Week One = Success!!
Sal Pals here!! After a busy week of prep, exploring and getting to know as much as we can about Salluit we are ready to update you all.We began our week with some very fun recess introductions with the students, this involved lots of sunglasses trading and age-guessing (we got everything from 12 to 29)! We also had the chance to meet with the principals at both schools and chat with a few community members about beautiful Salluit. We were also able to introduce ourselves and QHO by attending staff meetings at both schools, which was an awesome way to find out what topics teachers were excited to have taught! When we weren’t running to meetings or marveling at our beautiful surroundings, we took the time to explore the community and find out where all the important buildings were (this including getting lost a few times, all part of it!).Mid-week we built up our teaching schedule which begins Monday, with some exciting lessons on nutrition (yum!). It includes classes in the primary school, Pigiurvik, the high school, Ikusik and the youth rehab center. (A total of 10 groups already, woo!!) We also found our way to one of the grocery stores in Salluit and had a lot of fun picking up a few extra ingredients (mostly we were excited to buy some things to help use up our 4 kg of peanut butter). We ended our week with a very positive outing to the skating arena, a chill Saturday to rest and a Sunday full of class prep and an amazing hike to Salluit’s Inukshuk.Following in the tradition of last year’s PE’s we have decided to feature two special moments from each week. This year we will be sharing a Heroic Health moment and a Fabulous Funny moment from each week so stay tuned!Heroic Health moment:We were so impressed with the grade 3 and 4 students who we joined for skating on Friday afternoon. It was so nice to get to participate in a healthy activity which all the students were so excited about. We were so impressed by what amazing helpers the students were, all helping each other tie up their skates (they were much faster than we were) and making sure that the less confident skaters had chairs for support and balance. It was so nice to get to hang out with the students in such a fun and unique environment, and to see them all shine as skaters! Such an amazing end to an amazing week!Fabulous Funny moment:As we start to introduce ourselves to community members and students we have started to love hearing the various adaptations of our names and QHO (nothing makes you feel better than hearing chants of ‘Sophie’ and ‘Danica’ as you walk up to school). One of our personal favourites occurred right as we got off the airplane in Salluit and met the behaviour tech at the high school who greeted us and referred to us as the always smiling, always happy "Queen's Health Angels". It was almost hard to correct him, but our QHO hats gave us away in the end.Can't wait to start sharing our lessons in classes tomorrow, stay tuned for more updates!Stay snazzy,Your Sal Pals <3