Welcome to 1st Grade Pandamania!

If you are a parent, guardian, grandparent, or involved in the education of students in the primary grades in any way…..you’re in the right place!

Hello! My name is Joyce, but better known as Mrs. Oberg by my many delightful students over the years.

I am a newly retired first-grade teacher in the beautiful state of Colorado. I taught for 32 years (17 of those in 1st grade.) Watching my students learn and grow was such a blessing, and I’m excited to share what I’ve learned over the years with you! As you get to know me you’ll find that I like to keep it simple, omit time-wasting “fluff,” and use meaningful lessons that target students’ needs. While I was teaching, I found that the curriculum that was provided by the district did not always meet the needs of my students, so…

This meant I needed to:

• assess my students more often to identify their needs
• plan and prepare well to target those needs
• find or create targeted activities that were engaging and meaningful
• use every minute of instruction wisely
• maintain good classroom management
• maintain good parent/teacher relationships
• collaborate well with my colleagues
• and that is just the tip of the iceberg…

Yes, that list is a bit overwhelming, but once I had the right priorities, my mission became clear, and my students began to thrive and enjoy learning. This is where my excitement to create primary products began and our best-selling Targeted Guided Reading Planning Template was created!

This approach to teaching continued to grow as my husband, Steve, joined me a few years later in creating meaningful, targeted resources. He is a retired principal who shares my belief in targeted instruction (and I had no idea how creative he was!) With Steve’s help, our tried and true primary product listings have grown to over 650, and my blog posts highlight the suggested use of these resources from a targeted approach.

Getting to share my love of teaching reading is something that inspires me, and I will continue to strive and share my best strategies to help and inspire primary teachers just like you. If you’d like to hear more from me, sign up for our email newsletter below so you don’t miss out on updates, freebies, and great information sent weekly to your inbox!

As a special thanks, we’d love for you to grab our FREE sample below from our Targeted Phonics Seatwork Bundle. Have an amazing day and thanks for stopping by!

Happy Teaching 🙂