Makeovers, Soccer, Boyz becoming Men.

Hello everyone! It's been an eventful few weeks since we last posted so here is what we did from then until now!


The past 2 weeks in Missabay we taught Substance Abuse to every grade from kindrgarten to grade 8 (tailoring lessons accordingly).  The students seemed very interested and we had a TON of questions that we answered for them.  The teachers were even very interested in the lessons and complimented our teaching style after class, which was very nice to hear! :) This is our grade 2 class labelling "What smoking does to our body":

The students all got a chance to learn the recovery position, and practice it on eachother.  We also went over all of the resources that are available in the community. We invented an awesome trivia game that does not have a name yet, but the board is in the shape of a "Q" so it COULD stand for Question game, QHO trivial pursuit on subastance abuse and prescription drugs, or Quick way to earn some chocolate!

Here are some gems from the question box that we couldn't resist sharing:
"Why is Nick so hairy?"
"Why is Lora so mean?"
"Laura is nice!"

COMMUNITY OUTREACH!

Over the past 2 weeks, we had 3 Girls' Nights, one BOYZ-TO-MAN-A-THON, one community barbeque, a movie night, some fishing, and a few meetings in the community.  Girls night #1 was planned for the girls from kindergarten to grade 3 in Crolanica which was a great turnout!  The girls made oatmeal facials, did some fun crafts, enjoyed cupcake decorating, and an awesome game of dance freeze!  Oh yeah... they also gave Nick a nothing-but-stunning makeover:

Our inter-school girls night at Crolanica with older girls (grades 4-8) from both schools was planned for the next day! This plan had to change at the last minute because of the amount of girls that wanted to come from Missabay!  We did not have enough cars to drive the 16 girls that signed up! So we decied to change the location to Missabay, and have a seperate girl's night for Crolancia.  All day there was chat about what was planned for the night and how excited all the girls were.  As Nick drove through the town, picking everyone up at their homes, he recieved another 7 forms and girls who wanted to attend!  We had a grand total of 23 Missabay girls at the event!  We played a bunch of games in the gym, some dance dance revolution, made a song about Mishkeegogamang on the guitar, decorated cupcakes, and had a HUGE dinner for everyone!  But the highlight event was our Paper Dress Fashion Show/ Makeover. We divided the girls into two teams, each getting to give Nick and Matt (a Missabay teacher who was a wonderful sport) a makeover! They also designed paper dresses for their models to wear...and then taught them a walk-off walk for the fashion show.  The girls made a runway... and the walk-off began.  First was Matt, strutting his way through the runway, with wonderful makeup and feather earrings.  Next was Nick, also with feather earrings, a dress that said "Im Beautiful, Don't Judge" and amazing makeup.  THE VICTOR OF THIS EVENT WAS................ dum dum dum............. NICK!!!!! WOOOO!!!!!

BOYZ-TO-MAN-A-THON:

This was another highly anticipated event that had to be split between Crolancia and Missabay, due to logistical issues.  By logistical issues, I really mean that we didnt have enough room in our cars for all of the students who wanted to attend.  So the first BOYZ-TO-MAN-A-THON was held at Missabay, for any boy from grades 3-8 who wanted to attend.  We had a total of 16 guys show up, all ready to become men (according to Nick).  This event had challenges including cracker eating, log throwing, pushups, leg-wrestling, hockey shootout, loudest-grunting contest, football throwing, juice-chugging, and swimming!  Our victor of the event recieved a brand new fishing rod and tackle box as a prize! We plan to have our Crolancia BOYZ-TO-MAN-A-THON this upcoming week.

Throughout the past 2 weeks, we also volunteered at a community barbeque and a community movie night where we watched Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson acting at his finest.  We also went fishing a few times where Laura was destined to catch a fish.  She claims she caught 4 fish one evening, yet none of them made it to shore... hmmm.... but a community member wa generous enough to give us some of the fish he caught, and teach us how to fillet it and remove all the bones and such.  It was past midnight, but we were hungry and excited... so we cooked our fish anyways.  It was delicious!

After meeting with the town's youth activator a few times, he thought that it would be best to cancel some of the planned activities due to the weather :( .  This was unfortunate but we ran a few soccer games in Mish which the kids loved and want us to keep doing this upcoming week!  We plan to meet with Connie, the Chief, to discuss some of QHO's future plans and some final things we may be able to do in the community.

Pickle Lake PE's made plans to be on the Mish radio this upcoming week, and we also plan to have our Thank-You dinner for the community.  Stay tuned for our last blog which will be at the end of this week :(  TIME HAS BEEN FLYING here in Mish, and we can't believe our time here is almost over.  Looking forward to the events in our last week, but not our goodbyes :(

Princess Nick, and Fish-Catchy Laura!

Another great week of teaching at Missabay has come to a close! This week lessons focused on Sexual Health and Healthy Relationships. Classes were filled with lots of giggling and insightful questions, some that even stumped Nick and I! Highlights from the week included an intense Jeopardy game on Sexually Transmitted Infections with the senior students and with the primary students, making paper fortune tellers that instead of telling fortunes, told ways of being a good friend. The kids loved it! Making a craft was a great way to change up our teaching style and the kids enjoyed getting to do something hands on. Maggie and Julia also came into the school to help teach some lessons, and we played some awesome tag-inspired fire safety games that included stopping, dropping, and rolling with the younger kids.

Time outside of the classroom has been really eventful as well! Today we met with the youth co-ordinator to talk about more ways QHO can get involved on the reserve, and are excited to have the opportunity to help lead a 4 hour canoe trip that is being held for the girls in the community. We also were able to further develop QHO's relationship with Mishkeegogamang's Baby Centre, who have been facing the challenge of relocating after their main location was unfortunately lost in a fire a couple months ago. QHO will be helping to produce information pamphlets on Fetal Alcohol Syndrome which expectant mothers can take home with them.  We're excited to be strengthening and expanding our current contacts in the community!

Tomorrow we take our mid-project trip to Dryden to pick up some more supplies for upcoming girls nights, intramural sports days, and the highly anticipated "boys-to-man-athon". The next few weeks are going to be jam-packed with great community outreach events that the kids have been asking about since our first week of teaching! That's a shout out of appreciation to last year's PEs, Eric and Michaela, if we ever heard one!

Stay tuned,
Nick and Laura

Teaching in Missabay!!

It has been such a great week here in Mishkeegogamang! The teachers at Missabay have welcomed us with enthusiasm and we are excited to be working with faculty and students alike for the next 6 weeks. We jumped into things right away, and have been teaching a full schedule across all grades every day. With various activities and games in tow, this week we taught physical health, focusing on Hygiene and Nutrition. The students responded well to our lessons and it was great to see them engaging with the material. We also learned some new things ourselves! For example, if you're out on the land and don't have soap and water handy, the best way to wash your hands is to use wet sand!

We were soooo pumped to go to school today and have Nutrition Rap Battles with some of the older kids who are into hip-hop, but unfortunately the power was out and school was cancelled :(

We're currently planning some great inter-school events with the Pickle Lake PEs, and we'll be sure to update you all on how they play out!

Rapper Nick and Homie Laura