Thanks for stopping in to learn a bit about me!  

This is my 19th year teaching and I am very excited to share it with you! At RFIS I currently teach language arts and science, but have a love of learning all different topics.  I am a certified Social Emotional Learning facilitator and Yoga instructor, though I do not actively teach yoga currently.  It is a goal of mine for the future!  I believe that learning how to be mindful of ourselves and our surroundings and how to be grounded in the present moment can help us to understand, know, and accept ourselves and others better and this can help us in all areas of our lives. 

In my personal life, I am a mom to two kids.  My son Noah is 12 and is in 7th grade this year.  He loves basketball, video games, and playing outside.  Lillian is 9 and is in 4th grade.  She is in her 4th year of dance and also enjoys art and riding her bike.  Both of my kids participate in scouting (boy scouts for Noah and cub scouts for Lillian) and karate. Noah is a blue belt and Lillian is an orange belt. We keep very busy!

In my spare time I enjoy home DIY projects, playing piano, taking pictures, gardening, baking, doing anything creative, and just being outside. As a family, we like to take day trips, attend local events, camp, hike, play outside, listen to fun music, and have pizza-movie nights on Fridays.   

We have lots of pets at home, too.  The youngest of them are our three kittens who are almost 1 1/2 years old. They're all siblings and are named Freddy Faz Cat, Lulu, and Rosie.  They sure keep us on our toes!  We also have a 3 1/2 year old guinea pig named Boris and a 14 year old dog named Jayda.

We had a very exciting summer, and I hope you did, too!  Noah took a bike ride camping trip on the C&O Canal in Maryland with scouts. He rode 173 miles on his bike in one week! I joined him for the last 58 miles.  We camped all along the trail.  Lillian and my mom met us at the end and we enjoyed a day visit to Washington, DC.  It was hot, but full of interesting and meaningful sights.  We also spent a few days in Wildwood with friends, and a long weekend in New Hampshire with family.  Lillian even sang a duet with me there!   We did lots of swimming, spent time enjoying Dorney Park, went to the drive-in movie theater, and ate lots of ice cream. Yum! 

I can't wait to get to know each of you throughout the year and hear about the adventures you had this summer!

~Ms. Culcasi