Sports, Sunsets and Sorcery
We are quickly learning that despite the size of this town, Pickle Lake is a hustling and bustling place. This past week alone, we joined in on volleyball, dodgeball and floor hockey games, as well as breakfast club, knitting club and girls club. Lindsey has proved her skills in all things athletic, and even has the battle scars to prove it. Sandra also has some scars, but of a different sort (think falling off the playground “America’s Funniest Home Videos” style). She has found her calling in knitting club though, and is currently working on a special project for the upcoming girls night (stay tuned for photos!)
Between starting our teaching, playing at recess and running after school activities, we are quickly getting to know the kids. Hot topics of conversation include: our allergies, favourite colours, Ke$ha, Just Dance and, most importantly, “when is girls night?”. (for grades 1-4, it is this Thursday after school at Missabay)On Friday we taught our first two lessons at Crolancia. We talked to the high school students about what makes a great leader and had them put their skills to the test in a tower building contest. At the end of the lesson we introduced them to the leadership program we plan to implement throughout our stay. In addition to attending weekly meetings to learn all about leadership, the students will work in groups to initiate projects within their community and become a local leader. After lunch we went into the Grade 1,2,3 class and taught a lesson about appreciating others. The students all took away a compliment tree with kind words from their classmates written on leaves.To end the week off with style, we scheduled a movie night for 7pm in the library. We watched Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s stone, and snacked on popcorn and juice with the kids—it ended up being quite a night!
We were up early the next day for a Sports Day in the school gym. Grades 6 and under arrived at 10am to play games and make crafts for a couple hours before we served spaghetti and meat sauce for lunch. The older kids arrived for an afternoon tournament of Queen’s vs. Crolancia games. Among the challenges were Pickle Lake sports favourites: dodgeball, floor hockey and basketball. Sadly, the Queen’s team was not victorious, but we did succeed in basketball thanks to Nick’s height and stellar b-ball skills.Things we learned this week:
- Popcorn is a messy food.
- Harry Potter #1 is almost 3 hours long—this is also double the attention span of most kids.
- The kids have endless energy, making Octopus is a very tiring game to play with them. Most gym games, in fact, end with the two of us huffing and puffing on the floor.
- Sandra has never played floor hockey in her life. So obviously, she was MVP of the game.
- Lindsey’s field hockey skills actually transfer quite well to floor hockey – she was the REAL MVP for the team.
Until next time,Team Pickle(aka Sandra and Lindsey)(aka Lindra)