Preparations

Monday:
Monday I helped the Kawerak staff move their boxes and materials from the IRA (Tribal) Building to the old school where we are going to be this year.  By the time our work day ended we had all the boxes moved in and stacked in organized piles.
I am beginning to get myself on a teacher schedule.  I am trying to be in bed by 10pm so I can get up at 7am.  This is not how time works in Alaska.  We were on the Alaska schedule the first week that we were here.  We stayed up until midnight when it starts getting dark, or as long as we could, and then slept until 9am or later.  On Friday we stayed up until 1am and I didn't start my day until 2pm.  Having to get up in the morning to go to work is helping me get on the right schedule.

Tuesday;
Tuesday was another teacher work day and I spent my time at the old school helping unpack.  I met Flora and Trevor,  the Head Start teachers I will be working with.  I also me Nora, the third teacher with the 3 year-olds.  Flora helped us get organized and worked with me to draw a floor plan for the room.  We marked out where the different stations or labs will be in the room.  After that we started setting up the room.  We used the shelves to form dividers between the different areas, then we began unpacking boxes directly into the specific areas.
After lunch I walked over to the big school and talked to Carolyn about phone service and my district paperwork.  I completed my forms and gave them to the Special Ed teachers to take with them to Unalakleet.  Mail can take three weeks so anything important should be hand-delivered to where it needs to go, if possible.
When I returned to the old school, Flora and I began setting up stations with materials for the first week of school.  At the end of the day, we had our curriculum cabinets set up and we began organizing our curriculum and separating it into the different weeks.  By the time we left for the day the room was looking like a classroom and we just had a few curriculum boxes left to unpack.
After dinner, Ellen and I made brownies!  Yum.  With lots of chocolate chips!

Wednesday:
Wednesday involved going through my new curriculum kits and sorting the materials into the various units and then labeling the materials.  This took us the whole morning.  After lunch I met with Jill, kindergarten teacher, and she took me to the big school to look at her room, schedules, etc.  Today has been foggy--low, soupy clouds that hang on the hills.  When Jill was taking me back to the old school on her Honda, I looked at the hills by North Beach and thought to myself There could be a bear right over those hills.  It could just walk into town as it eats berries.
The rest of the afternoon I went through the materials that Cody, my predecessor, ordered before he went home.  There were a lot of different charts that will be very helpful in the classroom.  I went through each chart packet and punched out the pieces that go with each one, then I put all the pieces back in the bag.  When Alma was about to leave, she came over to say good night and to mention that there was a bear in town....who called it!  Yep, there was a bear at the dump.  So I grabbed my backpack, coat, and camera and.....finished what I was doing at work and went home.  It's stupid to go after a bear!  :)

Thursday
Thursday dawned bright and clear.  Visibility on a clear day here in St. Michael is amazing.  There is no smog at all.  I can look across St. Michael Bay and see the mountains behind the mountains.  With the sun comes the wind.  While the temperature on Thursday was above 60 degrees (a nice summer day!) the east wind was blowing at 15-20 mph.  The wind whips around our house and makes the stove whistle and makes a jacket necessary when walking outside.
In the classroom Flora and I began hanging up our decorations and charts and removed the extra materials from our room.  It is really beginning to look like a classroom...actually it looks like a classroom now.  There are just a few more boxes and materials present than there will be when school starts.  At the moment I am expecting 16 to 18 four-year-olds.  We start school on Wednesday,August 31.  The big school starts on Monday, August 22.  Flora created posters with the Yup'ik alphabet and the numbers, days of the week, months and colors in Yup'ik also.  I am really excited to be able to incorporate the native language into the classroom.  It is important to Flora and I believe it is important for the students.  I am beginning to learn a few words.  I had Flora pronounce them for me.  There "r" sound is the same as the French "r" sound so I already had that right.  Now I have to learn the rest of the sounds.
While we were working in the classroom Trevor came up and asked me if I'd seen the reindeer.  I said I hadn't and he took me outside and pointed them out.  There was a large herd on a peninsula that juts out into the bay.  They were cooling off on the rocks where the waves were crashing.  They were far away so I couldn't distinguish the individual animals, but I could see them moving.

Friday
Kawerak building (the old school) we continued setting up our classroom.  We began organizing the little details like putting names on the cubbies, hanging posters, putting names on toothbrushes, labeling cots, etc.  We just have a few lesson planning things to do before the kids come on the 31st.
It was another completely gorgeous day today!  The sun was bright and warm, the clouds were white, fluffy and in the distance,  the temperature is climbing toward 70 degrees, and the wind is blowing, whistling, and howling away.  It was windier today than yesterday at 20-30 mph.  The heavy front door to our house gets caught by the wind and stays open when we leave or come inside. We have to pull (hard) to close it.  While the wind might bother some people, it is keeping all the bugs away.  Gnat and mosquitoes are the big pests around here that we need to watch out for.  So far we haven't experienced them yet.  The wind and the rain has kept them away.
Tomorrow begins with a Staff Meeting and then I have a pile of papers to laminate for my classroom.  I worked longer today so I could take it easier tomorrow.  The rest of the day I will be going over the teachers manual for Curiosity Corner, the preschool curriculum I will be teaching.
Sunday is the start of the next adventure.