Week 3 in Fort Prov: Eat, Sleep, Bead, REPEAT
For our third week in Fort Providence, we had a wonderful balance of teaching in the classroom and spending time at Spring Camp. We started our week off talking about sleep and hygiene with the K-1, 2-3, and 4-5 classes. The grade 4-5s had so many awesome questions regarding sleep, especially in relation to how sleep is affected by sugar and healthy eating! We were excited that we already had a nutrition lesson up our sleeves for Friday, where we would be able to answer their questions in depth. The K-1s learned how germs spread when we poured glitter on their hands and tasked them with shaking hands with their classmates – they then impressed us with their hand washing skills afterwards!
We capped off our week by discussing nutrition; focusing on the new Canada’s Food Guide, reasons why eating nutritious meals is important, and measuring out sugar in popular beverages such as pop, juice, energy drinks, and water (most of the students actually were able to guess that water has ZERO teaspoons of sugar!). The grade 4-5s drew their favourite healthy foods for us on paper plates, in portions that reflected that of the recommendations of Canada’s Food Guide. Check out some of their work in the photo below!
This week we were looking forward totalking about sexual health with the high school students. We covered topicslike contraceptives and STIs! At the beginning of the lesson, we had thestudents write down popular slang terms they knew related to sex, and “throw themaway” towards us at the front of the room. Afterwards, we worked together todecode the terms so we all knew the correct “official” names for everythingthat was written down. With lots of very important and relevant information toget across in our hour session with the classes, we continued to be impressedby their engagement! So many intuitive questions were in our question box,which we are preparing to address in our next lesson!
We attended Spring Camp twice thisweek with the grade 6-7 class! We were able to fit in some discussions abouthealthy relationships in smaller groups throughout our time there. Weespecially enjoyed getting some additional time with the girls, where they wereable to write down some extra questions for the question box and have themanswered right away. We had some “girl talk” about an array of topics –everything from romantic partners to friendships to the latest YouTube dramawas discussed (thank goodness Annelise had gotten the chance to watch thelatest 43 minute video in the James Charles-Tati Westbrook feud the day beforeon that precious school wifi)– there were even some questions about our liveswhich we loved answering. We both felt that this allowed us to connect with thegirls and we hope to be able to spend more time with this group throughout thecoming weeks!
Both of us were ecstatic to beginbeading some lanyards with Charlene over the course of our time at Spring Campthis week! Beading has been a fabulous way to pass our evenings once we aredone our lesson planning, and we are both looking forward to finishing soon! Asfar as cuisine goes, this week we were able to try duck soup (and even got thechance to watch the ducks being plucked and cooked). We learned about dryingfish and meat from some of the elders at camp. We loved trying dried moosemeat, which reminded us of beef jerky; and are hoping to try the dried fishwhen it is ready next week!
On Tuesday, some representativesfrom the government of the Northwest Territories came and participated in SpringCamp. They watched us teach (nerve-wracking to say the least!), and over lunchwe had a great conversation with the Minister of Health, Glen Abernethy,regarding the new health policy framework in the Northwest Territories and alsohad the chance to explain what QHO does! We participated in the annualcommunity clean up that is held in Fort Prov each year at Spring Camp, andcleaned up some garbage along the road on Thursday morning. On Thursdayafternoon we were told some fiddlers were coming to work with the students,which we were excited to have the opportunity to experience. You can imagineEmily’s surprise when her old fiddle teacher from the Sunshine Coast SummerCeltic Camp, Gordon Stobbe, was one of them! With Gordon on the guitar, andJ.J. Guy on the fiddle, they led the students and us through some jigs andreels. As an avid violinist for most of her life, Emily was overjoyed to pickup the fiddle again and play along!
We are enjoying the chance to relax, sleep in, and get to know some of the school staff this long weekend. We loved being invited to game night at Mel’s house with some of the other social workers in the community. In other news, we have officially mastered our signature dish, which happens to be breakfast. It has become our favourite meal anytime of the day. Also, huge shout out to Marie, one of the support workers at the school, who brought us back hummus and some produce from Yellowknife this weekend! Our hummus deficit was challenging, to say the least! We will miss her greatly as she moves to Fort Simpson in the coming weeks :(.
The weather here has been beautiful, warm, and sunny, so we are planning to make the most of our Monday off! We are hoping to get some more beading and time outside in before heading back to Spring Camp with the K-1s on Tuesday.
Catch us out in the sun along the Mackenzie,
Annelise & Emily