Halloween at School!

Halloween on Friday.....we decorated crackers with peanut butter and used chocolate chips to make triangles for math, sounded out Halloween words, and had a Halloween party! I got out a lot of the dramatic play clothes and let the kids dress up in different costumes and we turned out the lights, put our orange Halloween lights on and lit up the Jack-o-Lantern (with a nice kid safe light I was given) and ate a bunch of junk that students brought in! At least our crackers had peanut butter on them....some protein at least! Short day on Friday- the kids then went to lunch and headed home, and I went around town and finished going to houses for Parent-Teacher Conferences. I then handed out candy at John's house, so we could guess who kids were together. Around Elim, the tradition is that kids dress up with masks, and you have to guess who they are when they come to your door! Some kids are very tricky..... wearing different clothes and shoes, etc than normal. I didn't see too many big kids out this year- but the little ones sure were cute! I then headed up to the school for the Community Costume Contest.

Out walking

Yesterday I went out walking with Mark and Sadie- out to tank farm, and then through the woods on a different little trail. We saw a ptarmigan and rabbit, fox tracks, and bear tracks. We followed the bear tracks for awhile- not very large. They came fairly close to town though, even crossing tank farm road. I also tried a juniper berry....yep- tastes just like a pine tree....can see why gin tastes like pine needles.

Measuring!

Here are some pictures of my kids starting to measure. They used unifix cubes to measure things in the classroom, then they had to count up how many they needed to use, and record that number on a piece of paper.

Mealworms!

Thanks Christopher! We got our mealworms, and the kids have been enjoying them......they have no idea what they are going to turn into, but they love to watch them. A few have died already, but there are a few still kicking. Unfortunately I can't get our lizard to eat any of them, and he is starving.....

Fluff

I don't know why I like these plants so much, I guess I like the way the leaves curl. Anyways, gives me something to practice on, taking my close-up shots. I thought a few of these turned out pretty good.

First Snow!

Well, we got our first snow this last week, and I finally went for a walk today with my camera to get some pictures of it. I took Sadie, and we went for a hike before I headed back to school for tutoring. I am still enjoying playing with the light and figuring out how to take close-up pictures with my camera...The first pictures, of the sun over the sea ice, I took today over my lunch break.

Unalakleet!

On Tuesday, almost our entire staff headed down to Unalakleet to join all the other principals, teachers, cooks, aides, and maintenance people from our school district for a district-wide conference. With 15 different sites in our district, this added up to a lot of people- mostly staying at the school- sleeping on air mattresses n the classroom floors. I went to a session on Bridges to Math- a hands-on math curriculum. It was taught by a teacher I know and was really good- I am excited to use the lessons in my own classroom. I also had a chance to visit a lot of other teachers from other schools, which is always nice. I stayed up late every night visiting with people, and never got more than 5 hours of sleep, so I was exhausted when I got home last night. We were one of the last groups to fly out, but we don't have too far to go, so it didn't take us long to get home. I ended up falling asleep on the plane, but did see a lot of the ice forming on the ocean. Unalakleet had a few inches of snow while we were there- and I even saw a couple kids out skiing-- got me excited to go! There were a couple inches on the ground when we got back home, but there isn't enough for skis yet....soon though.
Most of the pictures I am posting are from the first day I was in Unalakleet, when I took a walk down the beach. We arrived in the morning, when the sun wasn't fully up, and I liked the mist rising on the ocean. Mark brought Sadie along, and Mary, Mark, Sadie and I took another walk down the beach just a little bit later. Sadie decided she wanted to chase Seaguls in that freezing water...brrr....
I caught up on sleep today, and now I need to start working on getting caught up on everything else....I never feel like I am completely caught up with school... But, I finished my classes for my Masters last week- now I have just 2 more quarters left. I can't wait to be done.