Week 5: Colour + Mud = Fun
Last week of teaching!! Today marks five weeks of us being up North and with one week left, it’s our busiest week yet! Before we get into the exciting lessons we have planned for this week, here’s a quick recap of last week...
In the classrooms, we covered healthy relationships, bullying and peer pressure with the Grade 4 and 5/6 classes. We had some great discussions and made some really neat and colourful anti-bullying signs the kids could put up at home and around the school. With our grades 7-12, we introduced substance abuse with a focus on marijuana, alcohol and safe choices. We had an overwhelming number of questions in our question box, which we were all too pleased to research and discuss throughout the week!
In the community, it was also an exciting week with a career fair, the visit of the Northwest Territories Legislative Mace, a dance recital featuring fiddling and a town clean-up. The career fair hosted booths from various community groups and attracted members of the community of all ages! Students were prompted to ask questions about work environments and summer job opportunities and many candies and freebies were given out as well! Members of the Legislative Assembly were present and discussed how parliament is run in the NWT, as well as the mace and it’s significance. Students got to see the mace up close and many (including us!) answered some of trivia questions for some NWT Legislative Assembly hats! On Thursday, a fiddling dancing group from Hay River performed for the school. We were amazed by the talent, and the fiddling was great to hear live! Lastly, this week there was a community clean up. it was nice to see the students pitching in and collecting any litter the snow covered.
After school this week, we also kept very busy! On Monday night, we hosted chalk in the park and joined Play Around the World for some soccer. On Wednesday, some of the older girls joined us to make cookie medals and cupcakes for the Mini Olympics! Along with our weekly boot camp, basketball and volleyball intramural sports, it was finale week! In other words, it was the finale week of Survivor and Grey’s Anatomy! In our free time, we have been catching up on these shows weekly at our friend Cheryl’s (and of course enjoying the great company and snacks!)
Finally, to kick off the long weekend we helped Beth (the physical literacy teacher) and PAW organize the Mini Olympics! The schedule was jam-packed with two days of egg challenges, 100m dash, LOTS of crafts, a movie night, colour fight, mud run, BBQ, carnival and a dance! The weekend was a blast and it was hard to pick a favourite activity. Friday we spent the afternoon rotating different individual and team challenges and crafts. Christine's personal fav was beating the older kids in the running races while Jasmine's personal fav was the egg toss, where you throw an egg back and forth between two people while increasing your distance (the goal: don’t let the egg break on you!)
That evening in the gym, some of the older kids led traditional hand games, followed by a screening of the movie Wreck It Ralph! If Friday wasn’t fun enough, Saturday was even more wild! The day began early with a colour war, where everyone had little bags filled with different colours and your threw the mixture at each other (similar to the colour run!) We were all covered in tons of bright colours and had lots of laughs. Following the colour war, we headed into to the trails to participate in the 3km mud run. The trails were filled with obstacles like ropes you had to crawl under and climb over, as well as challenges like rolling in the mud or dodging water balloons. Everyone made it through (even though Jasmine and some of the Grade 3 and 4 students got a little lost and took the long way back) and crossed the finish line covered in mud. To cool and rinse off, Jasmine joined the kids and went for a swim in the ice-cold river. After the race, we had a BBQ, followed by carnival games, and finally a dance! Lots of the kids showcased their dance moves and the music was great! It is safe to say after two very busy days of the Mini Olympics we spent the rest of our long weekend resting!
Luckily Sunday and Monday we had time to relax, hang out with some of the teachers and get our lessons ready for our last week in the classrooms.. This week, we will be teaching puberty and sexual health with grades 5-12. We will also have the opportunity to teach the K-3s for the first time this week, so we are focusing on important topics including emotions, boundaries, friendships, self-esteem and safety! It will be a busy week teaching five to seven classes every day but we can’t wait!
One more week until we fly home so stay tuned for our last blog next week from the airport!
Signing out for one last time in Fort Prov,
J & C
