FIRST WEEK….Check ✓

Hi family and friends, we are just sitting here wondering where to begin! This week has been quite the whirlwind and we have so much to tell. Here is a look at what we have been up to since we last posted: The week began with some meetings with some of our QHO contacts in the community including Shelly at the Arctic College and some of the nurses at the nursing station. By talking with them and discussing ideas we were able to gather some useful information relevant to our health curriculum. We were also lucky enough to be able to speak with some Nasivvik graduates and gain a new perspective on what health topics would be useful to teach this year. We visited Nasivvik several times early on in the week to start geting organized for Wednesday. This is when we met many of the teachers, the principal, Meeka, and some other helpful QHO contacts, Rachel and Anne. We just wanted to say that we have felt so welcome from the beginning and that everyone has been so helpful! On Wednesday we officially began our teaching schedule! Our mornings will be spent with the high school students (grades 10-12) and our afternoons with the junior high students (grades 7-9). We started our classes off by showing some pictures of home and talking about QHO. Even on our first day, the students were great and so eager to ask questions! Then, on Thursday and Friday we got into our health material! We began with a lesson about nutrition and making healthy food choices. We expected this would be a challenging lesson because food here is very expensive- for example, grapes cost about $15 and chips can cost up to $11. Our nutrition lesson included the students combining foods to make a meal, learning how to read food labels and practicing shopping in the co-op (the grocery store here). The students looked at real prices from the co-op and had to make a shopping list. We also taught a lesson on communication and how to express symptoms to the nurses at the health centre. One of our favourite parts of teaching has been the question box. The question box is a place where students can ask anonymous questions relating to the teaching material (or not). The following class we then answer these questions. This week we received some great questions and other times we got some things that made us laugh... Overall, we think it will be a great addition to our lessons!Another memorable moment for us this week was our first taste of seal meat! They were cooking seal in the school and let us try some of the stew and even a piece. We were a little apprehensive at first but it really did taste just like beef!Every day after school this week we hosted a bracelet-making club, which was very popular (even with some of the boys!). The club is so popular we may even have to ship in some more craft supplies... Finally on Friday evening, we celebrated a successful first week with some Kelsey-Erin time (also known as sledding and wandering the hills of sunny Pond Inlet). We felt like kids again for sure! We have lots planned for this weekend and we will update again soon! Love from the Arctic, Kelsey & Erin