waiting on their arrival!

-I grew up on a farm with my sister in a small town and I am a farmers wife.

-One thing people don't know about me is... I can honestly never think of something to say to this that doesn't share something deeply personal that I don't want to share with the group... Im' a pretty open book for most things!

Now that we are finished with the boring and typical icebreaker questions- lets get to the good stuff!

Now to be honest- I never saw myself as a business owner or creator. I was going to stay in my teaching career until I could retire. But here I am! So here's a little backstory on how Prairie & Pencil came about.

Lets take it alllll the way back to 2017- I had just graduated college with my teaching degree and was ecstatic! Then came job searching- something I wasn't so ecstatic about. It was time consuming and I despised being asked the question, "What is your greatest strength?" A question I could never confidently answer. Talk about teaching or my family- easy. Talking about my strengths as a person who doesn't like to talk about those kinds of things-difficult.

After all my searching I landed a job in a small town 3 hour from my family withe zero connections there. I had 2 weeks to pack up my things, find a place to live, and set up my classroom before the beginning of the school year trainings started. But I had the determination and excitement to make it happen! As it turns out, having no connections there pushed me to be more outgoing than I was normally used to. And it was the greatest thing I could have done for myself! In the couple of years there, I grew immensely as a teacher and a person. I threw myself into my career and took every PD opportunity that came my way and joined multiple school committees. Pre TikTok- I know, sounds strange- I watched every YouTube video out there on teaching, classroom set-up, etc... I took everything I researched and learned and implemented it into my classroom. I was good- and I was thriving! But I knew my time was coming to an end in the small town I was in and it was my time to move on.

Fast forward to 2020- yes. That 2020. In the midst of COVID I took a new job and moved to a new city. I was going to teach Preschool at the ECEAP center. Teaching preschool over zoom? Not for the impatient- that's for sure! But that school year was the year I met my husband, received my Masters Degree, and realized I wanted to be back in the elementary setting. So I moved to an elementary school within my district.

The 2021 school year starts and I am teaching 1st grade! I couldn't have been happier! My dream grade, my dream man, and a wonderful first grade team!

I had finally found my dream school and team! Or so I had thought...

(See About Me Part 2 for the years of teaching that brought me to where I am now!)