School office # 592-4200
My Voice mail # 594-7589
School email Debra.O'Quinn@pflugervilleisd.net
I am usually at school by 7:00am each morning, and I try to leave by 4:00pm each afternoon. My conference time is 1:30 - 2:00pm each day. If you have any concerns or questions about anything please contact me so we can set up a time to talk. I am looking forward to a great year! :)
Dear Parents and Students,
I am very excited to get started on another school year adventure! This will be my twelfth year to teach 5th grade at Timmerman. I have taught for 21 years now - that is absolutely unbelievable to me! I began teaching in 1988 at a very small school in Bertram, Texas. I lived in Liberty Hill and commuted the 9 miles to my 4th grade classroom for 4 years. I then moved back to the Austin area and found the drive to Bertram too time consuming, so I got a job with AISD teaching 6th and 7th grade math and pre-algebra at Burnet Middle School. After 6 years there, I was lucky enough to get a job at Timmerman. When I accepted the job I had no idea that Timmerman was the BEST elementary school in Pflugerville!! I love it here!! I get a chance to work with the best teachers and staff, wonderfully supportive parents, and the GREATEST children!
I was born at Bergstrom Air Force Base (before it became the International Airport it is today). With the exception of a couple of years I spent my entire childhood in Austin. After high school, I worked at a variety of jobs for about 10 years. I did everything - fast food, electronics, health fitness, clerical, government, etc. I finally decided that I did not want to spend the rest of my life searching for the "perfect job", so I decided to go back to school. I spent my freshman year at the University of Akron in Ohio where I prepared for a degree in Computer Sciences. I moved back to Texas before I took my first programming class. That's when I realized that I did not really like working with computers!! (Of course, it was 1985 - computers have come a longway since then!) By this time I was also thinking of starting our family, and I still did not have a major. I had taken lots of math classes my freshman year in preparation for computer sciences. With all that math I decided to go into education. As a teacher I could be with someone-else's children all day at work, and still have lots of time to spend with my family (oh, yes. . . and have those summers off!) I received my degree from the University of Texas in Austin, and well, you know the rest. . . .
My husband's name is Ray. He is a plumber - commercial, new construction. He only does 'house calls' at our house! He is a football fanatic, and still supports his favorite team, The Cowboys. He also loves to fish for largemouth bass - enough said! (I'm a 'fishing widow' and a 'football widow', but I love him dearly!) We did not have any children of our own, but because Ray had a daughter from a previous marriage, I am a grandmother! I am "Nana" to Destiny, 13 years old, and Zack, 11 years old. They live in Brownwood. Ray and I live with two cats, Adrie and Camille, two parakeets, Lilly and Scrappy, and a spoiled black lab named Pepper. They all keep me very busy.
This is Destiny and Zack a few years ago on the South San Gabriel River north of Leander looking at some dinosaur tracks in the river bed. Can you believe these creatures once roamed central Texas?
In my spare time I garden. Nothing so useful as vegetables for me - it is strictly for enjoyment of nature's beauty. If I had a bigger yard, perhaps I would grow something more useful, but it's doubtful! In winter when it is too cold to be outside, I turn my attentions to decorating our home. I also sew and do some painting - not so much as I used to because of lack of space. Ray and I also have some acreage near Brenham where we spend a lot of time camping and clearing the land. Some day we hope to build a home there and eventually retire.
I am looking forward to a fabulous year getting to know my new students. I have high expectations for everyone in my class. We will learn a LOT this year, and you will be surprised at how fast the year will fly by! At the end of the year I know you will look back on your 5th grade experience and realize how much you have truly grown!! Hopefully, your final year at Timmerman will be your BEST!
People To People
I am a Delegation Leader for an organization called People To People Student Ambassadors and have traveled on their programs for the past 6 summers. People To People was started by President Eisenhower in 1956 as a way for young people to learn more about the world around them. He believed that if we knew more about each other our world would be a better place to live. He enlisted the help of Walt Disney, Jesse Owens, Bob Hope, and Joyce Hall (of Hallmark Cards) to begin the organization whose mission is to promote world peace through understanding. Throughout the year I look for 5th grade students who show enthusiasm for the world around them, and/or show leadership qualities. I nominate those that I think would be good candidates for People To People Ambassador Programs.
I have had the opportunity to travel with People To People to Greece, Italy, France, Malta, Belgium, Holland, England, Wales, Ireland, Canada, Australia, and China. I am hoping to travel to Australia again in the summer of 2010. If you would like to know more about People To People, the website is www.studentambassadors.org
Below are some pictures from this past summer's program to China.
The Chinese government was very concerned about foreigners bringing the swine flu to China, so our coach (bus) was "sterilized" often. We also had to have our temperature scanned many times during our visit to make sure no-one had a fever. Our delegation was very healthy, and we were never quarantined. 
Our first morning in Beijing, we met with martial arts teachers and learned some new moves.
"Everybody was Kung Fu fighting. . ."
This is inside the walls of The Forbidden City in Beijing. It is where emperors of China lived from 1406 to 1925. Common people (like you and I) were not allowed to enter the city until after 1925.
This is looking up at the eaves (the part of the roof that sticks out from the building) from the ground. Isn't it incredible?
Here we were shown some of the steps to making a cloisonne vase. There are more than 30 steps that must be followed to make cloisonne (a French word that means compartment). The vase he is holding takes about 40 days to make from start to finish. The large vase in the background took over 200 days to make!!! We were given a tour of the factory and then . . .
. . . we got to try it for ourselves! The girl in the corner is Rachel, a former student of mine. She is now in high school!
Here I am at the Great Wall of China. It is over 3,000 miles long, and was built about 2500 years ago to keep invading Mongols out. In some places the steps are incredibly steep - sometimes over 18 inches high. It was quite a challenging climb!!!
This is the sight of the 2008 Olympic Games that were held in Beijing. The silver building is called the Bird's Nest - can you guess why? Most of the official ceremonies, and a lot of the games, were held here. The blue building on the left that looks like it has bubbles on it is called the Water Cube. This is where Michael Phelps won all those gold medals for the U.S.
These are some of the Terra Cotta Warriors that were discovered in 1974 by some peasant farmers that were digging a well on their farm. We met one of the farmers and got to ask him questions about the discovery and how it changed his life. The warriors were made of clay over 2200 years ago and then buried to protect Emperor Qin in the Afterlife. There are more than 8000 warriors, along with many full size horses made of the clay. There were even some clay acrobats buried in his tomb for his entertainment after death!
This is an archeological dig inside one of the buildings where the Terra Cotta Warriors are housed. At the bottom center you can see the chest of one of the warriors sticking out of the ground. The white bags contain soil that is excavated from the sight. For a long time the digging had been halted because the warriors' paint and weapons would deteriorate almost immediately. Digging began again on June 13, just 3 days before we got there!
This scene shows 3 different types of transportation on a city street. Large cities are very modern, but many Chinese people still use older modes of transportation. Can you find the stop light? It tells the driver how many more seconds until the light changes colors!
In Shanghai we visited a silk factory where we learned about cocoons that are harvested for their silk. Here a worker shows us how a cocoon is gently stretched. It will eventually be stretched to the size of a bed to make the filling of a silk comforter. It will take over 400 layers of this stretched silk to make one comforter. Other cocoons are used to make silk thread which is then woven into fabric. The silk thread in one cocoon can be from 200 m to 3000 m long! That's almost 2 miles!!! (Do you know about how many feet are in a meter?)
Do you like soy sauce? Well, this is where it is made! These large jars are about 4 feet tall. Inside soy is 'fermenting' in the hot sun. It takes about 3 months for it to become soy sauce!
These fishing boats are docked in Victoria Harbor which was named after Queen Victoria of England. Hong Kong was a colony of England until 1997 when it was turned back over to the Chinese government. In the background you can see what a modern city Hong Kong is.
Here I am bicycling on top of the "Greater Wall". That's not really its name - that's just what our tour guide called it. It is the wall built around the city of Xi'an 1400 years ago. Long ago, walls were built around cities to protect the people from outsiders. This wall is complete and still has all the watch towers where soldiers were stationed to defend their city. The wall was built around the old part of the city, and is 39 feet tall. The newer modern part of this city, which now has 9 million people, is built around it.
