Life Away from school, wait is that possible?

Well, getting home at 4:30 or sometimes 5 is a nice feeling and a break away from school even though I find it hard not to think about how I will do things differently in the classroom or what should I do about this, etc.

I've been feeling very exhausted and to point of being fatigued again. I felt the same way I did when I came home during my first year of teaching. So I've been taking it easy with taking Berry for walks up to Devil's Hill, up the beach, or on the airport. I'm learning how to get her to listen more. I call her once or twice and/or whistle, and then keep walking and she comes! It was neat because one night, the two new teachers and I went to the beach and saw these larger brown birds. I identified them as hawks but I read my bird book today and they weren't. They were perrigan falcons. It was a pair! It was neat to see them swooping and flying and am glad they didn't get Berry!

I had a cookout with three other teachers. That was so relaxing. I couldn't remember the last time I had burgers on the grill. Yummy! For dessert we had blueberry milk shakes! What a treat! Now I'm going to make vanilla icecream so I can make different kinds of milkshakes and even experiment with the idea of making icecream like coldstone. Maybe brownies mixed in with blueberries, or crushed up candy bars mixed in with the vanilla ice cream. I made strawberry ice cream last week and blueberry pie! Yum, yum, yum. Yes, I'm bragging about my cooking again. I get this part of me from my dad! He's an excellent cook and I miss his grilling. So eating good food and making it has been fun. I tried making pasties (stuffed pie crusts with ground beef, potatoes, onions) that look like calazones. They turned out just the way my mom's pasty did. I'm excited to make them again and freeze them so I have dinner for a week already planned. The crockpot has become my friend again. I'm making porkchops and a beef roast this week so I can have those for dinners and then I have bacon and beef pizzas for lunch this week.

I started my running yesterday and wow was it tough after 5 months! My heart and lungs hurt so bad, but it felt good in a way. My legs burned as I went up the hills too! I ran for 10 minutes then took a break for 3 and then ran another 10 minutes. The last were easier. My goal is to run every other day for 20 minutes and then do fast walking or treadmill the other days. I'm taking it really slow as I run. I'm not sure you can even call it a run, more like a jog. I slept so good after running too. Speaking of sleep, I would like to get ready for bed earlier so I have time to read before bed. This is something I have not been doing for a couple weeks. I'm currently reading a classic: Oliver Twist, Focus on the Family magazine,and a Christian politics magazine.

Look forward to telling you more about my kids, and non-school fun! Stay updated!

First Week of School

Well, I think it was the first time someone said to me, "Are you going to update your blog?" So here it is. It was a hectic week before school started and especially on Monday the day before school started. We didn't get a lot of time in our classroom but we got together as a staff and made a Koyuk school vision, goals for attendance, reading, writing, and math, established processes and procedures for attendance, tardy, homework, in school suspension, elegibility for sports, practiced technology.

On the first day of school we had a picnic down at the beach. It was gorgeous day out! I helped plan and organize this community event, which is part of my second job as Solution Team facilitator. We had a scavenger hunt planned along with, caribou, caribou, Eskimo baseball, and a water relay. I was encouraged by our principal to get as many student helpers/leaders as I could. Well, it was amazing to see how willing the students were to take leadership roles, even as young as Kindergarten and first grade. We didn't get to the scavenger hunt or Eskimo baseball because we had to wait for the food for a while (happens every year). The water relay was the hit! It wasn't my idea though. IT was neat to see older kids helping younger kids and seeing them all working together to fill the container with water from the river.

The first week was a blast! There are many things to celebrate. The kids were a joy to be around, awfully quiet though and that is something I don't remember from last year. THey helped each other a lot and me in the classroom doing little jobs, shared, took turns, caught onto the procedure really well. I think my favorite was seeing them "come alive" when we read stories together. They became so talkative! They made great observations about the pictures, had good ideas to questions. Their excitement motivated me! We start learning our sounds next week. We've been working really really hard on practicing procedures in the classroom. There are a lot that need more clarifying and some we have not covered yet; for example, how to sharpen pencils, use some of the materials and where they go.

I'm super excited to start this week in Math. I get to use a new curriculum that I got trained in this summer called Bridges in Mathematics. Last week, I let the kids explore the math manipulatives. This week is still exploring but also discovery lessons on shape attributes, graphing, sorting, counting to 100 using bugs. This whole math curriculum uses fun visuals and manipulatives like geoboards and geobands. I can't wait to see kids discover things on their own instead of me telling them like I have done in the past. The kids this year came in knowing more of their shapes and colors too!

This week is going to be even more busier: IEP meeting, VTC (video conference on Kindergarten testing), Solution Team meeting, and an extra day of school to plan for. It will be interesting. Later, I'll be staring Battle of the Books with Kindergarten students. The students and I read 5 books before January. We act them out, do simple trivia about the books such as, "In which book is there a red sock?" We have some great books like one about owls and that is all I can remember now. Then in January we have a video conference battle between other Kindergarten students about the books we read. IT shouldn't take too much time but any time I can get to plan is precious! Then testing will start in September and usually takes me 2 full days of having a sub. Then also around the same time I will be traveling to Unalakleet for a curriculum instruction meeting. We are going to be discussing in depth different pathways students can take to graduate without lowering the standards. So it should be interesting!

There is school in a nutshell!

Recent Adventures and Relaxation!

It's been great to get out fishing and boating more this year. I'm thankful for Heather and Elvina (Heather's mother-in-law) to invite me. A few weeks ago we went fishing for humpees (pink salmon). I just realized that I told you about this adventure. I also went fishing with Heather again along with her husband, Chuck and his two school age brothers. It was fun even though I didn't catch a darn thing and they got them all. Chuck was checking to see if the silver salmon have come through and we think that one of the boys got one but wasn't sure. Chuck also let me shoot this huge rifle. I can't remember what kind it was. It was also neat to hear Chuck's storytelling about how he got moose a long time ago. I kept the humpees they caught so I could take them home with me to share. Between the four of them they got about 12-15. Shaun had a smoker so we decided to smoke all the fillets since we both agreed that pinks are not good to eat baked. We both tried it and wasn't impressed. So as the pictures shows Shaun is stirring the fillets in salt and brown sugar and we let them marinate for 6 hours or so. Then he smoked them in this cute little smoker and it took him 16 hours total.

I also went boating twice to get Salmon Berries. I got just little over a gallon. They aren't as abundant as last year but am thankful I got some. I also went to pick the blossoms of fireweed to make fireweed jam.

It's been nice to take Berry for walks, now enjoy the sunshine for 4 days in a row! That is almost just as much sunshine we had in June and July. I've been getting a lot of house things done.

I looked at our schedule for next week and it's less planning time in the classroom this year so I broke down and went into the classroom today to organize cupboards, set the furniture back into the different centers. Tomorrow, I have a few more cupboards and then unloading the purchase orders, which is fun to remember what I got. I'm pretty excited for the non-fiction animal books I got for the kids. The pictures in them are amazing and the facts are neat also.

I did not want to start school. I was not ready because I was fearful of making the mistakes I made last year. I'm thankful that God has forgiven me of my mistakes, taken the guilt away, and will be faithful in helping me grow through the mistakes I will make. Of course, I want to be perfectionist. Thank goodness I don't have to be though. I'm ready now, but not for the business of leading the Solution Team, Battle of the Books, Curriculum and Instruction, plus teaching, and Bible Study. I'm trusting God to give me strength.

Lately, I've been so fatigued again. I'm thankful I don't have anemia like I thought I did because of the symptoms I had. I think all the times in the country have caught up to me. I'm so exhausted to even cook. Hopefully tomorrow, I'll feel nice and refreshed. Part of the reason why I am so tired is because Berry got sick to her stomach and was puking every ten minutes. So she had no water or food for 24 hours. Poor girl! Throughout the night, I kept hearing her cough and gag. What happened was she was chewing on a rawhide bone and she didn't chew it all the way and swallowed it. She has never done this before so I was a little surprised. Anyways, she is much better now and ate and didn't puke. Well, this will be the last posting until after school starts. Look forward to showing you pictures!

Sand in the City!

As you can see there are some gifted people who can sculpt sand. I believe these were local businesses who took a day to sculpt different things. My favorite it the elephants, toothbrush and toothpaste, sea turtle, and the girl floating on asparagus. This event was held downtown Oregon. They also had puppet shows to bring awareness to issues such as drug abuse, suicide, etc.

Also in downtown they city had these decorative water fountains with sculpted animals. You see the cubs and bear along with the deer and fauns.

I will give a reward for anyone who can identify this unique Oregon tree. Those look like potatoes don't they? Well, they were found hanging on the tree. The leave looks similar to an oak tree. I've contacted a guy from Oregon State University to help me identify it. I jokes on the award.

Now, about the math conference. It was great! It was a great review of things I already knew or forgot. I realized I've taken a role in the classroom that I don't want to do anymore. "I'm the only teacher." I think I had a lot of pride and didn't use my students to help teach me or the other students to the extent I wanted to. I also want to teach quite a bit differently in Math and hopefully in other subjects. Instead of telling the kids the concepts they need to know instead of letting them discover them on their own using manipulatives and more visuals. I learned that telling is not teaching. I'm not sure what made me get into the mindset of "I'm the boss." when I was taught in college the other way I described to you above. I also learned I'm not a risk taker in the classroom and the math curriculum is focused on letting kids take risks by explaining their thinking processes about the answer. That is also something is new to me also because in my years of school it was always focused on getting the right answer and never on the process of how I got there. My math education was also not based on using visuals and manipulatives to discover math concepts it was worksheets and memorization. This will be a very interesting to see how this math curriculum works. I'm excited to see how the kids are going to be thinking but a lot of patience is going to be needed to have me wait for them to put into words what they are thinking. I'm very thankful the District paid for everything on this trip and allowed me to go to grow in a subject that is my weakest.

I fell in love!

He is beautiful and sweet? Can you guess who he is? No, Myra, it's not any of those Koyuk guys! Did I get you thinking? It's the state of Oregon. I traveled to Portland, OR for ten days with two other teachers for a math training for a new curriculum I'm going to implement along with all the other Elementary teachers. We got there a day early so we did lots of sight seeing. We randomly found a scenic drive with lots of waterfalls! It was incredible! The thing I fell in love with the most is the huge trees that were everywhere! My favorite thing is walking through a forest or trail with large trees and the sun shining through. We took a small hike to get to one of the falls and I loved it! It felt good to sweat and get the heart a beating! I can't say that was the smartest idea because I had a pulled groin muscle before I went and that put me not walking for three days! I don't know when to stop! It still hurts today! Hope it heals in the next couple of weeks so I can start the running. That was a rather long bunny trail. Well, the first falls we went to we could climb out to the rock for a closer look. Awesome!

The other falls Corrine drove up to and Heather and I got out to take pictures and quick peak. This time reminded me of all the waterfalls my granparents visited during one of our summer trips. I sure miss those summer trips with them.

After the waterfalls we headed through the gorge and that was of course spectacular too. We bought Rainer cherries from a fruit stand and they were so darn sweet. Then we found the Fruit Loop which was a drive along tons of orchards where you could stop and get jams, jellies, preserves, homemade cookies, fresh produce. I loved the raspberries, green beans, blackberries (size of your thumb). We snacked the whole way on our Fruit Loop trip. We also got to see a pear orchard.

The mountain is Mt. Hood. We also had great views of Mt. St. Helens and Mt. Rainier.

Last Part of Alask Trip with Jess and Stephanie

Our trip ended with going to Cheena Hotsprings about 1 1/2 hour out of Fairbanks. We saw tons of moose on our way out there. I couldn't believe Steph and Jess's reaction when they spotted one. "Oh my gosh, oh my, oh my, turn back, there's a moose." Now imagine Jessica saying this and hyperventilating! It was so funny! We saw two moose eating and splashing in a small pound. That was unique to see. The hotsprings were so relaxing and HOT! I think it was 106 degrees and of course we picked the hottest day to go! (86 degees). I couldn't only stay in for about 10-15 minutes before I had to get out and cool off. We all thought we would stay most of the afternoon but it was too hot. It was nice that the hot springs had a sprinkler of cold water on one side along with a waterfall that gave nice back massages. We got dinner at the restaurant there and headed back to Fairbanks.

I'm not sure which day, but we also went to a Salmon Bake outside. It was great music, wine, All You Can Eat Salad Bar, Prime Rib, Salmon, Cod, and deep fried Halibut, cakes. It was so relaxing. After dinner we walked around the area because it was like a little park. Jess and Stephanie saw this huge fish and the were determined to climb up and get some pictures. Well, Jess went first and that was a hilarious scene. As she was swinging her legs up out came a little squeak. Yup, you guessed it she farted. Steph started taking video with her camera immediately because Jess couldn't stop laughing. That isn't it...she had a hard time getting off of the fish so she just fell off. She skinned up her leg pretty well all the while she was laughing and couldn't stop. I walked away pretending she wasn't my sister. I have never seen my sister laugh this hard. We do have pictures of this and some others in the Salmon Bake park but Steph took all the pictures that night.

Overall, this was a memorable trip. If any of you would like to come visit please do. I don't have plans for next summer yet. I know the saying, "I've always wanted to go to Alaska." Well, stop talking and start saving and join me in this beautiful state.

Alaska Trip Part IV with Jess and Stephanie

After our Discovery Boat Tour and making purchases at the gift shop, we headed two hours towards Denali National Park. We were not too sure of our cabin we rented for $88 that did not have a bathroom or running water. We got there and wow was it the cutest little cabin you ever saw! We took pictures but you don't get to see those. As you can see there were mountains everywhere around us. Jess and Steph found this flight seeing tour of Mt. McKinley. We signed up an hour before we had to be there. It said it was on Talkeetna Street so we looked at it and it wasn't even in Denali. It was in Talkeetna. I told Stephanie to make sure she asked where this was but she didn't listen to me. :) So we cancelled that one and found some dinner: fish and chips and the owner and Jess got to talking and she found a place for us and called them for us. So we ate and off we went to see Mt. McKinley. It was a beautiful night: clear and sunny and we saw Mt. McKinley! It was amazing how huge it was. As you can see in the picture there are two peaks to the mountain which are two miles apart from each other and have a glacier running in between. I got a little sick and glad we landed soon. We saw dall sheep, a beaver lodge, and a the glacier you see in the picture among other ones. Steph and Jess were sure excited about going in a "little" plane. I go in these all the time so it wasn't much of a thrill but I enjoyed the scenery. Our pilot comes to my village Koyuk every year for Iditarod. He helps fly the dogs if the musher scratches and also transports the food.

The next morning we had our rafting trip down the Nenana River. There was confusion with the company weather or not we were driving or they were picking us up. I thought I asked for pick up. So they were pretty late. We had friendly truck driver and guides. We signed up for the all day tour. I was so excited to do some physical exercise like rowing but was disappointed when our guide did all the work and also felt guilty that I was just sitting there and not doing a thing to help. It was beautiful. The color of the water was a sea green and our said she has never seen the river this color. I learned there are 100 glaciers that feed into the Nenana River and the temperature of the water gets between 35-40 degrees so of course we wore these styling wet suits that were sooo comfortable. We had amazing warm and sunny weather. We saw a moose and two twins with her. That was really neat! Jess and I had rafted before in the New River is West Virgina so we were waiting and waiting for class 4 or 5 waves. Finally, we got to the last part of the trip that had the waves we were told were amazing. As many of you know I have a fear of deep, wavy water but that is only when I'm in the water like snorkeling in Great Barrier Reef, Australia or Noah's Ark. So I was ready for the challenge of hanging on but not falling out. Well, Jess and I were very disappointed because it didn't make us even a little nervous. So I would have to say the New River rapids were better and the scenery was better at the Nenana. Do I dare tell you the story of Jessica and Steph getting out and swimming and then the guide couldn't get them in? It was pretty funny to both of them as they are laughing so hard as the guide is trying to get them in before we hit a sandbar full of rocks. Our guide was getting nervous but not the girls! It was a fun day! Sorry there are not any digital pictures of this adventure except for the waterproof camera photos that I hope Jess is developing soon!