So, I survived my first village dance! I chaperoned from 9pm to 11pm and listened to a BUNCH of great music :). I'm not sure who the DJ was, but they picked a nice selection of music. It was a little interesting to see that ALL the kids showed up but only like 4 or 5 actually danced. Though there were a few dances where more than that got on the floor to dance. Even though not many danced, it seemed like all the kids had fun. At least I was able to meet the village (tribal) police officer. He was nice, and showed up after dark to make sure things were going good. The kids did clean-up while the dance was coming to a close and they were done by 11 minutes after the dance was suppose to end. It was one of the fastest clean-ups ever.
I've been looking for flights home for Christmas. I've found that if I fly home on Christmas day, it will be about 300-500 bucks cheaper. However, that means not only will I not be home until the day after Christmas but, I will also be asking my family (mom and ect...) to be in Chicago to pick me up the day after Christmas. That means they will have to leave on Christmas which is probably not a good day to travel on. I know they wont mind, but I'm not sure if I want to ask them to give up part of their Christmas to pick me up. Maybe I'll suck it up and pay the extra to make sure I'm home before Christmas as much as possible.
We finally received our equipment for wireless internet at our house! That was an exciting day :). However, when we had the guy that connects it to the house set it up, we failed to realize that the equipment did not include the router. Apparently "everything you need for wireless" to GCI does not include the router just what you'll need outside your house. We made it work for a couple days until we bought a router from the school. It's perty cool and true the internet is a little slow, but at least it's internet! We might even look into getting satellite next. That would just be icing on the cake. Though I'm not sure how I'm going to react when I have so many options for entertainment.
On another note, I received an e-mail showing when my training for the reality works equipment for my personal life skills class is going to be. I get to go to Bethel on October 7th for training on the 8th. Which means I have to miss the salmon run that I wanted to participate in/watch. The salmon run is a 5k/1/2 mile run/walk that Sheri (the principal's wife) puts on for the community. It's suppose to be really fun and a lot of community support goes in to it. I had signed up to pass out the bags to people who participate. I'm hoping that they hold the salmon run soon enough that I can participate and catch my flight to Bethel. I also get to go to Bethel the week before that, on October 1st for new teacher training. I can't believe they have both new teacher trainings so close together. Guess Bethel is just calling my name huh. Two weekends in a row just seems crazy!
Classes are going good. I'm trying to get the routines down so that students know what to look for when they enter my class. I started an opening activity where students walk in grab a piece of paper/pencil and answer the question that shows up on my smart board. They are starting to get the hang of that, so now I'm going to work on my end of class routine. I'm working out the writing class routines as well. We are piloting the Glencoe writing with the reading program that was piloted at the school last year. It's the working out the kinks and what it is we are doing in class that's getting me. There's just so much to choose from! I think though that I have a good routine and maybe I'll write more about it later. I've been switching up the seating arrangement to see how different students work next to others. I think I may have figured out some good arrangements and groupings though. I guess time will tell :).
Until next time
