My name is Janelle Pauldine and I am a kindergarten teacher in Owosso, Michigan.  I have a husband of 14 years and two children that are 5 and 7.  We live in Flushing which is about a 25 minute drive to Owosso where we spend most of our time.  I am currently working in my dream job and this past summer was able to give my room a makeover that reminds me how lucky I am to be in the position I am in.  My daughter was in my class two years ago and now I am happy to have my son as part of my kindergarten classroom.

I am Jen Lintner, a data specialist in Linden, Michigan.  I love what I do and thrive on numbers and statistics that can help us improve how and what we teach our kids.  I live in Owosso with my two children, ages 7 and 11, and my husband of 11 years.  I met Janelle when my daughter was in her class with her daughter two years ago and our passion for children, education and striving to be the best at what we do has only brought us closer together.

Together, we decided to create this site because we feel we have knowledge to share and the amount of knowledge you learn by sharing your own is unbelievable!  We enjoy presenting at conferences, hanging out together with our families, searching for better ways to do things and venting to each other when we need to.  Our original plan was to create a Blog to share our Engineering Curriculum that we have been working on together for the past few years but, as you will see, it has quickly grown into much more than that.  After many, many hours of thinking, collaborating, getting opinions, etc. we were finally able to come up with a name that fit what we wanted to do.  Takes a Village Teaching is not only a place where you will get to see our real personal successes and struggles but it is a combination of what we have learned in our personal lives and our professional lives that have given us knowledge that we feel we must share with others.  We continue to learn every day and make mistakes with our kids, at our jobs and with life in general but as we share them with you, maybe, just maybe you can take something away from our site that makes your day, week or part of your life just a little bit easier or better.