Finally- Our First Day of School!

This is my classroom!

 This is my classroom--> It is AMAZING! I worked so hard for my room to look this clean and good! I am so proud of myself and I am so excited for my students to actually get here! On the smartboard I have a balloon pop welcome where the student touch the balloon with their name on it and it pops and says welcome! Yes, I only have 8 students.

This is my desk

This is the SFA area where students learn about reading.

The back wall in my classroom!

The lookin' Good Mirror and library!

Ty at his desk getting ready for the kids!

Ty's classroom

Someone was having a good morning!

More of Ty's classroom

I was creeping on Derek, he was signing as he worked on lesson plans. 

Today was a HUGE success overall for Gambell! I had only one student missing from my class but she is still at camp. (Not exactly sure what you do at camp but I can't wait to hear about it next week!) We only had four missing from the high school and apparently we gained about five new students!

My students are very polite and really excited to be at school. Teaching in Gambell also opens your eyes to a lot of basic needs that are simply not being met. I got to pass out toothbrushes to my students this morning so that they could brush their teeth for the first time since when school got out last spring. I also brushed my teeth with a little boy that said he had never brushed his teeth before. Please if you are reading this allow your child to brush their teeth, then they will really smile for you!! Ty also had a 5th grader that hadn't sleep for days and was hungry. There are so many things that I took for granted growing up that being here puts into perspective.

Anyways, I can not wait until tomorrow!! I love coming to school!!

Update from Savoonga!

I am sorry first of all for not having any pictures! This week we are in Savoonga, which is the other village on St. Lawrence Island. We are here for an in service on the School Improvement Grant (SIG) that we received last year. Anyways, our schedule looked so busy that both Ty and I didn't bring our computers, therefore I have no pictures for you.

Right now in Savoonga the wind is blowing so hard that it is shaking the School!! It has also been really cold and rainy all day today so we have been cooped up inside. But in addition to all of this extra training and work that we have to do for the grant we also get ipads on Friday!! They are for educational purposes but also some personal. :)

Oh, Sorry Family, except Morgan, that you have to read this on the blog but I keep forgetting to tell you on the phone, I will be coaching the Varsity Girls Basketball team this year!!! I am so excited and ready for the challenge! Ty will be co-coaching the Biathlon team with Derek!

As of right now I am LOVING my staff! We are having so much fun with returners and newbies included! I think that it is so great that I get to be on staff with such inspiring educators that I wish were my teachers and Principal! For example, I would love having Mr. Gries (Derek) for my first grade teacher, just looking at him tells me I would have so much fun! I would totally be Mrs. Breske's teacher's pet in second grade; Melinda is a fabulous women and I loving knowing she is right next door as a great resource! I, of course, would have a huge crush on the fifth grade teacher, Mr. Galetka! I would be scared to death of the 4th grade teacher!! I would laugh my bum off at how nerdy Mr. and Mrs. Weirauch are! Finally I would totally love to have John Brady and Gerald share their wisdom with me during Social Studies and Math! I love my Gambell staff and new Family!

Well I am exhausted and it's only Monday! Good night!

Sunday We Climbed the Mountian

Gambell is located on the Northern tip of St. Lawrence Island. It is also located on a giant gravel spit hence Gravel Boulevard. Located just behind the school is this "mountain" that we climbed. 

We are at the base of the mountain now about a mile outside of town.

The shed in the foreground of this picture is where the previous picture was taken. We were about a third of the way up right now. It was such a cool view! 

We are still climbing!

This is where the mountain leveled out a bit by no means was it the top!

It's VERY hard to see in this picture but just above the water, yeah, that's Russia!

Ty and I catching our breath!

The view a little farther up!

Russia!

Zooming in on the school, my classroom is on the far right second to the last window!

It's a Whale!! Just kidding, it's a plane taking off!

I believe those are people..

Looking over the mountain to the rest of the island

Make Yourself at Home!

 We had almost everything unpacked by Saturday which was nice, we had all of the expected boxes just waiting for a few more that we sent out last. Today we did get our last box of food, our cooler we sent from Anchorage, some of my cloths and Ty's new backpack. The only casualties were a gallon size bottle of dawn dish washing soap and some razors. So we visited the local store and bought some soap and I will just have to deal with hairy legs for a while! In all, we were VERY happy we wrapped our boxes in plastic wrap, that at least kept them together if there were issues.

This is the newly stocked kitchen with everything put in it's place!

The bookshelf is full of lots of fun games!!

Our kitchen table, Thank you Nancy Jeppesen for the table runner!

Here is our cozy living room

Bring on the food!!

We had added another brita filter to this collection as well.

Utensil drawer 

Snack drawer

This is our main meals cabinet

Overflow storage as well as pots and pans

spices

pretty normal stuff here

Our dishes that we have to wash by hand..

Welcome to Gambell

 When we were flying to Gambell I swear we were about 50ft above the ocean. The weather was really foggy and we could hardly see! These are a few views from the plan.

Our Gravel Spit- The first few of Gambell. 

Gambell, Alaska

Look you can see our houses!

This is the dump luckily I haven't been there! Ty takes care of the garbage.

This was our plan that we flew in on.

Walking to our new home. I was so nervous but very excited!

 When we finally got off the plan it was so amazing the whole town was there to welcome. I think more so to check out all of us new people and to see if the plan had any packages but a welcome none the less!

Here is our new place! Piles of boxes!

And more boxes...

We were very tired. We also had boxes in the six-plex we needed to grab too.

Here is our bathroom.

Yes, our water is blue with chlorine. BUT not this blue! It must have had cleaner in it!!

Don't worry I cleaned this bad boy very well before shower time!

We got the one bedroom that comes with a washer and dryer! Totally worth it!

And this was our bedroom. Full size bed... let's just say we are still getting use to it!