Wednesday Already?

It is a little hard to believe the calendar. We keep pretty busy, and that is a nice way to make the day flow quickly. The last two have. My cold seems to be manageable, although I am definitely ready for sleep at the end of the day. We have another week after this one, and then the kids have a week off while we go for four days of inservice after Labor Day. It is a little bit of a headscratcher, but it does coincide nicely with the moose season opener on September 1. The district grants students a number of excused days off for traditional activities, which focus a lot around subsistence activities. A moose provides a lot of food for a family over the long winter. This makes it so that our boys miss fewer actual school days during the hunt. I don't know whether or not that was the idea behind this scheduling.

There is not a lot of other news to share at this point. The kids have been pretty accommodating for the most part, although that may be due in part to the grace period that seems to be in effect at the beginning of the year. This bunch is a pretty good one overall. So it might just be that they have learned how to conduct themselves with a little bit of maturity. Of course, it could also be that I expect a lot out of them...

The Easy Stuff Is Over...

We are into the second week of school, and the "easing into it" period is over. We are striving for rigor and relevance now. The kiddies are in Yup'ik class right now and seem reasonably alert. Not bad for a Monday. We shall see how that lasts. I have reasonable hopes that it will last with this year's group.

I have some mild cold symptoms that started sneaking into town last night. I don't feel too bad this morning, and I hope that it will stay that way. All things considered, this is a morning of hope. The afternoon will bring the answer to my question.

Second Day

Another one in the line of succession...some are bright-eyed, and some might be bushy-tailed, but most of them are here, and there are about 8 1/2 minutes to go until things roll off for the morning.

I am not sure how I feel about the schedule for this year, but there you have it. I don't really get the junior high kids until 11:00 am, and then we are stuck together for the rest of the day. It got to 77 degrees in Bethel yesterday at one point, and it was pretty stifling in this room, even though we had the window open. The clock doesn't work correctly, and has picked up about five minutes since yesterday.

One of my kids got held over from last year, and he isn't too happy about it. He spent yesterday orbiting around the lobby. He just walked in. I wonder how this is going to work...

When we are full up, we have 21 kids shoehorned into this space. It looks as if we are close to a full house today. Time will tell...

First Day of School

My feet hurt, and I was ready for a nap at lunchtime.  On the other hand, I have some pretty good kids this year, and I think that they will be a fun group as a whole. It is really easy to forget over the summer how physical this job is. I will be reminded for the first week. I was happy to see the shining little faces this morning at the front door, and it was fun to watch the "little" kids coming up from sixth grade to seventh walk into the room.

Right now, I want to go home and change into something cooler and put my feet up. Time to rest up for tomorrow.

Sunny!

We were implored a number of times throughout the summer to bring some sunshine back with us upon our return to the village. I am proud to be able to report that we have finally succeeded. We were able to get it as far as Anchorage on Sunday, but the effort of dragging something as large and unwieldy as the sun across the Alaska Range apparently takes more effort than we realized. The fog has burned off (sort of) and the sun is shining (sort of). Sometimes that is the best that you can ask for in these parts.

I am focusing on getting house and classroom in some sort of functioning order before school begins next Tuesday. We have a work day on Monday, but I suspect that I will be focusing on lesson planning for the week. The actual physical arrangement of things will need to take place sooner. Of course, I could step away from the keyboard and actually move the desks stacked up on the other side of the room where I want them, but that might involve work rather than contemplation of work. Maybe I should anyway.

Back In Town...

Ooh, it's nice to be typing this on an actual computer keyboard...I like the iPad and all, but suspect somewhere in my dark heart of hearts that my real desire is for a MacBook Air.

We are back in PKA for another go around. The summer was busy and the senior trip was a ball, but all of that is done, and it is time to get after another year of teaching little minds to be big minds (I hope).

We arrived Sunday night after a long traverse of the United States and part of Canada, and a short traverse down the Kuskokwim river that was a joy. the river is full and the plants are very green. There are apparently many berries to be had, if the news we received almost immediately upon landing is to be believed.

The school is full of packages and mail that has piled up over summer, and there are boxes of new books filling the lobby.

The prospect of a new year is exciting and promising at the same time. It is very nice to have a few days to settle in and begin to prepare.