3 more days of school!!!

Total number of student school days left: 3. I can't believe my first year of teaching is coming to an end. Here are some pictures from the last month of school...

The river broke up on May 4th! People are now out on their boats hunting and enjoying the nice weather. 

The new store had a grand opening and a cookout with hot dogs one day so we took advantage of the opportunity and soaked up some vitamin D. 

The Coast Guard visited our school two weeks ago to give a presentation on boat safety. They reminded our students to always wear a life jacket when they are in a boat and showed them how to correctly wear a life jacket. They enjoyed getting to wear the life jackets and play relay games.

I have decided to return to Napakiak and teach again next year. It has been a very challenging first year, but I'm hopeful that next year will be better. The last 3 days of school will be awards, relay races, trash pick up, and playing outdoors. I'm trying to get my classroom ready for the end of the year and prepared for next year. It's a mess!

This summer will be very busy. I'm taking a trip to Seattle which I'm very excited about! I'll also be visiting State College and hopefully some friends in Virginia. I hope to relax and enjoy time with family and friends in my busy schedule. See you soon!

Is it really May already?!

I moved to Alaska exactly 9 months ago. I was wiping tears at the Philadelphia airport and making the long journey to Anchorage...9 months ago. The time went SO fast. I honestly can't believe that I only have to work for 14 more days. I remember when there were 14 more school days until winter break and now here we are with 14 more school days until summer break! The kids are super excited to have off from school in the summer and they keep telling me about their swimming adventures in the river.

The weather has been amazing lately! It's sunny and in the 40s and 50s almost everyday. With all the sun it's making everything melt! We have a small pond outside of our house because of all the melting snow. The river still isn't broken up, but it's not safe to travel on anymore. The ground here has become very muddy, but it's fun to walk in if you have boots on. We have been able to go outside everyday this week and enjoy the sunshine. All of my students say "It's so hot!" when it's 50 degrees. I agree, it feels nice, but it's not HOT!

Just hanging out with a puppy at recess. 

Two weeks ago it was still colder and we were able to see the Northern Lights around midnight. I wasn't able to get any good pictures of them, but Nik got a few great ones.

The new teachers got to travel into Bethel for the Cama-i Dance Festival a few weeks ago. There was a special section of the festival that was selling native art and special crafts. Some of them were earrings made out of walrus tusk ivory, gloves made with beaver fur, and scarves made from muskox fur. I bought a book from a book illustrator who lives in Anchorage. He even signed it for me!

We were supposed to return to Napakiak on Sunday evening of that weekend, but it ended up snowing like crazy right before we were supposed to leave. We had to stay the night in Bethel but we made new friends and it was fun. This was the second time I've had to stay overnight in Bethel because of the weather, but the planes really cannot fly when the weather is bad. This is something I've gotten used to living in the bush.

In a few days it will be 1 year since I graduated from Penn State! I can't believe how fast the time actually went. I miss Penn State, but I'll be back for Arts Fest in July! Looking back on my first year of teaching I've realized that I've grown so much professionally and personally. This was the most challenging year of my entire life and I learned so much in such a short amount of time. I'll be sad to leave my students for summer break, but I'm excited to get back to Pennsylvania to see my family and friends. I have a growing list of things I want to do when I get home...places I want to visit, people I want to see, things I want to buy, etc. I'm also excited to just relax for a few days and not have to worry about lesson plans or anything having to do with school!

I'll be home on May 30th. Our last day of school is May 20th and I'm attending a conference in Anchorage from May 26-29. I'm excited to spend some time in Anchorage when it will be warm! The sun isn't setting until almost 11pm now. At the end of the month it will probably be around 12 or later!

Here are some pictures from when we celebrated Easter!

When I went into Anchorage for spring break I found Peeps! I bought enough to share with my class. I'm so glad I did because no one had ever tried them before! Most of my students liked them, but a few gave them away because it wasn't for them. It was funny!

April Fools was fun. I decided to take some Oreo cookies and put toothpaste in the middle of them. I got quite a few of my coworkers! They were good sports. My students even tried to get me. One student left a piece of gum for me, except there wasn't any gum inside. 

A joke played on me...

We did a cool science experiment this week that involved the primary and secondary colors. It was neat because my students don't have an art class that they go to every week, so it's my responsibility to somewhat expose them to these things. 

My village is now selling milk!!! This is the best news since we got 3G cell service here. A half gallon of milk is $9.19...but it's real milk. 

Actually, one store is closing and a new one is opening. The grand opening is next week. This is the ad they are passing out....big sale on chips and soda. 

Our spring formal dance is tomorrow. We were busy yesterday after school getting our decorations ready. 

Things are going to be busy here the next few weeks. I'll try my best to do one more post before I leave Napakiak. Thanks for reading!

Spring Break!

So...April Fools' Day is tomorrow. I can't wait to play a few jokes on my students and coworkers! April 1st means it's getting closer and closer to the date of my return to Pennsylvania! I'm excited to soak up some warmer weather and spend time with my family and friends.

Spring Break was wonderful and a much needed break away from everything. Thank you Liz for inviting me to tag along with you! One day we went to a place called Hatcher Pass which had amazing views everywhere you looked. I couldn't get enough. It took us a long time to get to the actual top of the mountain where they had small cabins to rent and a little snack bar. People can go there to ski, snowboard, ride snowmobile, etc. for free! There are no ski lifts so that makes things interesting. If people make it to the bottom of the mountain and a car is going to the top they usually just hop in the back for a ride! Here are some really great pictures of the views...

So Alaska...a husky in the snow.

The only place I wanted to go the entire trip! Target with the mountains in the background...something you don't see much in Pennsylvania. 

We got to go to the Iditarod Headquarters in Wasilla. It was neat because the race was actually going on while we were visiting, however, we didn't get to see any of the action. I snapped a few pictures inside and grabbed some souvenirs for my Pennsylvania friends.

The mountains are literally surrounding you every place you go. Amazing.

Guess what else we found while we were there?! GIRL SCOUT COOKIES. They're $5 a box in Alaska. I made the girls pose for a picture haha.

Look what else I found at a grocery store here!

$5 foot longs don't exist in Alaska. It still tasted good though.

One thing I never really noticed at any other airports are cargo airplanes. It seems that Anchorage has a ton!

Finally it was time to return to Napakiak after a quick trip. I had the row all to myself on the plane so I hopped over to the window seat to take a picture.

St. Patrick's Day fun at school! 

Here's a cute picture from when we played "Who wants to be the teacher?"

I have some models...

This past weekend we had the NYO (Native Youth Olympics) Tournament at our school. We had 20 other schools come to Napakiak and compete to move onto the district meet in Bethel. It was crazy!! There were about 175 kids here..more than go to school here! It was super fun though. The athletes are very talented and you can tell that they train intensely for their events. NYO reminds me a lot of track and field in the lower 48 because it has many different events. Students can choose to participate in all the events or just a few. 

This is the two foot high kick. Athletes need to touch the ball with both feet and then land with them together for it to count. 

So many kids!!

One interesting part of NYO is that the audience doesn't clap until the competitor is eliminated. They get 3 chances to complete the event and if they fail or miss they are eliminated. It is definitely a game of concentration and the audience needs to be almost completely silent to help the athlete focus. This was the first weekend I was able to watch NYO besides walking through practices in the gym here. It was so neat and interesting. I took a bunch of videos throughout the weekend, but I decided to compress them into one short video if you would like to watch.

It was really amazing to see the culture brought into our school over the weekend. Students from other villages practice their native songs and dances often and brought them to share. Here is a quick video. It's so cool seeing them interested and "into" their culture. They are proud of it. 

This is walrus!! The layers from left to right are: blubber, fat, meat. A visiting team brought the treat to share with others. They say it is a special treat and they don't get to eat walrus as much as other animals. The natives say that the walrus cleans your stomach and will also keep you warm. The woman I talked with said she will boil this down for a few hours until it gets soft and then serve it. I wasn't lucky enough to try this...lol.

On Saturday after the NYO Tournament we took a ride up to Bethel while the river was still frozen (at least in most parts). We happened to come across a Yupik museum and walked around for a bit. The picture below is a coat made from fish skin! The museum showcased a variety of native work.

It was such a beautiful day out in Bethel. We got some coffee, sat outside in the sun, enjoyed dinner, and did some grocery shopping. We all enjoyed ourselves, even though those are such small things in life. It was fun. Here are some pictures from our trip back to Napakiak. We got out right in the middle of the 'road'.

The weather is starting to warm up. That big snowman we made a few weeks ago is melted and the  sunlight is here to stay. Right now the sunrise is at 8:15am and sunset is at 9:30. It's pretty amazing. You don't realize how late in the day it is until you look at a clock!

This has been a long post filled with lots of pictures! I hope you enjoy viewing my pictures of Alaska.  This week during school we are celebrating Easter and doing activities with Easter Eggs. I'll post more pictures soon! :) Thanks for reading!