May 19, 2013

Weekly Greetings!
This will be the last blog post for the school year, as the students will be off for summer break after this week. The last day of school will be on Thursday, and there will be an early release. Please remember that the end of the year school picnic will be Wednesday and will start with some games for the students at 11:00am. Lunch will be at 12 noon, with a baseball game to follow.

Last week was very full with a number of events. On Wednesday, we had a special visit from Mr. Cudney's 91 year old mother. She was accompanied by her niece, and warmly welcomed by the students in addition to some community members that were able to come meet her. Mrs. Cudney was able to have lunch at the school and then there was an assembly in her honor. A number of cultural gifts were given to her by the students that were made by their families.

After the assembly, Mrs. Cudeny visited in all the classrooms and wanted to meet each of the students that had sent her comforting letters. She is pictured with our class in the afternoon.

 An all school photo was taken just before Mrs. Cudney departed to go back to Tok and is pictured below.

The next morning, the students learned about fire prevention when two men from the local Forestry Department came out to Tetin. They showed the students some movies and also the tools that are used when fighting forest fires. They left some great coloring books and information for the kids to take home too.

To finish off the week, the next year's Kindergarten students were invited to spend the morning doing some fun activities with our current class. After our morning gathering to start the day, we had some number games and hunted 26 Teddy Bear counters that were hidden in the room. To keep track of the number of bears found, each bear was placed on an alphabet letter on the floor.

 At snack time, we had a Teddy Bear picnic before playing a game called "Poor, Cute Teddy"

There were other activities throughout the morning, in addition to a story and craft before lunch. Every one of the kids said they enjoyed the morning, so hopefully they will be eager and ready to start school next fall.

The statewide Duck Stamp competition awards were presented in Tok on Saturday and a number of Tetlin students won awards. From our class, Ethan got a 3rd place ribbon and some gift items. He is pictured by his drawing, which is the Mallard just above his head in the picture to follow. Well done Ethan and all the others from our school that entered the competition.

We will continue to keep a normal schedule through Wednesday morning, but there will not be any homework sent home this last week. It has been a pleasure to be a part of the Tetlin School this year and I wish you all a safe and joy-filled summer!

May 12, 2013

 Weekly Greetings!

I trust you all had a pleasant weekend and enjoyed the warmer temperatures. Also, I hope the student gifts and cards made it safely home for Mother's Day. The photos to follow are of the class as they decorated the plant pots to give as an expression of their thanks for all your love and care.

There were some changes to our class routine last week, and a few new additions to the creative play centers. All of the students now go to a structured PE class at the end of the day, so our center time has been moved to an earlier time. With some left over funds from last year's budget, I ordered a "Community Helpers" set and a wooden train set to freshen up the play items for the class. As you can see from the photos, the students really enjoyed the new toys.

To continue our Science Unit title "Changes", which focused on matter and chemical changes that can occur, I brought in an ice cream ball of mine so that the students could observe the changes that would take place in making ice cream. For the ball to work, the mixture is placed in a center cylinder with ice surrounding it. The ball must be kept moving, so of course there were some fun games to be played before we tasted the frozen mixture.

This will be our last full week of school, and there are a couple of special events planned for the end of the week. On Thursday, the Forestry Department will spend the morning doing activities to teach all the students about fire prevention. Then on Friday, we will have the next years Kindergarten group in to spend the morning with us. Hopefully, they will enjoy their time and look forward to the start of a new school year in the fall.

I will continue sending homework Monday through Thursday this week, though it will be the last week this year. Enjoys the spring days that have finally arrived!

May 5, 2013

With all the snow over the weekend, I am beginning to wonder if we will see spring arrive before the last day of school! Our year is rapidly drawing to a close and there is just three more weeks of school left before summer break. I am going to continue with our regular daily schedule through this week, and then finish off the last two weeks with review practice in specific areas that the students still seem a bit weak.

Last week was school nutrition appreciation week. The students made some cute thank you notes for Ashley, our school cook, and surprised her at lunch last Thursday. She does a great job and we wanted to show her how much she is appreciated. See the photos to follow of the class and Ashley.

I will continue to send homework home Monday through Thursday nights for the next two weeks. Please ask your child about it nightly and help them remember to return it completed the next day. Stay well and have a great week.