Hand Drums, Guinea Pigs and Pancakes - Week 4!
It is hard to believe that we only have one week left in this beautiful community! We have had a great 4 weeks here and are looking forward to an exciting 5th! The weather this past week treated us to a little taste of summer – warm and sunny! We had the opportunity to attend and participate in various school events this week. On Wednesday afternoon we attended the school Career Fair where visitors to Webequie displayed information about various careers. It was a great opportunity for us to visit the displays with students and learn more about what they are interested in. We also participated in a hand-drum making workshop with our Grade 9s. We learned about the history of hand drumming and of its significance to spiritual health and well-being in Oji-Cree communities. Using deer hide means that when playing the hand drum, we are hearing the heartbeat of the animal whose hide was used to create such beautiful instruments. It was a great opportunity for us to bond with our students, who are incredibly talented and creative. We feel very fortunate to have had this fantastic learning opportunity!
Back in the classroom with the Grade 9s we continued our discussions on bullying and the connection between mental, physical, spiritual and emotional health. They enjoyed our toothpaste activity to start our discussion on bullying. They were tasked with trying to put toothpaste back into the tube after having squeezed it out. Although the students were actually very successful at somehow getting the toothpaste back into the tube, this activity was useful to show that once bullying happens it can be difficult for an individual to regain someone’s trust or to take back what was said or done.To top off our exciting week we attended the science fair on Friday afternoon. Each class set up a display with their fascinating and creative science experiment. Some displays included bubble making, forensic finger printing, composting worms and even guinea pigs! We enjoyed listening to students teach us about their experiment, many with “Young Scientist” stickers proudly displayed on their t-shirts!
As well as attending all these great school events we were also able to spend lots of time in the classrooms! We reviewed the topics we have taught so far such as nutrition, teamwork, hygiene and bullying through a game of Jeopardy with the Grade 2’s, 3’s, 4’s and 5’s, which the students really enjoyed! We also enjoyed making friendship hands with the Grade 2 class. We traced our hands and passed them around the classroom for our friends to write nice things about us in the fingers. The kids really enjoyed this activity to finish up our lessons on healthy friendships and bullying.
On Friday morning we decided to take our hard working and dedicated Grade 5s to the school kitchen for a fun morning of pancake making (WITH chocolate chips of course)!! The kids showed us their superb cooking skills by making perfectly round pancakes while we supervised and taste-tested. After teaching the Grade 5s every morning last week it was really nice to get to take them outside the classroom and treat them to a yummy breakfast that tested our teamwork skills and culinary talents! It was a great way to start our Friday.
The weather stayed beautiful throughout the weekend and we definitely took advantage of the summer weather with a canoe and a swim – yes a SWIM! The ice came off on Friday and Sunday morning we went swimming. Call us crazy but it was exactly what we needed! We are eager to take full advantage of our last week in Webequie and will be sad to say see you later (no goodbyes!) to this wonderful place and all the people who have made our time here so amazing.
Meegwetch!Carly and JJ