Snow.

As winter is coming, I am getting very excited to bring my son out sledding and just to explore the winter season. The first snow we had, there were a lot of kids sledding above my house in happy faces. I told my husband, “In a couple years Hunter is going to be one of them.” I can’t believe that I was once one of those kids out sledding, very excited for the snow and everything else winter brings. It only took an hour or two for the kids to head for home because the snow was now gone. It melted where they were sledding, but they were also sledding in the mud. I never thought about getting it on camera or video as well. I think I would have had a great video for the class to see. But I may have another chance because it is starting to snow again and school is soon to be over.

Powerpoint Presentation

This assignment was a lot of fun. I haven't done a powerpoint since I was a junior in highschool. I thought this assignment was going to be easy, but it was time consuming. I think anyone can use powerpoint to do anything they want. People can use this to do presentations, a lecture, a class assignment, or for final projects. When I did a powerpoint in highschool, we did it for a final project in my consumer education class. We compared items from two different places, like where to buy a snowmachine and what was the cost of two places where we can buy it. I think the community and students got a good idea of how to compare prices because we did a big presentation in the school gymnasium.
Doing a powerpoint instead of a regular presentation is more interesting. There are so many ways you can keep your audiences attention.

Rural Alaska

I love living in rural Alaska. Everyone knows everyone and we pretty much have the freedom to go out where-ever whenever. If I ever have to move to the city for my education, I don't think my husband or I can handle it. I mean, I love to move to have more class options or to have an instructor in front of me and to guide me through class, but it is hard to move away from home. In rural Alaska we hunt and gather throughout the year which is a lot of fun. We can travel to other villages by snow machine or boat (skiff is what we call small boats). We also get to support high school activities as well. Every teacher I know at the local school fall in love with New Stuyahok because there is a lot going on here that is interesting. It is also hard for teachers to leave if/when they have to. I know if I were one of those teachers I would fall in love with this place too.

Interactive Activities

Site Name: coolmathforkids.com

Age Level: 3-12

Subject Area: Math

Platform: Mac or PC

Purpose: To help students learn math by having fun.
This site has a lot of fun activities students can do to learn math. One explanation on the site says that it is, "An amusement park of math designed for fun." This site has everything from math games to brain benders. The site also says that teachers and parents are using it to enhance their children and students math skills. One thing parents and teachers can do is to put this site and many others on their bookmark so students can go to the website without help at all.



Site Name: starfall.com

Grade Level: K-2nd

Subject Area: Reading and Writing

Platform: Mac or PC

Purpose: To help students learn to read and write and to enhance their reading skills.
This site looks like a fun way to help children learn to read. There are so many activities students can do on this site including ABC's, fun tales, art gallery, and more. When I was doing classroom observations in the Kindergarten and second grade classrooms at the local school, both teachers were using this for when their students were finished with their work early. I could tell these students were getting a lot out of this because students were reading material on the site and sounding out letters as well.



Site Name: Literacycenter.net

Grade/Age Level: Preschool up to the third grade

Subject Area: Reading

Platform: Mac and PC

Purpose: To help students learn to read.
This site is pretty interesting. There are so many activities to help students learn to read. This site was created to help students succeed in reading. Literacy center also teaches the native tongue of four languages, which is neat. There's everything from learning the lowercases to upper cases, and to writing and keyboarding. The only thing that needs to be downloaded to your computer is the flash player plug-in. If you do not have the flash player, there is a place on the site where you can automatically download this software. There is a place where teachers and parents can go to too for different subject areas and specific purposes. My aunt and her husband uses this for their daughter who is in the third grade. She is the top student in her class. They are also using this for their other daughter who is in the first grade and their son who is in Preschool.

1to1 Reflection

If I do become a teacher, I think I would love to have laptops in my classroom. Throughout the video, I learned that having laptops in the classroom can help the school district save money by having up to date information. I thought of this because the school district that the local school here in New Stuyahok is in does not have enough funds to support extra-curricular activities. Students and parents that are in extra curricular activities have to raise their own money to travel to other activities that are not in the district, which I think is wrong; but I do understand that. Having laptops in the classroom may help with better classroom management by having students close their laptops and they cannot use their laptops further throughout the class period. And by doing so, students will work hard on the assignment they are given to do.
Having laptops in the classroom may not meet some standards that students should have as they go through each class level. An example from the video is: students who are in the fifth grade have neater handwriting than the seniors. Computers may also be the sole source for students with personal laptops. Students will not be able to look up how words are spelled from the dictionary because microsoft word or excel will hint them that the word is mispelled.

Me.

My name is Crystal Blunka. I just recently got married and I still have yet to change my last name. I grew up here in New Stuyahok my entire life. New Stuyahok is in the Bristol Bay region. I absolutely love it and the great outdoors as well.
When I was little I always wanted to become a teacher. We'll see if that dream comes true because I have a lot of interests.
My husband and I also have a seven month old son who is a handful, but worth everything. We are still learning how to raise and take care of a child, but we both love it![=