Where have the Pickle Lakers been all this time you ask? Not to worry, we can fill you in!
We are four weeks into our stay in the lovely town at the
end of the highway. It is crazy to think we have only two more weeks left here, and
so many more things to do! We have been running around for the past two weeks
gearing up for Girl’s Nights, road tripping to Powwows, fishing, and lesson
planning for all different grades.
Last week we started off our Mental Health unit at Crolancia, teaching about self respect, bullying, peer pressure, and conflict resolution. With the 1/2/3 class, our emphasis was on conflict resolution. All week we had Grade 1/2/3 kids coming up to us telling us to STAND TALL and TAKE A DEEP BREATH. It was great to see the students so engaged with the lesson. We also worked with the 6/7/8 students on Peer Pressure and we were so pleased to see them actively thinking about possible responses and ways of dealing with social pressures.
On Friday the Pickle Laker PE’s were split apart in order to
DOUBLE our outreach. Maggie was off to Mish with the MissaBay PE’s to help out
at the Baby Centre and speak with Jeff about future outreach. It was really wonderful to be able to discuss the different programs that Maxine and Jeff run, which include Wolf Spirit, Girl Power and Mamo-Ombiggi-
Owsowin. Julia
hopped on a school bus with a group of Crolancia students to attend a Powwow at
the Dryden Highschool. Julia rocked out to all of the girl’s
music on the bus as they counted FIFTEEN BEARS on the ride there. Julia was in
shock, but the kids assured her this was just a typical day in the North. At
the Powwow everyone stood to see the awesome opening ceremony, marked by
intense drumming and chanting by the circle elders. As the Powwow progressed
all the students were invited to join in the dancing around the drums along
with the ceremony dancers! It was such a cool sight to see, and it was great to
watch all the Crolancia students join in with the crowd. At the end the dancers
tried to instruct all of the teachers and older kids on how to do the Hunter’s
Dance. Unfortunately, Julia definitely needs to work on her coordination before
she is able to show off her new moves.
As the long weekend approached, the four PE’s took a much
needed trip to Dryden to stock up on groceries. Since it was a long weekend, we
took Monday to explore the hiking trails around Pickle. This gave Maggie a
prime opportunity to demonstrate her superb navigation skills! And by this we
mean she unfortunately identified our location as the opposite side of town.
After working up an appetite we drove to the dams for a bit of fishing, hoping
to catch our dinner! The fish had other plans apparently though, so we nommed
on some sunflower seeds and smores until a less fishy dinner was cooked up.
Our third week in Pickle flew by as well. Starting
this week, Maggie and Julia will be working with the 6/7/8, grade girls and
1/2/3 girls everyday to focus on self esteem, respect, and communication
skills. This is a really great opportunity for us to work so closely with the
girls and we have been thrilled with the discussions and activities we have done with them. Our emphasis with the 6/7/8 grade girls has been on stress, conflict resolution and respect. It was definitely a highlight to see the girls so engaged with the worksheets we created as they wrote down what they were proud of and their ambitions.
In the 1/2.3 class we have been focusing on friendships and the ways in which secrets and tattle tailing hurt people's feelings. They really enjoyed playing broken telephone and seeing how much the message can change from person to person. Additionally, we had a great chat about excluding (a new vocal word for the girls!) and how that makes friends feel. The girls loved writing kind messages to everybody when we did a warm fuzzes activity with the girls and we are happy to see them thinking that everyone in the class is friends and their is something unique about each of them.
With the 4/5 class our emphasis has been to teach them all about sexual anatomy and puberty. As Julia is convinced words like “epididymis” and “fallopian tubes” are the funniest words in the world, the kids quickly got comfortable saying them. After a few lessons on puberty and sexual
health vocab the kids got to show off their knowledge with the totally awesome
GAME OF PUBERTY that Maggie worked hard to create (thanks for the inspiration, Justice and Fabi). The game included activities challenges, such as assemble a puzzle of the female and male sexual anatomy. They impressed the both of
us by remembering everything we taught them and working super well together as
a team. Props to you, Grades 4 and 5!!
We had the opportunity to teach every
single grade in the school in one day? Did we mention we did it TWICE this
week?! Well it’s true, we were super excited to stop into every classroom with
lessons on sexual health (including STI jeopardy for the high school students)
or physical education for the younger kids. It was a great week at Crolancia,
that is for sure.
Our third week in Pickle also featured two Girls Nights. Girl’s Night 1.0 took place on Wednesday afternoon right after
school for the JK/SK and 1/2/3 ladies of Crolancia. We started off with decorating cupcakes and
creating clothespin creatures (Maggie is undeniably proud of being able to make crafts out of anything).We never realized just
how much younger girls loves glitter and sprinkles After snack time we
demonstrated our oatmeal face mask on our wonderful volunteer, Nick. After
seeing just how much he loved it, of course all of the younger ladies were
eager to have an oatmeal facemask as well! After rocking out a bit to Call me Maybe, we finished up the afternoon
with our special feature: Giving Nick a
makeover! This was most certainly the
highlight of the event, as the girls were able to show off their creativity and
show off Nick’s inner beauty queen.
Still enthused from our successful girl’s
night at Crolancia we were quick to start our work for girl’s night at
Missabay! How many PE’s does it take to bake 50 + cupcakes?? How does one make
enough frosting for 20 plus girls?? It appears that Nick does not know….
The PE’s were slightly delirious after hours spent baking
cupcakes, mac and cheese, and bucket loads (literally, we ran out of bowls, so
we used a pail) of frosting. It all was worth it though, as Girls Night 2.0 was a hit! We were so happy to spend time with over 20 girls from Grade
4,5,6,7, and 8 at Missabay on Friday evening. We began the night with fun games
like Tape Tag and Huckle Buckle in the gym. Laura and Julia were the champs of
Huckle Buckle, taking down the male squad of Nick and Matt (a teacher from
Missabay) in the final round while Maggie lost her voice narrating the games. After running around for quite a
while we had cupcake decorating and then had Missabay’s Next Top Model. Who
were our top two contestants? Matt and Nick of course!! The ladies split up
into teams to see who could make the most lovely models. We had two very
interesting final contestants, that is for sure. It was a night filled with giggles, MORE Call
Me Maybe (we DEFINITELY know all the lyrics by heart at this point), and lots
of smiling Missabay ladies. We don’t think anyone was quite ready for the night
to end when the clock struck nine.
After so many busy days one might think we would be taking it
easy and reveling in last's nights snow (Maggie might have exclaimed 'It's snowing!!" over 20 times). None of that though! We are off to get ready for Boy’s Afternoon with the
younger fella’s of Crolancia, and then we’re all excited to watch a movie with the kids of Pickle Lake.
Over and Out, Call Me Maybe (if I had cell service!), Much
more Pickle Lovin and a whole new jar of peanut butter,
Mama Jules and Aunt Marge
