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.

Sunday, January 8, 2017

Week 21

 Weekly Greetings!

We had a fast and productive week to start the New Year, though there were a few tired students the first couple of days. In Social Studies we started a short unit on Dr. Marten Luther King, Jr. with the focus being on strong leadership. Students worked in small groups and answered questions on three large pieces of paper located around the room. The statements on the large papers were: "A leader is...; I like it when leaders...; One day, I would love to lead...." I was really impressed with all of the responses and discussion that took place in each group.
After talking about their responses we did a KWL chart on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to assess what they already knew and wanted to learn about the famous man. Then we read a short story on his life, and were able to answer a few of the things the class wanted to learn about him. This week we will continue this mini unit leading up to his birthday.

Looking at the Universe is the focus in Science for the next month, and we started off by looking at the importance of the sun. We did an experiment using a lamp as the sun source, to see what heated faster: water, soil, or sand. Our prediction was the soil because it was dark and dark things usually absorb heat more. We found that the sand actually heated the most in a short amount of time. The water was the slowest. Over the next couple of weeks, we will be looking closer at the solar system. This week, we will also participate in an AK Teach activity on Tuesday that is called an "Instant Challenge". The students will not know what we are doing until the director gives them a challenge to create something with the materials provided. These challenges are great problem solving and cooperative learning experiences with students from other schools across Alaska and in other states.

I will be sending home book orders with the parent letter to start the week, and please return any orders by January 20th. Also, Friday will be the end of our 1st Semester, and the end of the 2nd Quarter. After discussing time slots at our PLC on Friday, I will be letting you know next week what your schedule will be for conferences on January 23rd.

Have a great week!

Kind Regards,

Julie Brown
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