Since my last post the temperature has gotten all the way up to 45 degrees!! It was so crazy to be able to walk outside today with no hat or gloves on and not worry about frost bite! The snow is starting to melt and the sun is out longer...so naturally spirits are high!
Teacher spirits are really high because we are only 7 weeks away from the end of the school year. I am so excited to see the growth in my students! They are so nice to each other....well as nice as kindergarteners can be. They are actually asking others to walk down the hall using the word please and saying thank you. They are sitting in their chairs and listening to lessons and remembering what they are being taught. Many of them are getting close to being on a first grade level in their subjects. In the Lower Yukon School District they are on a level system where the standards that are to be learned has to be passed off either with a test or some project. In order to get to the next level the students must pass off all of their standards. I have had this fear all year that the students would not learn anything this year other than how to sit in a chair and now to see them passing off standard after standard it makes me so excited to see what they can do with someone who is not a first year teacher trying to figure things out.
So Drew and I are really considering coming back to Alaska next year. It has given me so many great growing and learning experiences that we think it will give us a great opportunity to grow and learn together without a lot of distractions. We are still waiting to hear if he will be offered a job in the Russellville School District but it is a big possibility that we will be back up here next year. I am excited and looking forward to the opportunity to come back. There are so many things that I would change about the things that I did this year but I think that is part of being a teacher. You take what you did and modify it to make it better than before. I do hear that the kids next year will be tough group to crack but I also know that I am more prepared than I was at the beginning of last year. I will also have someone to lean on more than just a phone call. Having Drew here will really help me emotionally. I know that with him here instead of having a relationship with a phone I will be able to go home and talk to him face to face. I will also have someone to help me clean the house :). It isn't official but it is a serious possibility.
It is also getting closer to my wedding and that has me really excited and nervous too. I have been living on my own for the past 5 years now and it will be so different to be living with someone else....forever!! I can't think of a better roommate but it is still nerve racking! I love him so much and he has been so wonderful through this past year. Listening to me cry about the one student that I can't get to or laugh about the funny things that my kids say (it is true that kids say the darndest things). He is the best support system that I could ever ask for. Even if this year has been hard for us, we have grow so much closer and I know that our relationship has been strengthened from the trials. I really cannot wait to be Mrs. Nichole Hanna :D!!
