Alaskan Adventures with Sammy Jo: Three weeks of fun!

Whoa. So the last post was the day after our last open gym... We had another one yesterday, but the past 3 weeks have been full of so many other fun adventures, I'm not even sure where to start...

The week of September 16th our cross country coaches, Holly and Nathaniel, hosted an informal race for our elementary students who had been practicing. Our district has cut all travel for elementary sports (don't even get me started on that...) but they wanted our students to get to compete too. So, after work and a walk to the PO, I went out to the deck and watched the munchkins run.

The following weekend I travelled to KSM to visit some friends and enjoy a pig roast BBQ. It was great to hang out and catch up with the crew after the summer. The following week was a short week at school. Thursday and Friday were inservice days. The first two years I worked here, everyone travelled to either Hooper Bay or Mountain Village for two days of training. This year, for what I assume to be budget issues, teachers were given the choice to stay at their home sites and participate in various meetings and training via video teleconferencing or to travel to Kotlik (middle and high school teachers) for district wide write grading or to travel to Pilot Station (elementary teachers) to participate in Elementary CM. Since I've done so much work with elem CM this summer and attended the training in Portland in July, I went to Pilot Station to train 22 elementary teachers in how to use this to support our English Language Learners.

It was a fabulous 2 days of training. I met some new (and VERY entertaining) friends. We shared the CM love. We ended up getting weathered in for an extra night in Pilot Station. Despite my many phone calls and texts to my pilot friend Mike, there wasn't anything he could do to get us home Friday night. The cross winds were high that night. However, because Mike is so awesome, he got us home first flight Saturday morning. Our bush order had also come in while I was gone and my friends put everything away for me. Thanks Becca and Holly!! :)

When I finally got home, I whipped up a batch of clam chowder and took a long nap to catch up from sleeping on a classroom floor for 3 nights. Sunday, rather than being responsible and going to my classroom to catch up on grading, organizing, and preparing for the week, I went out on a boat ride with Greg and Aggie to pick up Robyn's moose.

Last week flew by. It was a great week despite my lack of prior planning. Lessons went smoothly, mornings were early and nights were late, but Sammy Jo didn't go crazy on anyone or fall asleep while teaching. :) Friday was perhaps the BEST early out inservice day I have ever had. Our staff ordered moosestache shirts in response to Russian Mission's tuxedo shirts on the first early out. It was a hit. Teachers and admin were smiling and laughing at our ridiculous antics via VTC. Made the meeting go by quicker and staff morale was much higher. Looking forward to seeing what each site comes up with over the course of the year! :)

Yesterday we had our second brave buck open gym. It was a different turn out this time. The first open gym was a good mix of K-12 students. However, this time there were more elementary students and hardly any high schoolers. It was fun just the same. :)

After open gym, Theresa and I created an awesome, culturally sensitive mural for our fall reading race. One good thing that came out of being weathered in at Pilot, was a good discussion about how to change our "fall into reading" race (with maple leaves) into a more culturally sensitive plan. We decided to do "Spear a Good Book" and create a mural of a seal hunting scene. It took us more than 2 hours, and despite our lack of artistic ability, I must admit, I'm pretty proud of the finished project. I also had a conversation with my administrator and it made me feel much better about my abilities as a teacher.

Today consists of grading, blogging, planning and prepping for this week, catching up on homework, and baking bread. :)

xo,
SJ