WEEK 3 IN WEB: WHERE DID THE TIME GO?
Welcome back everyone to Nat and Gabi's weekly update! This week we continued to have some really great health-related discussions with the students at Simon Jacob Memorial Education Center (SJMEC) as we focused on the topics of friendship, bullying, substances and media.
Our younger students where so good at identifying what bullying is, and with the help of some creative colouring sheets, they learned how they can prevent and stop bullying. Our students have also gotten so good at singing & dancing along with us and we always have a blast incorporating sing-alongs into our lessons. The grade 4 - 5’s also showed us their competitive side when we ended the bullying lesson with a game of jeopardy.
One of our favourite lessons of the week was with the High School students when we did a lesson on “The Truth in Media”. We had previously spoken with the high school teacher and gotten some feedback about how the students could benefit from a discussion on social media and identifying credible sources, and we decided to add in the health element of self-esteem as it relates to social media usage. Since we incorporated so many themes we were grateful to have the full hour for this lesson so we could do justice to each component, and also include some relatable video clips. Given the relatable topics, we both felt as though we were learning lots throughout the lesson and in particular from the input of our students. We’re so happy that our students enjoyed the lesson as much as we did!
Outside of the classroom we continued to work on our initiative goal of connecting with student beyond the classroom. Most day’s after school we attended an after school program run by a Jordan’s Principle nurse named Sonja. She’s been coming up to Webequie for the past year and a half and it’s clear she is valued and respected by the entire community. Sonja was so kind enough to discuss with us her role and her perspective on community dynamics. During her after school program we really enjoyed colouring, playing with legos, making dance routines, and putting together puzzles with the kids. We are so grateful that Sonja has given us the opportunity to partner with her on the after school programs and we look forward to being able to lead some wonderful activities that the kids will enjoy!
We also we attended our weekly Wednesday night sewing session in an effort to complete our mittens! This weeks sewing thank you is extended to Janet who so patiently explained to us what the next steps of the project were! We’d be completely stuck and lost without you Janet! We always have such a great time at sewing night as we get to meet key community members who have great insight into the community dynamics and history. Like our other northern PE’s we’ve continued to explore the island and we’ve come to really enjoy our evening strolls as we get to see the most magnificent sunsets. Each day doesn’t compare to the last and what’s more is that the sky up here changes hues in just a matter of minutes!
Our school week ended off with a community clean up of the area surrounding the school. The students from each grade contributed to picking up the litter and it was so great to see the whole school get behind doing some good in the community. The school grounds now look beautiful in preparation for this weeks upcoming Career Fair! Moving forward, we're looking forward to continuing discussions on bullying, and to our upcoming lessons on hygiene and mental health!
- Nat & Gabi xoxo