Last Week of the Season

Well, the end of the fall season has arrived. It turned out to be a really good week. We had 36 6th graders. They came from a Jewish school in Massachusetts. The week for all of started out a it rough. The students were very chatty and had troubles listening. Part of the problem was that they were all grouped with their friends.
One of my students was particularly challenging, her name was Zuzzie. She was from a very wealthy family, but not very attentive family. She was on a strong medication for ADHD and her parents pulled her off of it the day before she came to camp. Normally one would be weaned off of it over several months. For this reason she was having withdrawal symptoms as well as acting strangely. For example, one day during field group she turned into a chicken for awhile. It was strangely realistic. She quickly adopted me as her mother this week and often ended up in my classes whether she signed up for them or not.
Thankfully as a whole the last 2 days of field group went well. One night we even had a pj fashion show with all the girls. They also had wonderful teachers with them. This was the schools first time coming to natures classroom, and they really loved it. On the last day they had a ceremony for all of the natures classroom teachers. It was there version of a Jewish graduation/thank you. All of the students made us pictures with our names, pictures, and the qualities they loved about us.

In other news, I am currently on the road. I picked up my mom today from the airport and we began the drive. Today we stopped in York, PA. For the most part the drive went well. We didn't get lost in the confusion of New York and Jersey! Tomorrow we will finish the drive to Michigan. I am looking forward to being home for awhile.

As usual, here a few pictures from the week:

My Trip to New Hampshire

Well this adventure starts out on my day off, Monday. Retha and I decided to take advantage of the fact we didn't have to work that day. We decided to take a little trip to Maine, it was kind of on the way to the place we were working during the week. We left early Monday morning and took of to Kittery, Maine, home of the Kittery Trading Post. Which is a store that has many outdoor odds and ends you might need. Retha and I had a good time trying on different random hats and taking pictures with the stuffed moose all over the store.

After we left it was about lunch time. So as most do, we found some seafood. I had fish and chips, it was a delicious meal. From there we took another adventure to see Mt. Washington and the white mountains. They are near Conway, New Hampshire. The were gorgeous. Here are some pictures of them for you all to see.

This is Mount Washington

Me in my amazement of the mountains

From there we headed to the beautiful Freedom, New Hampshire. I was working at our natures classroom site located right on Lake Ossipee. It was amazing to wake up every morning walk out the door and have an amazing view of the lake and the mountains situated behind it. I know it's not the same but heres a picture for you all to see.

 This picture was taken at only 3:30 on the afternoon. It got dark there around 4:30/5. It was a little weird to get used too. It was also extremely cold this past week. Most days the high was only about 40 degrees. We had a group of 200 8th graders this week, who didn't care for the cold either. I got fairly lucky though, my field group was pretty awesome. They enjoyed just hiking around and seeing what there was to see. So we went and saw an old airstrip that was used during WW2 and a we went to a place called Jackman's Ridge, which gives you a lovely view of the White Mountains.  Here are pictures from those places too.

This is the view from Jackman's Ridge

This is a pictures of my students walking the old airstrip.

So as you can see we also got a bit of snow this week as well. We woke up thursday morning to a nice white blanket on the ground. Most of it went away due to the rain we had the rest of the day. It was a good week for the most part.

When I got back to Charlton on Friday night, we found out they got snow too. They had 7.5 inches of snow to be exact. Thankfully the past two days have been nice and sunny, so most of the snow is gone.
My last week here is about to start. We have kids coming Tuesday-Friday, and thankfully I will be teaching here.

Another Make Work Week

Well its certainly been a long week. We had no school scheduled for this past week, so we worked maintenance. Due to the hurricane, it turns out all of the Natures classroom sites were closed as well. On our property we have 2 sites, so we got to hang out with the staff from the other site. It was a lot of fun, and I made some new friends. Our tasks this week were painting the dining hall and raking leaves. Raking one field took 2 1/2 days.

As I said, we got very lucky during the hurricane. It essentially was just a big wind storm. We had some fallen branches, but no flooding. We lost power, but thankfully it was only for a day and half. I talked to grandma smith and she said next time we should let her come out and make my bed.

This past weekend, has been awesome. I came home with Retha for the weekend. Yesterday we went to an ultimate frisbee tournament for the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth. It's been nice to take a break from hanging out with everyone on site at Charlton. Today we are just hanging out and relaxing before we have to head back to work.

This coming week, we have a small group coming to our site. We only have enough kids for 3 of our teachers to stay. So I will be teaching at a site in New Hampshire. We are going to have a group of 200 8th graders, and they'll be staying there for 4 days. it should be quite an interesting experience. I am just hoping I will be back in Charlton for our final week of having kids.

Well I shall be home in 14 days! I am looking forward to seeing all of you around the table for Thanksgiving!