Meegwetch Webequie!

Meegwetch Webequie for the most incredible past 5 weeks! We feel so fortunate to have had the opportunity to get to know this wonderful community! Our last week was busy - just the way we like it! We finished up lessons on bullying, healthy habits, healthy relationships and coping strategies and still managed to squeeze in a few fun games in our last few days of teaching.The Grade 5 class enjoyed watching us act out bullying scenarios and solutions to the situations. They also worked well thinking about their own scenarios and how to respond to them. We had a blast taking the Grade 9 class out to North Point to play capture the flag on Thursday afternoon! The students impressed us by becoming one with the tress and sneaking up on us while defending our flags!Continuing our weekly afterschool programming, we opened the gym for girls-only gym time multiple times last week. We enjoyed getting to spend even more time with the girls playing hockey, soccer, volleyball and broomball. In gym classes we continued playing games of hockey, toilet tag, volleyball, and going outside. We almost made it a whole 5 weeks without any injuries but Carly bravely took a high stick in a game of hockey with our grade 6/7 class to save the game (or at least she tells herself). After a quick trip to the nursing station to get it checked out and a few days of just watching sports she was back to normal and back in the game. Despite the minor injury we both feel our floor hockey skills have improved drastically and proudly wear the “not-so-bad at hockey” label given to us by the kids!We had a big day on Friday which was a great way to finish up our time teaching in the school. We made pancakes with the students we got to know in the Special Education classroom (can you tell we like pancakes?). We loaded the pancakes with chocolate and enjoyed giggles and smiles while spending our last morning with those students. In the afternoon we joined the Grade 5s and 9s out at North Point for a plant identification workshop followed by s’mores and hotdogs! The students had fun identifying and taking photos of specific plants in the bush and we loved participating with them!After our afternoon at North Point we hosted the 2017 Webequie Photo Scavenger Hunt. Students were tasked with taking photos of themselves checking items off our scavenger hunt list. The students had lots of fun making up cheers, taking photos with their favourite foods at the Northern and acting out their favourite type of physical activity. We treated the students to ice cream sandwiches after the exciting scavenger hunt because Friday truly felt like summer and we all needed something to cool us down!JJ spent the evening fishing in Winisk River Provincial Park while Carly attended the high school cookout and campfire! We both learned how to filet fish which we thoroughly enjoyed eating for dinner on Saturday!The weather remained hot, sunny and buggy for our final weekend in Webequie. We spent the weekend writing thank-you cards, baking 106 (!!!) cupcakes as goodbye treats for the school and reflecting on our time in Webequie. On Monday we said our goodbyes to each class and the staff of SJMEC as well as other community members we so fortunately got to know. After lots of hugs, cupcake eating and card giving we headed to the airport.While we are sad that our time in Webequie has come to an end, we are leaving with a full heart, a whole new set of skills, and so many wonderful memories. We cannot thank the community of Webequie and the staff at SJMEC enough for being so welcoming, kind and helpful. Webequie First Nation is a beautiful and strong community full of resiliency and excitement. We feel so lucky to have been a part of it, even if just for a little bit.