Week 1: Mission Accomplished

A bird's eye view of our new community!

As the school day comes to a close here in Salluit, we have officially finished our first school week at Ikusik and Piguirvik School. As a result of the warm and welcoming teachers, community members and energetic students we feel like we have been here for much longer. Our days have been filled with meeting new and friendly faces, including the head nurses at the nursing station and the workers at Sapummivik, Salluit's boys only rehabilitation centre.In preparation for anti-bullying day at Ikusik, we spent Wednesday helping each class to silk-screen pink t-shirts with anti-bullying messages. We also worked with them to create a "stop bullying" sign and put it up on the bulletin board in the hallway. By the end of the day each students had created their own cutout person to demonstrate their responsibility to stop bullying. This was a fantastic way for us to get to know all of the students here at Ikusik! And on Thursday we began our teaching! We started with nutrition and physical activity at Ikusik (grades 5 and up) and found our first few lessons to be both a little nerve racking but  also a great experience- the oldest kids especially enjoyed learning HOW to read a nutrition label. The teachers gave us some great suggestions to improve our lessons for the weeks to come- to include drawings instead of words as many of the students are learning up to three languages (Inuit, French and English) and to include even more activities to keep their attention throughout our lessons.Outside of the classroom, we have begun to frequent the local hotspots: the corner store and the hockey arena... we're hoping to check out the youth centre and possibly the community centre this weekend as a lot of the older students seem to enjoy working and hanging out there. It is really nice to start to see familiar faces both inside and outside of the classroom!After having a week under our belt our minds are overflowing with exciting ideas of all the activities we want to plan and all the thing we want to accomplish in the next five weeks. Here's what we've got in mind:- Girls and boys nights for different age groups taking place at the school- Holding a nutrition and healthy lifestyle workshop for parents in the community- Starting a leadership club after school with hopes of getting the older students teach a lesson or two to the primary students- Organizing an "amazing race" event for the students on their next PD DayWe are off to walk the (100 meters) back to our new home but will report back with the latest Salluit news as soon as possible.Kendra and Lauren :)