Ready for Winter

Last week during the BSSD inservice, the city took advantage of my empty classroom and worked to weatherize it.  A company came in with an infrared camera and took pictures of the windows, doors, and places in the ceiling that were losing large amounts of heat/letting in cold air.  While the room was empty the city worked on the windows, heaters, and other areas of the classroom to try to help it retain heat this year.  I guess we will find out if it worked in January.

Sunlight coloring the tundra.

Sun coming over the horizon around 9:15am on Sunday, October 2.

Nathan in his parka.

My new parka and boots.  The boots are rated -100 degrees Fahrenheit.  Nathan's boots (to the left) are the same as mine only HUGE.  We are now ready for winter temperatures.

We enrolled a new student on Monday morning.  So we now have 18 students enrolled in our 2nd Year class (4 year olds) and 13 enrolled in our 1st Year class (3's).  This week we had 16 of the 18 students everyday which is pretty good.

Circle Time on September 7.

Axel helping Kyra "pack" the bear.  Women in the village will carry their babies on their backs inside their jackets.  This way the child stays warm and is secured.  Regina is on the right.

On the left is Daiza, Logan and Kyra are in the front.  Regina is behind Logan and Leandra is in the back.  The kids love having their picture taken.  We have a classroom camera and sometimes I will bring my camera.  Whenever they see or hear the camera flash they come over and say, "Me see."  I printed off many pictures this week and hung them on the board in Dramatic Play (our unit was Fun With Friends).  They really enjoyed looking at themselves and talking about what they are doing in the pictures.

The season change is affecting everyone.  Teachers, including myself, find our beds very comfortable, maybe too comfortable in the mornings when we need to get up to go to school.  My students often remark about how dark it is in the mornings.  "The sun go down" is a common phrase I get in the mornings when the kids arrive at 9am.  They will look out the windows into the darkness.  I ask them, "Do you think the sun will come out today?"  Some of them say, "no" and I tell them to wait and see.  Pretty soon the wait will be a while.  We still have another month of Daylight Savings Time which seems ridiculous up here.  

If tomorrow is dry, I plan to head out on the tundra with Nathan and a few containers to pick black berries.  Unlike the blackberries back home (ex. marionberries, boysenberries, etc), these black berries are black, round berries (kind of like blueberries).  Cranberries will be ready soon.  Unlike most berries, cranberries stay on the bush and will freeze when the snow comes.  Cranberries can be picked throughout the winter as long as you are able to dig down through the snow to find them.  With our new boots and parkas, Nathan and I are ready to be out in the winter months instead of being stuck inside.