The Cold Never Bothered Us Anyways

Hello family and friends!We’ve been pretty busy at school this past week – introducing new topics, keeping busy with after school activities and continuing to plan for upcoming events!Last week we started a unit on healthy relationships with the grade 9 students and with a group of the grade 12 students. This involved lessons on anger management, abuse, trust and overall, how to build and keep healthy relationships in all aspects of life. The lessons were well received and an activity that we found to be especially valueable was the “abuse tree”. This involved each student tracing his or her hand and then on each finger listing a support person they could talk to during a tough time. Another unit we introduced last week was parenting (still with the grade 9 students). This was a new addition to the QHO curriculum for Pond Inlet after being heavily requested by community members. During these lessons students learned parenting skills through games like “Parenting Jeopardy” and “Myth Busters.” We were incredibly impressed by the great questions that we got from the students! Last week we also started substance abuse with the grade 7s and 8s. To start this off, we did lessons on peer pressure and self esteem! Our favourite part of these lessons was making our “Warm & Fuzzies Web” that connected each class member with compliments from each other! This week we will be tackling smoking and alcohol with the same students. A definite highlight since we last wrote was our first Girls’ Night! Of course, the night had to be “Frozen” themed! We watched the movie (doing our best to not belt out every song), did makeovers, nails and of course had some bracelet making. The girls are already asking when our next girls’ week will take place! Highlights from our weekend also included snowshoeing, visiting Pond Inlet’s Saturday flea market and a long hike by the water! In other news, as Pat and Juana will be heading down south this week, we have switched living situations to a new home! It is a little closer to school and we now have a new beautiful dog to love (Kelsey may already be a little obsessed!). We will write again soon. Love as always from the arctic, Kelsey & Erin