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.

Saturday, March 25, 2017

Week 32

 Weekly Greetings!

It was really great see everyone of the students this week and hear about their Spring Break. Of course the highlight of our week was the trip to Frank Etsminger's home to see his bird collection.  We were fortunate to have Ranger Stephen Rudolph join us for the half day-trip and, as I mentioned before, we hope to do a follow up to this trip to view the returning waterfowl later this spring with Tetlin Refuge personnel.
 When we got to the Etsminger home, Frank greeted the class and introduced himself. Then we followed him into a display room where the class got a tour and could ask questions about all the mounted wildlife. Frank has collected almost every type of duck that migrates to Alaska, in addition to numerous other types of birds.
 There was another display room attached to the workshop that Frank does taxidermy, and the students were amazed at the diversity of birds surrounding them. They also got to see the shop and how taxidermy work is done.
This week we will start the district writing assessment and hopefully complete it before starting the state testing next week. In reading, the class will finish the novel unit before stepping back into the Treasures material next week.

Also, I have been working on a spring filed trip and it is looking like we can make an educational trip to Fairbanks in May with a couple more fundraisers. With the weekly letter, I will be sending home forms to order shirts with the school logo on it that we can order to raise funds. In addition, I would like to have a bake sale next Saturday afternoon at the school during the adult basketball games. Please let me know if you can help out or bake something that we can sell.

Have an awesome week!

Kind Regards,

Julie Brown

Saturday, March 18, 2017

Week 31


 Weekly Greetings!

I hope you have all had a pleasant break and ready for the last leg of our school year to be completed. Friday will be the end of the third quarter, and the fourth quarter always flies by. There are some important details to cover in this letter, and I will start with the field trip I have planned for Thursday. Please fill out both forms attached to the letter going home and return them as soon as possible. We will travel to Frank Etsminger's home off the Tok Cutoff to look at his waterfowl collection. Stephen Rudolph, with the Tetlin Refuge, will be driving us and discussing the up coming return of birds to Alaska. Later this spring, we hope to follow up with a day trip to Moon Lake. After this week the class will be starting the district writing assessment, and then they will move into a number of days testing with the new Alaska proficiency assessment. I thought it might be nice to do an outing before pressing through the assessments that are scheduled in the next few weeks.

The next two weeks we will also be doing a novel unit in reading to focus on and hone some reading strategies we have worked on this year so far. There will still be homework sent home, but no spelling list this week. Additionally in Social Studies we will be starting to focus on cultural groups in Alaska, and in Science we will start a new unit on the rocks and minerals.

Now for a few highlights from the week before Spring Break. In Social Studies the class completed the geography and regions portion of our study of Alaska by placing small cards with land forms on a larger Alaska map. There were a number of volcanoes that I had never heard of, even though I have been in Alaska for forty years! The students really work well together on group activities.  
On Thursday, the class participated in another "Instant Challenge" through the AK Teach program. They have no idea what the challenge will be until the presenter tells them. Then they work in small groups using the engineer's wheel to design something to meet the challenge. Everyone participating in all the schools logged on have the same materials and a time limit to create.
The challenge was to build a Puffmobile using a piece of paper, 12 inches of tape, 4 lifesavers, scissors, and 3 straws.
Once the Puffmobiles were finished, they tested them by blowing air to move them and recorded what worked and what did not work. Then they made modifications and tested again. One group in our class had the farthest distance at 41 inches. Every school had an opportunity to share what worked and what they created.
With more daylight, it is really beginning to feel like spring is here! Enjoy the nice weather and have a great week!

Kind Regards,

Julie Brown

Saturday, March 4, 2017

Week 29

 Weekly Greetings!

What a great past week the class had finishing up their Science Fair projects! I have a number of pictures showing them deciding how to display the information from their experiments.
Then Thursday before the testing that they had to do, we got the boards set up for the judging. I took pictures of each team and their project in addition to a group shot. Unfortunately a couple students were sick that day.
After the testing was done, the class went back upstairs in the library and had interviews with two judges. We still have not heard the results. Hopefully early this week it will be announced.
The students also had art with Shauna Lee this week, and it is always a highlight for them. They finished a winter bird picture that went home with them on Wednesday.
On Friday, Stephen Rudolph from the Tetlin Refuge came for a vist to introduce the class to fur trapping. Originally Tim Lorenzini was supposed to do the presentation, but he had broken down on his snow machine while out in the field. The class always enjoys seeing Ranger Rudolph and had just enough time to listen and learn before the hockey game.
This is the last week before Spring Break and I think we are all ready for the upcoming vacation. It will be the regular bi-weekly visit from the councilor on Monday, and on Thursday the class will participate in an AK Teach Instant Challenge.

I hope you have an awesome week!

Kind Regards,

Julie Brown