Alaskan State Troopers

I'm sure you've seen the TV show. (I know my dad probably DVR's the entire season). Alaska State Troopers. You think it's cool to watch the show and see what it is like in Alaska. Well did you know that where I live there are no cops? None what so ever.

There are the troopers.

My village has one that come in about once every two weeks but is in Bethel most of the time.  We are lucky and only live about 10 miles away from Bethel so he can come quickly if he is called but still.  Our trooper is very nice and spends a lot of his time at the school when he is here, visiting with the kids and making sure they are on track.  (He's told me his name like 4 times but I forgot). It's always a lot quieter around the village when he is here and I don't mind.  I know that if anything ever happens I can give him a call. (Yes mom, his number is saved in my phone)

The trooper and me!

(No mom. I am not going to marry him)

K & 1 FUN!

People always say that my job is coloring all day. It's a lot more than that but being an elementary teacher does mean that I can take advantages of certain "holidays" and incorporate them into my classroom.  This past Monday (916/13) was National Playdoh Day!! Since I have 30 min of art/music at the end of the day I took advantage of it.

It was complete playdoh free time (well actually it was Crayola Model Magic but shhhhh).  The kids were allowed to make whatever they wanted, absolutely anything and at the end of the 30 minutes whatever they had would dry overnight and they would get to take it home.  This half hour is at the end of the day right before kindergarten leaves so they're always silly and crazy and today was no different but today they were creative too.  We had hot dogs, mustaches, phones, snakes, cats, dogs, pancakes, glasses, letter etc. SO MANY THING!  Of course I took pictures :)

 Our silly 'staches

 more mustaches

 Mustaches were a big hit

 Creative jewelry 

 And glasses too!

 Everyone needs a good phone

 So fashionable

 HOT DOG!

Showing off what we made

Today is National Talk Like A Pirate Day. I thought it would be a good day to review the letter R. We made pirate hats and walked the plank and said RRRRRRR all day long. First grade also did pirate writings about what they would do if they were a pirate. It was pretty fun. And he high schoolers think I'm crazy for walking around in a pirate hat (but really I just think they were jealous)

 Reading on our pirate ship.

Walking the plank to take a bathroom break

Pirates say "RRRRRRRRR"

My little bunch of pirates (one girl lost her hat somehow so I made her an eyepatch with my hand)

DWIS

The sunset 9.6.13

DWIS. aka Districtwide Inservice. aka a week of classes and professional development.

I have been in Bethel since Monday September 2nd.  It is now Friday. Because the LKSD is so spread out we all come together for a districtwide inservice once a year.  It is at least two days long and up to five days long depending on your school calendar and years of experience.  You spend your days in three hour long sessions working to improve your knowledge of different things in the district.

BUT you also get to hang out with other people in the district. aka THERE'S PEOPLE MY AGE!! I don't know if I've mentioned this before but at my school I am closer in age to the 5th graders than the next youngest teacher. But here there are tons of other people under the age of 30! yay!

Our scores from 3-13

The whole group

THE WINNER!!

Most of the younger people I met at New Teacher Orientation in August so its like we're reunited! A majority of the new teachers have been housed at these dorms that we can use so that we are all together.  We are done with dinner at like 6 and then we are on our own, with no internet. That means cards, games and just sitting around talking and getting to know each other really well.  I love it! We got a little stir crazy by Friday night but that's ok because there was a GORGEOUS sunset that night. (Even if Emily had to go see it in fantastic boots that went great with her plaid shorts.)

 These boots were made for walkin'

 Not an LKSD bag. Also not a bomb.

 Sunset 9.6.13

 Sunset 9.6.13

 Really excited about this sunset.

Me and Emily. 

I have met some great people that hopefully I will be able to stay in contact with for the rest of my times here at LKSD.  We have a few more New Teacher Inservices coming up so we'll see each other occasionally. We are spread out across the district so visiting might be a tad tricky but we're going to try and make it work!

It's made it kind of hard to keep in contact with people back home this week but thank god for texting and having a cell phone so that I can actually call people back home.  We're working it out.

It has been a great time, but with a lot of information and not a lot of sleep.  I am looking forward to ditching the dorm bed Saturday morning and sleeping (aka crashing) in my own queen sized bed Saturday night.

Please do not try to reach me between the hours of 10pm Saturday and noon on Sunday (Alaska time) cause I'll be passed out recover from my DWIS hangover.

Update

So it's been pretty busy here in Napakiak. But it has been great!

The kids are getting the hang of being in school...for the most part. But now they get an entire week off of school...for hunting, fishing and gathering! Definitely different than Ohio. Oh and the teachers get to go to Bethel for a week long orientation. Woo.

Also I HAVE FOOD! No more ramen noodles for me! People in this culture share food. They can't eat it all so they share it.  I was given four pounds of moose meat and a pound of cheese from another teacher.

Then a few days later the aide in my room gave me a fish. Which I still have not exactly figured out how to cook. But I have it!

So yes Mom I am eating. No I am not eating just Ramen noodles. No I am not cooking when I come home. 

Also here is a picture of a pretty sunset.

Monday Morning Blues

Monday. You dread it. I dread it. We all dread it. Mostly because it means that the weekend is over and its back to the daily drag of working and having to get up early.

Today was terrible. The kids forgot every single routine we had practiced the day before. They were wild and crazy even before lunch. And after lunch...well the site administrator (or principal) gave me a handful of chocolates on my way out of lunch because she knew it would be that bad. The aide also brought me candy to help get through the day.

I use a behavior program called Class Dojo.  Each kid gets a "monster" that keeps track of their "monster bubbles".  I can show it on my SmartBoard if I want but I don't have to.  The kids can earn bubbles for listening, following directions, helping without being asked etc... all those things that teachers want their kids to do.  They can lose points for talking, not listening, not working, hitting etc...all those things that are against the rules.  I can also give or take away points from multiple students at the same time.  The kids are trying to earn free time with the class iPads at the end of the week.  10 green (good) monster bubbles equals ten free minutes to use the iPad.

The best thing about this program is that at the end of the day when I end the class it gives me a pie chart of what the behaviors were throughout the day.  This way I can see the trend of the behaviors.  Were all the students not listening? Or were they just off task today? Did a lot of student help other kids? Were they staying on task? Were they working hard?  It also gives me a percentage for positive behaviors for the day as well as breaks down the individual offenses for each child.

The positive percentage for today was 1%.  That's it.  And it was actually an accidental click. But with this program I can see exactly what my kids were doing so that it was this low. And I can plan to fix it for tomorrow.  The student's bubbles normally get reset every Monday morning but I am resetting it for tomorrow so that they can start fresh.

Cross your fingers that tomorrow is better because I can only eat so much chocolate.

Home Sweet Home

After being here for 2 weeks I can finally say that my house (until at least May) is finally set up. If you creep on the school website I am living in Teacher Housing #5 which is about 30 yards from the school door closest to my classroom. (and I thought my student teaching commute was short)

Here are some pictures of my humble abode:

 Kitchen

 Living Room

 Bathroom 1

 Bathroom 2 (please not that my shower curtain is currently being held up by pant hangers because I'm dumb and forgot shower curtain rings. Go me.)

 Bedroom 1 (LOVE my bedspread)

 Bedroom 2

 Bedroom 3 (Gotta have some Falcon PRIDE)

The door to my second bedroom currently being used to store empty boxes.

So this is where I live.  I also have a small utility room right inside my front door before you get to the main part of the house where my washer and dryer are. But I figured that you all knew what a washer and dryer look like :)

Survival Mode

Fridays. Freedom is close. It's almost the weekend. You can taste it and feel it in the air. The anticipation of two days of no school.  As kids we loved it. As a teacher I dread it.

Not really. I still love it but I dread the students realizing that it is Friday.

On Fridays my kids are tired of being in school.  They are tired of being told what to do and having to stand in line and be quiet in the hallway and no you cannot play with the water in the sink.  They're just plain tired.

For me this means that I have to make Friday entertaining.  Art projects, centers, fun stories galore.  It's survival mode because if they're not entertained they're either gonna be grumpy or crazy, or both. I just try to get through the day so that I can make it to MY weekend plans (which probably included planning stuff for the next week but still).

But phew. I made it. Thank god for early release Fridays.  Now just an assembly and a staff meeting stand between me and the weekend!