Paula Soderstrom, Core Teacher (1st Grade)

“Mrs. Soderstrom serves her students with her whole heart.”

Parent of Alumni

“We love Mrs. Soderstrom! She cares enough to require the best of her students, and she believes they can do hard things! She helped her students write “research” books — 1st grade! My daughter was so proud of her little book.”

Parent of a 3rd grader, 5th grader and 8th grader

“I love Mrs. Soderstrom!! She is gifted in helping children read well and in recognizing and helping children who may have difficulty with reading. Both of my children who had her have continued to love reading as their very favorite hobby.”

Parent of a Kindergartner, 2nd, 5th, 7th, 9th, and 11th grader

“She is extremely organized and on the ball with excellent communication. She has written the kindest notes to my children that I have ever seen from a teacher. She looks for the good that each child does…and makes a point to celebrate their benevolent efforts.”

Parent

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What Brought you to AHS? — The hope that teaching the gospel with academics would make a difference in my students’ and my life!

What Have You Learned at AHS? — I have learned that love is the best motivating factor. When you love your students, they feel they are special and want to do better.

Student Interactions — I love to have the children “present” or read what they have written to the class. Sometimes it is a letter to a missionary, or a time when God protected them, or just what they did in the summer. When they pour out their little hearts on paper, it is truly touching.

Curriculum Highlight — I love the celebrations. This is the culminating activity of our literature books, hopefully bringing all they learned together in a celebration. These are the times the students remember best of being at school.

Education — Bachelor of Science, Social Studies, University of Missouri at St. Louis

Hobbies — I love Irish Setter dogs, scrapbooking, trains, cooking and eating, and my family. All my spare time is filled up with thinking about others and more particularly, how to help my family stay close together and live close to the Savior.

Why do you love teaching at AHS? — I love the freedom of sharing the gospel with any principle I teach. I believe this helps put our learning and every day lives into an eternal perspective, not an earthly one.

Passion — I am passionate about teaching others to read and read well. I have such a hard time seeing people struggle with reading when it can be corrected when they are young.

“The legacy I hope to leave is that Mrs. Soderstrom cared about her students, every one of them!”

– Mrs. Soderstrom

Family and Travel

My husband works for American Airlines so we have had the extraordinary opportunity to travel a lot even when we were broke. I had six children. When they were 14 years old, I made a goal to take them to at least three foreign countries each. We would fly during the off season which was usually winter. Because of that, I have visited 17 countries (some of them multiple times) and about 34 states including Hawaii and Alaska. I am now taking my grandchildren on trips. It has been a wonderful blessing to travel and see so many different places in the world.