The World Keeps Spinning...

The life of a teacher never gets boring. 

I feel like I've been running around nonstop for the past 2 months. Everything keeps moving and I haven't really been able to stop and smell the roses.

We've had some interesting weather here in Chevak for about the past week or so. Last week there were a couple of times that it was hailing. Mother Nature even decided to grace us with an early snowfall. Thankfully we are back to the typical rainy Chevak weather, I was beginning to get nervous that winter was really starting. I've always appreciated the rain, it's soothing and allows my mind to become relaxed. 

A lot has changed in the short amount of time that I've been back. It's hard to grasp how much I've changed as a person. It doesn't seem possible that so much could happen that quickly. I'm becoming more defined as a person and as a teacher. 

There have been many exciting things happen in Room 105, I'm so proud to see how far my kiddos have come since last year. I can only imagine where they'll be next year. 

Today our class got 4 new pets (which is a big deal in a village). I'm not exactly sure what I think of these little critters but the kiddos love them. Our reading Specialist was kind enough to order Tadpoles for my class. They came in the mail over the weekend, so it took me some time to get them all situated before all the beady eyes were staring at them. Today, they decided on the names. Since there are 4 tadpoles total we came up with 2 boy names (Freckles and Tyson) and 2 girl names (Princess and Skittles). We also read a life cycle book on frogs that got the kids really excited for the changes that are going to take place over time with our friends. Finally, the kiddos wrote a Beginning, Middle, and End on the life cycle of the frog. We are still practicing this skill and with time we'll get better at it.

This year, I've also decided that I would move with my juniors from last year so this year I'll be dealing with all the senior shenanigans! We have recently found out that we will be once again helping with the Halloween Carnival. Thankfully, I feel more prepared for this event than I did last year. 

I still have a BUNCH of pictures that I need to upload on here. I'm hoping (fingers crossed) that I'll get to that tomorrow! 

First Week Chaos

Well we're officially into our first week of school and it has been C-R-A-Z-Y! I can't even begin to tell you how stressed out and overwhelmed I was last week trying to get everything ready. I don't remember it being that bad last year but maybe that's because I didn't know what I was doing and was just too excited to freak out. 

This year I have half the same kiddos that I had last year. It was so good to be able to see them again. It made setting up groups and getting book tubs ready a lot easier because I had a pretty good idea where their at. 

I have pictures of my room to put up here but I'll do that a little bit later on. 

This week is Sea Week and this year my class with be participating in various Cup'ik activities. On Wednesday, we're going out on a day trip to pick tea and medicine plants. Thursday, we're going on another day trip to pick berries. My class is teaming up with the kindergarten class and it should be a lot of fun (pray that everything goes smoothly)! I'll be sure to take pictures of that as well.

Going Postal...

Things are getting down to the wire here. My summer is over in less than a week and I feel like there are about 10,000,000 things that need to get done before then. I'm probably exaggerating on the amount of things that need to get done, but it always seems like that's when everything has to get done, or planned, at the end of the summer.

Yesterday, I sent my stuff out to Chevak. Thankfully I was able to manage only sending two "personal" tubs of stuff. I was even able to fit my sewing machine in one of them, maybe that will mean I'll make more time to be "crafty". I was hoping to only send three tubs total but was pretty confident that one of them (the school supplies) was going to be over 70lbs. and what do you know? It was definitely over 80lbs. Good thing I brought an extra tub just for that reason. I would have been pretty upset if I had to get out of line and fix that little problem. My mom and I stood in line for probably about 45 minutes before we even got to the counter. SO, once we got there I started with the heaviest one first. I was able to re-situate that stuff while the postal worker dealt with my other tubs. That was a little crazy but I got everything sent (minus the backpacks, which I'll send after I collect a few more) and they should all be there by the time I get there.

Lately, I have been having a hard time falling asleep at night because I'm thinking about everything that needs to get done, or how I am going to arrange/organize my classroom, or how I'm going to hand out backpacks, the upcoming shopping trip that I need to do to get enough food to hopefully last until Christmas, and the list could go on. 

I know that everything will come together, so I try not to worry about it. I'm getting pretty excited and nervous...

*Keep Calm and Carry On* 

Hello Summer, Goodbye Summer.

It's hard to believe that summer is almost over. It seems like it was just yesterday when I was getting off the plane (sick) and getting ready for a literacy conference and now I only have 11 precious days left before I head back to Chevak for year two!  I figured it was probably about time that I get back into the blogging world. 

This summer has been a roller coaster of activities. For the first month it seemed like I wasn't even able to stop and relax. I was fortunate enough to go to a literacy conference in Anchorage where I was able to meet new people and gain A LOT of ideas/tips that I hope to use this school year. 

For the first time I went hiking at Thunderbird Falls. It was GORGEOUS and FREEZING!

 

 I had planned on walking all the way over to the waterfall but considering I only wore tennis shoes, I couldn't bare the ice cold temperatures long enough to get there. Next time, I'll wear my fancy new bogs!

I also was able to go on a week long mission trip to the village of Northway. It was my second year there and I was excited and blessed to see the kiddos from the previous year to come for Vacation Bible School. Maybe I'll be fortunate enough to go again next summer.

After that trip I seemed to be able to catch some down time. I started doing some "research" (via pinterest) and found a plethora of neat ideas to help in my classroom. Considering last year was basically the year of survival, I now thing that I'm going to be able to really define myself as a teacher. 

I also started cooking more (which is a very scary thought) there were some duds but I have a long list of things to try (thanks to pinterest) This is my Rhubard, Strawberry, Raspberry pie. I've never even attempted to make a pie before so I was pretty proud of this.

 

As my summer has been winding down, I started a school supply/backpack drive for my kiddos. I went through facebook and asked for friends and family to donate 13 backpacks for my kiddos in Chevak. I was overwhelmed with the responses. I have ALL the backpacks I need along with a TON of school supplies. I can't wait to see the looks on my kiddos faces the first day of school

It has been a good summer. I plan on spending the rest of my summer watching the summer Olympics go USA! I'll be posting soon about some of the things that I've done to get ready for my classroom. I'm a little nervous considering I'm waiting till almost the last minute to go back, but God is good and everything will get finished on time! 

My New Project

I have begun making my own Kuspuk. I am by no means a expert sewer or someone that has any patience towards it what so ever. But I decided that it's time that I learn! I haven't worked on it in a while, due to the mass amount of events and work that I have had but hopefully before I go home this summer, it'll be finished. Here is a picture of the fabric that I'm using..

Cultural Heritage Week

Last week we had cultural heritage week at our school. My kiddos got to participate in many different activities that included: NYO, Sledding, Beading, Elder Talks and a day trip. Every night after school starting on Wednesday the kids (3rd-12th) yuraq (Eskimo Dancing) for the community. I still haven't uploaded those pictures/videos yet but I will do that shortly. Below are some of the pictures from the day trip that we took on Wednesday! 

The kids were all super excited (in the beginning) to go sliding. They used their snowpants to sled down. Some of my kiddos even found blackberries (SPRING HAS ARRIVED) 

They all rolled down the hill in a race. Made for some dizzy kiddos

This little girl would run down the hill to where I was and slide into my legs. She was attempting to knock me over. Others kids joined in and they succeeded in knocking me over twice. 

More kids joining the cause to knock me over. 

Cultural Heritage week was a LOT of fun! It was great to hear the elders tell stories of when they were younger and to see how much they respected the kids and teachers here at the school. I even learned how to bead...while I am no expert, I did finish one bracelet for a friend. It'll take more practice but I have time! 

Tie-Dying in Kindergarten

Last Monday we started Tie-Dying T-Shirts in our class. It was to get us ready for Cultural Heritage week and to have something cool for them to take home. I've actually did this project with my mom's class and her friends class many times so I was excited to do it with my kiddos. Here are the pictures from our project. I only got half of the classes "final outcome" since the other class was with my partner teacher. 

I did two students at a time. THANKFULLY I had my morning helper to help me with the first half of the class! I wouldn't have been able to do it without him. He even made his own t-shirt and was really excited to wear his shirt around school last week (it was touching!) 

This is something that they were VERY unfamiliar with. They needed a lot of encouragement and help making sure their entire shirts were covered so there was no white showing. 

My friend making his shirt! 

The FINAL product! Unfortunately the green that most of the kids used (because they wanted to use Miss. Tardiff's favorite color) didn't show up. 

ALL the students wore their shirts last Wednesday (and the rest of the week) for the start off of Cultural Heritage week. The activities started off with a school wide assembly (k-12) and the students received a lot of comments about their shirts! Some of the older kids wanted to make some too! This is something we'll have to do next year too! 

NYO Tournament!

 A few weeks ago Chevak hosted an Invitational tournament for NYO (Native Youth Olympics). In highschool I had briefly heard of these events but never actually experienced them for myself. After watching many of these events I noticed not only their skill level but also their determination! Here are some photos from the event! 

This weekend many of them traveled to Russian Mission to compete at the Regional tournament! Good Luck Comets!! : )