Erika Almanza Brown has proudly called Seattle home since 2011. A South Texas Native, Erika grew up along the beaches of the Gulf of Mexico before moving to Grinnell, Iowa, to attend Grinnell College where she earned a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology. After graduation, Erika relocated to the East Coast to teach fourth grade in Washington, D.C., where she soon earned her Master of Arts in Teaching from American University. In 2006, she launched her enrichment tutoring business, educating students one-on-one from grades K through 10, until 2015, when she decided to dedicate her full time and attention to her new role as a mother. Now that her daughter has entered grade school, she is excited to return to the classroom.
When she is not in her classroom, Erika enjoys traveling with her husband and daughter, tidepooling, kayaking PNW waterways, trying new pressure cooker and Spanish recipes, and writing about education and parenting for local publications.
Greetings, and thank you for visiting my class page! Allow me to share what one may expect in my classroom.
To begin, I have tremendous experience in planning, preparing, and executing interactive lessons like the one shown here: a corn tortilla making lesson for my daughter's Pre-K class in celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month. I started with a story about tortilla making and the different ways people eat them, passed around dried corn kernels and my most treasured 60-year-old mocajete (a traditional Mexican version of the mortar and pestle), and invited other families and our principal to join us in flattening our dough into round tortillas using tortilla presses. Our joyful and educational experience culminated in feasting on our corn tortillas with fresh Mexican cheese.
To the untrained eye, this lesson sounds easy enough. Read a story, pass around some tactile elements, and eat. Easy, right? Not quite. This multifaceted lesson requires planning, confidence, an engaging spirit, and the ability to pivot on a moment's notice when a student or few begin to lose interest. This class I led was not my own and yet, I soon grabbed the class' attention and sustained it throughout my visit because I invested time to plan the details needed to keep the students engaged in our objective.
This is what you can expect in my classroom: an unwavering commitment to my craft as a teacher for children in such a pivitol moment in their social, emotional, and cognitive development. With continued support from our CKS Administration, preschool colleagues, and CKS Community, our current and future Pre-K classes will thrive.
Blessings,
Erika Almanza Brown