Five for Friday Link Up/ "Last Friday Night"

It's official people... I'm addicted to blogging.  I mean I think I've always been a little bit obsessed with reading other teacher blogs, but now I've discovered the possibilities of linking up to other teachers and the addiction has taken over.

But seriously people I'm linking up to doodlebugsteaching Five for Friday Linky Party for the first time, so I hope I'm doing this correctly.  I've seen other teachers post freebies on their Five for Friday, but I've yet to do make freebies worthy of posting. One of my teaching goals for next year is to get better at making my teaching creations worthy of TPT. :)

Alright now for the Five For Friday part of my post.... I tried to make them more about fun than frustrations and fears.

1.   Fun:  This week my third graders showed me how grown up they've become since they showed up in my classroom so many months ago.  When I first got these kiddos they didn't know how to "help a friend" without taking a pencil and giving answers.  Now I've got a group of teachers all about helping one another...  I couldn't help but take pictures of how cute they are when they're being "teachers".

 

2.  Fear:  I literally have put off cleaning and packing for my big move back home to Indiana.  I will do one priority box at a time and then stop because I'm so tired.  (I'll write more about that later.)  Here's what my poor classroom looks like...

Yes, I'm one of those barefoot teachers.  ;)

3.  Frustration:  Behavior.  Dear goodness!  Behavior is probably the biggest problem most 1-2 year teachers have anywhere, but it's REALLY hard out here in rural Alaska.  I use every trick in the book, all the time!  My class is much better than they were at the beginning of the year with getting along with one another and working independently, but we've definitely hit the post Spring Break slump.  I guess that this weekend will have to be spent reinventing the behavior wheel. *Big Teacher Sigh*

4.  Fun:  My class loves reading.  *VICTORY DANCE*  I have a range of Pre-K to 3rd grade readers in my classroom, but every single one of them begs me for more independent reading time EVERY day.

• "Please please please Miss Wilson, just 5 more minutes for DEAR time."  
• "This is a really good AR book!"
• Turns to another student, "Want to read this one with me?"  

We read to our Preschool buddies yesterday!

5.   Fun:  This weekend one my teaching friends out here is coming to visit me and Mr. B in our village.  That's a big deal since he has to take 2 little planes just to visit us for one day.  But, such is the life out here.  The plan is for him to fly from his village, to Bethel, then take another little plane to a neighboring village to see other guys from "The Crew" (my guy friends out here), on Saturday he will snowmachine back to Atmautluak with our NYO team and Mr. B.  After that we'll give him the tour of the village (aka: a trip to the two stores) and then cook dinner and watch a movie.  Then feed him breakfast in the morning before  putting him back on the plane.  Whew, I'm tired just thinking about it and I'm not even the one traveling.  I don't know how he'll do it!  I'll be posting pictures of the weekend if you're interested.

OOOPS. I had to include one more for the cute factor!

6.  Fun:  We have something here that kids with good behavior and perfect attendance get to do.  It's called "Open Gym Thursday".  The kids K-12 who have come to school on time and had good behavior through the week get to come in after school has let out and play in the gym.  Take a look at how cute this kindergartener is!

It's hard to take an action shot and this was cuter in person!

Ok, my post was all over the place!  But, in the words of all 90s kids everywhere, "TGIF!"

*Side note*:  I try to use song lyrics as my post titles, so excuse the strange title in your dashboard. ;)

Better Together... and my first CURRENTLY

So I'm super excited to do this for the first time... feel like a real teacher blogger by linking up to others.



Right now I'm enjoying the last full day of my spring break.  Here in rural Alaska we don't get a whole week off for Spring Break.  It's really a long weekend with Friday and Monday off.  Thankfully that was enough for me to catch up on much needed sleep and cleaning.  I'm rediscovering music from high school and college.  Where has all the good music gone??  And I'm getting ready to move back to Indiana.  Yes.  This 2nd year teacher has decided to make the transition from Alaskan adventurer back to Hoosier lady.  Hence the cleaning, packing and fountain diet coke reference.

My like, love, and hate are as follows:
LIKE:  I like donuts... especially Long's Bakery (local Indy bakery I've been craving.)
LOVE:  I love to dance... especially in parking lots with my sweetheart.  Gotta love romantic gestures.
HATE:  I hate degrading words... The R-word, N-word, B-word... you name it.  If it's meant to hurt someone instead of build them up, I probably hate it.

Alright *whew*  there's my first "Currently" post.  Thanks to the teacher blogger Farley for creating something so cool! 

Wave your hands in the air if you feel fine, we're gonna take it into overtime. Welcome to the Space Jam!

These past few weekends have been quite busy!!!  Such is the life when you become one of the two chaperones for the school.  If I haven't already explained in past blog posts, part of living out here is that you are enlisted in helping run events that are hosted at your school or you travel to various villages/towns/cities in order for students to compete in sports.

Two weekends ago I went to a neighboring village, and cheered on the Lady Falcons to 1st place during the girls  regionals basketball tournament.   The picture above is our winning picture, complete with qaspeqs (cultural clothing item).   The weekend before that our school hosted the boys tournament which our Fella' Falcons pulled out their own 1st place!

We're part of the Kusko-Delta League, which means we play other 1A tundra villages.  Those teams who play well enough within their own leagues get the chance to compete at the district tournament in Bethel. That tournament is a whole different experience!  Due to the remote location of these villages, athletes and other after-school activity participants must travel various places to compete or go to conferences.  And when I say travel I mean they fly places, stay over night laying on classroom floors, in sleeping bags, and then fly back.  Imagine sleep away camp every other weekend as an athlete and chaperone!  You can guess how exciting and exhausting it can be.  Back to the story of the weekend.  On Wednesday afternoon the boys and girls coaches, athletes, and myself all bundled up and took our gear to the airstrip and flew into Bethel for a 4 day weekend.  Flying with the teams is actually half of the fun of the whole trip.  Little planes are actually more fun and relaxing to me than big planes now.

Wednesday night was mainly getting settled into a person's classroom for the next few days.  We made the "absolutely necessary" trip to the nearest store to stock up on junk food, pop, chips, and energy drinks.  (HEALTHY!  I know!)  Then it was time to practice and get ready for the games on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.    One of the great thing about living out here is the friendships you make with other teachers.  The girls coach, Pat, for that team has become one of my closest friends out here.  Most of the weekend was spent with his team or my girls.  We did lots of hair braiding, magazine gazing, a massive amount teeny amount of grading, and a lot of hanging out.  The hair style picture to your right, is just a taste of the hairstyles we managed to try out during the weekend.



I took this picture before their first big game.  A parent had made each of the girls and me a headband in support of the team.  I must say the headbands are quite the fashion statement out here.  Just look at how awesome we all look?

The girls team lost their first and second games which put us out of the running for placing in the tournament.  It was kind of a bummer, because there are two senior girls on the team who'd been hoping to take it all the way to state, but we managed to have fun the rest of the weekend.  Our boys team lost their first game, but pulled out a win during their second.  That allowed them to play on Championship Day and an unexpected win put them at 5th place. The final teams (Chefornak girls vs. Kipnuk girls/ Tooksook Bay boys vs. Chefornak boys) played in the last two games on Saturday both games were very very exciting to watch... and more so exciting to see the all the villages max out the capacity of the gym to watch the games.  People were watching the games on the bleachers, on stairs, against walls, and even some on the floor of the gym.  The sounds were deafening in the gym and school spirit reigned supreme.  Yours truly even lost her voice by the end of the weekend.  The district winners were the Chefornak girls and the Tooksook Bay boys!  They'll competing in the state finals.  Here is a news article with pictures of the big games!

Saturday night, following the excitement of the games, there was a high school dance for the boys and girls basketball players.  From 11PM -1:30AM the school was "bumping" and I was dancing the night away with a few other chaperones and my players.  Chaperones are actually encouraged to go out and dance, because the kids are less embarrassed to dance if their teachers are already out there making a fool of him or herself.  I wish I had pictures of the chaos and fun that was had, but you'll just have to trust me when I say it was a blast.The next morning was spent overhauling the classroom and making it look the way we found it.  We packed our things and spent 3 hours at the airport waiting on the 4 planes for all of our players and coaches. 

These kinds of weekends are the experiences that I will never forget. No other place I know has adventures like this on a regular basis.  No other elementary teachers spend their weekeends getting their hair done by high school ball players or sleeping on the ground with them.  I truly am blessed to have had this opportunity. 

What's Love Got to Do With It?

Happy post Valentine's weekend.  Hopefully all of you are enjoying your continuous sugar high and love endorphines.  I had a great Valentine's day with my kiddos.  I even got this adorable card from another teacher's child.  :)  Made my heart smile!





Valentine's Day was quite a fun day.  I scoured the internet and found several awesome activities for our math time.  I ended up making a packet with two partner games and a final sheet with multiplication coloring.  The kids were well behaved, played well with their partners, and for the most part completed the activities.


After that we accomplished a major feat.  My class of 3rd graders completed a chapter book as a class!  Wooooo!!!!   That's a huge deal for my group of kiddos.  We read The Valentine Star, a chapter book that went with the Valentine's day theme.  We started reading as a class on Monday and finished as a class yesterday.  They were so proud of themselves and I was too!

After lunch it was PARTY TIME.  In the village the entire school roams the halls and passes out cards all day long.  It's important to remember that these kids are very related to the other kids in different grades.  Many cousins, siblings, etc.  So during writing time we finished handmaking cards and making our valentine's book.  My book is the most full... probably because I'm an awesome teacher. ;)
 
Then we made a silly valentine craft, and then began passing out the candy.  All I can say is thank goodness for Charlie Brown movies!  After the kids left it was time to get the annual Valentine's Day picture with Mr. B.  Thank goodness for good friends who like to dress up like me. :)

Don't Break My Heart... My Achy Breaky Heart

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Happy almost Valentine’s Day...

It’s a popular legend that there are 2 types of Valentine’s Day people.  There’s the sappy people who get all worked up about the holiday and then there’s the anti-Valentine’s Day people who get worked up about the day but not in a good way.  This year I find myself in the in-between party.  I am all about holidays, duh… that’s half the reason I’m an elementary teacher!  But I’m also an elementary teacher who’s significant other is practically a million miles away.  So instead of focusing on the distance I’ve decided to get more focused on the classroom. 

Since I got back from break I started a few new things in my classroom that seem to be working quite well.  There’s been a new seating plan, post lunch work, and a focus on writing. 

The beginning was a new seating plan.  Something about my new seating arrangement has made things a little bit nicer when it comes to students getting along.  I know we’re supposed to be all about groups and working together, but who says partners can’t be a good alternative.  Also I’ve noticed the pairs I created have, for the most part become quite symbiotic.  I love when the academic decisions help making things socially 10x better!

Post lunch work came next.  All last semester I was struggling getting my kids back to focusing on working once they’d gotten all riled up at lunch.  Our school doesn’t have the equipment, space, or resources to have an outdoor playground so students finish their lunch and run around the gym.  Poor dears need a lot more time and space to get out that energy, but I don’t have the funds lying around to help them build anything.  Instead I put my money into creating a grammar folder.  Grammar Minutes are a great way to do a quick lesson on the parts of speech, proper sentence structure, etc. and still have them back on track for writing.  The kids took less than a week to get into the grove of getting their folders out and ready to work on the next 2 “Minutes” (We spend 10 to complete them. :/ )

Finally, one of my goals this year was to help my kids become better writers.  If you’ve been reading my blog for a while you will know that my students are all ELL students and are struggling readers and writers.  But, that does not mean they can’t learn to become excellent readers and writers.  Here’s where the focus on writing comes into play.  I wanted my kids to get excited about writing, but felt miserable trying to teach it.  Thankfully I have a wonderful mentor that took the time to teach my class a lesson on creative writing.  I don’t know exactly what she did to get the kids SOOO motivated to write their little hearts out but she got several of my kiddos who wouldn’t even normally pick up their pencils to write a 4-sentence story about a snowman!  

 

Below are pictures of a pretty amazing fish that some how ended up in my classroom. My class wrote 2 whole papers about the fish. One was an expository prompt and the other was more creative.  I've never seen kids pencils move so much during writing time!

Babe You're Not Lost

The little things:
I can't tell you how good it felt to put  my feet on the ground in Indiana. Or how exciting it is to be able to hug my best friend instead of listening to her voice during her night shift because I'm living in a timezone 4hrs behind hers.  I also can't truly explain the butterflies that took flight in my stomach when I realized I would be seeing Nate for the first time in 5 months.

It's about a 23 hour trip altogether I believe and I did that with only 45 mins of napping to get home, but it was worth it.

I was picked up by my best friend at the airport, complete with squealing and hugging.  We drove into Indianapolis for a quick bite and a stop at the hair salon where Miss Wilson got a much needed and overdue new hair-do.

Now, it must be said we were on a time crunch because one of my Christmas presents was surprising my boyfriend with a 60 min professional massage on a Sunday when most places are closing early.  After my hair cut, Shelly and I rushed to get me changed and ready to meet Nate at Monument Circle, a place with lots of meaning to our relationship.  We managed to get there with perfect timing and my best friend took these truly sweet pictures.  So many people have told me they look more "professional" and "very engagmenty".  Thank goodness for iPhone technology and an awesome best friend with amazing photo reflexes.  It'll also helps I have such a cute boyfriend.  I'm so lucky...

Break was spent mostly with spending time with friends and family.  There was presents, traveling, and a great deal of hanging out with people I have truly missed.  Sometimes I forget how wonderful life can be, but I think that's what holiday breaks are for. 

Oh You Better Watch Out....

Something I've learned to do much better than last year?  Roll with the punches.  Or better yet go with the flow.  Not only is this week the last week of school before Christmas break... but we've had a death of an elder recently, many absences, and changes to the school day schedule.

My kids giggled at me because I had a bit of flour on my nose when we were rolling out our cookies.

Our Christmas plans were as follows...

Wednesday:  Gift Exchange and Cookies
On Wednesday a half hour before school ended Miss Wilson hustled back to her house (which happens to be less than 30 yards away) and brought over gingerbread cookie mix, cookie cutters, and boxes of presents.  When my class began to realize we were doing something out of the ordinary their eyes lit up.  We cut out gingerbread men, stars, hearts, and even reindeer.  After that we read How the Grinch Stole Christmas and they played Grinchical Chairs, an idea I got from Pinterest.  They then got open presents that were donated to my classroom by amazing family friends.


Thursday:  Polar Express Day
Thursday was supposed to be a crazy day anyway, because our school was putting on a Christmas program.  Unfortunately there was an elder who passed away recently, causing our school to get out early for the funeral which changed my Friday plans of having an all day Polar Express party.  So, Miss Wilson pulled on her big girl pants and got over the frustration of changing plans.  My class got to watch the Polar Express, drink hot cocoa, and eat the gingerbread cookies we made from the day before.

Friday:  Christmas Program

Today, was a crazy and fun day that reaffirms why I am a teacher.  I stopped all the students in the hallway and told them I'd gotten tickets in the mail for the Polar Express.  They had to write their names and dates, and then MOST IMPORTANTLY put the ticket in their right hand pocket of their coats.  Then the day went by with the finishing up our Polar Express movie, learning about new holidays such as Kwanza, Hannakuh, and New Years thanks to Brainpop Jr.  Between all of this we put on our Christmas play, which was a readers' theater of the Snowmen at Christmas  We went to lunch and Santa came in and traded out our tickets for bells for "those who truly believe".  I am not sure who created the tickets and tags, but I'm sure I found them on Pinterest somewhere.

Home FREE
 It's officially the end of the semester and the year for me.  See you all sometime over break with an update on how my Indiana Christmas goes.