First Day of School!

Today was the 1st day of school! 

Today we visited the elementary and got to see our kiddos! The school is prekindergarten- 5th grade and has a total of around 700 kids in the school. It is very beautiful school and large! Only about 5 teachers in the school have a SmartBoard, we are getting one in our room hopefully before the end of the school year. This weekend is a Piuraagiaqta festival and there are a lot of events that are going on. With festivals going on you really noticed attendance go down and students are very tired because of the amount of daylight we have here. The sun comes up at 5 am and goes down at 2 am. So kids go out and play all night and don't have as much structure so they come very tired to school. Today we sat in on our classroom and observed. I read a story to my class about the sun. Then we all ate lunch and left! Students were being released early today due to the festival. 

Then we went to a Fur store. The thing about Barrow is the fur store is not just the fur store. In fact the fur store was the dry cleaners, stationary, clothing, fabric store! When going to the milkshake store yesterday it was the milkshake place, clothing and flower shop all in one. 

Next we headed to a museum. This museum use to be a guys apartment where he lived but then turned it into a museum. He has sooo much stuff in this tiny place it is unbelievable! The guy has been in Barrow for over 30 years and is consider an elder because not that many people stay for that long. 

Tonight we are heading in to the festival to check out all the fun that my kiddos talked about! There is a book sale tonight which I plan to take full advantage of! We also are going to watch a duct tape dress contest. 

Today's temperature: -6 and a bit windy!