Pond Greetings! We have had a wildly wonderful past five days, beginning with relaxing yet productive weekend and busy and fun first few days of teaching!!
Saturday was our day of exploration! We were on a quest for the infamous garbage dump which Sarah and Emily spoke so fondly of. For two hours we tromped around, first down to the beach where the view of the mountains is incredible, and then up past the school to the top of Pond! Unfortunately the garbage mountain was no where to be found… how mysterious. With cold feet and hungry bellies we went back to Alice’s empty house for lunch. In the afternoon we went to the weekly flea market at the community hall (C-Hall) where we chatted away with people selling jello, bannock, and bits & bobs. The evening consisted of lesson planning, Zoolander, and Alice arriving home at 12:30am with a very cold heel and sore back from her 5 hour skidoo ride from the cabin! Fierce lady!
On Sunday we celebrated Mother’s Day by walking down to the beach with a big home made card and sending some photos home. More lesson planning and leadership course brainstorming ensued before an evening of hanging out with our awesome Inuit family. Ellie and Jennine (3 year-old granddaughter) are soul sistas! While Emma and Alice had a serious chat about global warming in the Arctic, Ellie acted as a human playground. We fell asleep with first day of school jitters in our tummies. Day 1: Hygiene! Kicked off with five classes in a row (two Grade 9, two Grade 7, one Grade 8) and all the kids were surprisingly receptive! Although we felt a bit silly standing up there covered in toothpaste after one of our activities!! Our questions were half hilarious half “Hi Emma” (poor Ellie), but there were a handful of legit ones which means kids are actually listening to us! Wahoooo!
Yesterday we taught nutrition using loads of fake food we got from the health centre which the kids loved. It was so convincing it made Emma really homesick from Kraft Singles slices. Webequie’s sweet “Northern Store” activity totally flopped for us, I guess we didn’t have the Fisher Price cash register charm, so we had them make breakfast, lunch, and dinner in groups instead. Also, our price tags kept falling off. Fail. But the good news is, the rest of the lesson was great, including the Ziploc bags full of sugar – they were gasping at how much was in a can of pop. Success!! Tuesday night we went for our first Hip Hop experience at the C-Hall which was completely student-run and hilarious to see the kids break out their ghetto-tude. We made tons of Hannah Montana-lovin’ Grade 4 friends. A dance party is in order in the near future!! Before bed we hung out with Alex who gave us each a Qilaruti (translates as “something to tie your hair with”), a beautiful beaded Inuit treasure!
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| Mildred's Grade 7 class |
Today was a sweet day at school because we managed to make diabetes fun (we think anyway)! We really liked teaching it, especially Ellie explaining insulin – bio nerd alert –and the kids didn’t lose interest and seemed to get it. Awww yea!! The health center had our back with some great props and a video on diabetes in Nunavut. The rest of the day will consist of planning for our first Drawing Club meeting tomorrow, lesson planning, and washing socks.
Peace out homies,
Jennine’s jungle gym.
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| Qilaruti |
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