About Me

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My journey with the Alaska Gateway School District began in the fall of 2012. For the first two years, I was teaching the kindergarten through 2nd grade groups in Tetlin. For the next two years, I taught the same ages at another village school in Northway. In the fall of 2016, I transferred to Tok School to teach 4th grade for two years. This year I requested the third grade, as I always enjoy taking on a new grade level of students. Before moving to Tok, my background consisted of four years living in Botswana, Africa, with my husband where I taught mostly English as second language learners in grades kindergarten through fourth. Previously, we were long time Alaska residents. Most of our years in Alaska were spent living in the interior bush community of Galena, where I taught an alternative program for teens, 7th and 8th grades, Title 1 reading, and kindergarten. For a number of years before obtaining my teacher certificate, I was part of the classified support staff in addition to serving on the local school board. It has been great to be back in Alaska, and Tok has been a good fit for us.

Monday, January 2, 2017

Week 20

Weekly Greetings and Happy New Year!

I hope you have all enjoyed the vacation break, in addition to a memorable time with family and friends. A four-day week should be a good way to get back into the swing of school again after two weeks off. As most of you know, we will be starting 2017 off with a "Movie Night" fundraiser on Thursday night. Thank you all for your support in input.

The last week before the break was really busy, with a lot of special activities. We enjoyed reading The Gingerbread Man along with The Ninja Bread Man, and compared and contrasted the traditional fairy tale with the fractured fairy tale.  Then of coarse, we had to make gingerbread cookies.
 Another day we read The Gingerbread Baby, and compared and contrasted that version with the traditional story. At the end of The Gingerbread Baby, the run away cookie is caught in a gingerbread house instead of being eaten by a fox. So for fun, the students made gingerbread houses using gram crackers.

 When we were finished with the houses, it was time for the mini and little dribbles games. Some of the students from our class were playing in the little dribblers competition, and it was fun to cheer them on.
 Later in the day, students explored Tangram pieces after reading Father Tangs Story.
 On Thursday morning, we were able to log on with the AK Teach program to Antarctica and view the Adelie Penguins that exist in the far southern region of our planet. We were able to connect live with scientific researcher Jean Pennycook who lives among the penguin colony. She is in her third of the year of collecting data for long term studies about these amazing animals.
 That same day was the Christmas concert, and it was a lovely event. Our class got to close out the show with Feliz Navidad, and the group did a great job with the song.
Friday afternoon was our class party, and we started off with a piñata . Unfortunately, I was so busy handling the rope and making sure students were safe that I forgot to get pictures until the class was diving for candy.
Then everyone settled in to eat great snacks and watch a movie before school was out. Thank you for sending in snacks!
Everyday. the our last week of school in 2016 was packet with interesting activities and fun events. 2017 should continue to be rich with stimulating and rigorous content also. In class this week, we will get right back into our regular routines with two new units in Science and Social Studies. I will continue to send homework nightly as usual too.

Have an awesome week!

Kind Regards,

Julie Brown
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