Basketball.

Basketball is huge in the villages. The only time they aren't outside on the play deck shooting around is when there is a blizzard or freezing rain. They were out there in the snow today playing. This weekend I was in a basketball tournament. The mother of one of my students asked me to play on her team. She is also the VPO (Village Police Officer). I was excited to be asked to do something, and I thought it'd be fun to play basketball even though I've never played a real game before!

We played Friday night, and I didn't do too badly. I made 14 points. One woman who works at the school said that I look like I know what I'm doing out on the court. I told her that was what I was going for, because I don't know the rules! We won that game, and played two times today (lost the first game, won the second one) and will play the other winning team in the championship game next Tuesday. That gives me a few days to practice. The VPO is also going to help me. She is also the JV basketball coach. She told me to come to the practices when they start at the end of the month, and that I'd be able to travel with the team when they go away for games. I was very happy to hear that, because I wanted to help out with something so that I could travel as much as possible. It was a very eventful weekend!

The tournament was put on by one of the other teachers here who wanted to raise money to buy new flags and stanchions for the school. We raised a lot of money, and will have plenty to buy them. We are also going to have a schoolwide contest to create a design Kipnuk flag and have it hung up with the Alaskan flag and the US flag. An eight year old created the design for the Alaskan flag, so this will be very similar to that! We have some very talented artists out here, so I'm sure it will be difficult to make a decision when the time comes.

Things are going well here. One of my students will be moving to first grade this Monday because he has passed all of his phases for Kindergarten and he is ready for it. He is seven years old, never went to preschool and is the highest boy in the class. His Mom is the woman who asked me to play basketball. All of his brothers are very smart too. Someone told me that he is so smart because he watched Dora the Explorer. Not only is he going to first grade early, but he came to Kindergarten at the end of September! School started on August 19. He couldn't hold a pencil the first day, but he was, and still is, so happy to be in school. He worked so hard and he's already reading. I was so happy when I realized he was going to be moving up - although I'm pretty sad too, because he was the best student in the class. Never a behavior problem. He always listened and had a very nice demeanor for a Kindergartner. Maybe it should be a requirement that boys don't come to school until they're seven - they might be able to sit still in a chair by that point! It's not that bad in my room though, I have a very good group of kids and they've come a long way since the beginning of the year. Almost all of my kids know all of their alphabet letter sounds and it's not even December yet. The assessment for passing the final phase in Kindergarten (which is phase 2) requires that students know all their letter sounds. I am so happy they are ahead of the game!

It's been a long two days, so I am going to get some rest. Wish me luck for the next game on Tuesday!