Treats of the Place Where Alex and Genna Live

We've been in Hove for about two months now. It's surprising how quickly time passes when you're stressed and overworked. It's not all bad though! The people we work with have been very supportive and friendly, and our students (at least those who aren't in the middle of puberty) are really wonderful. We've managed to set aside a few weekends to explore and not think about work, though to be honest most of our free time has gone into getting our furniture, banking and internet sorted out. Here are a selection of photos of our time in Brighton and the surrounding area so far.

Brighton Beach

Adventure Time Graffiti

Brighton Pavillon and Gardens

 

   

Fragility at Fabrica

Pig intestine never looked so good.

Ditchling Beacon

South Downs 

South Downs

Devil's Dyke 

The last day of September.

Saying Goodbye

Keep our community clean for the children!!

Our time in Garden Hill is officially over! It feels wonderful to be back home with friends and family where we can enjoy our summer holiday.

Some of us were more eager to leave than others.

Stevenson Island

Unofficial Staff BBQ

Before we got into the last week of school, we spent an afternoon on Stevenson Island enjoying the sun, beach, and barbecue. Stephenson Island isn't part of the reserve so it feels like being in a different world.

Saying goodbye to dog friends.

Alex and I had an excellent (though stressful) last week of school at Kistiganwacheeng Elementary. We tried to pack in as much as possible to make up for lost time and to make sure we had a positive end to a difficult year. On Monday we had Sports Day. The whole school spent the entire day outside doing track and field events. I was in charge of the grade 6 girls and Alex had all the grade 6 boys. We had cheer offs and heckled each other for most of the day.

The school needs to invest in new potato sacks,

When it was uncertain whether or not we would be going back to school this year, we were concerned that Grade 6 Graduation would be put off until the fall. Fortunately that did not happen and we were able to celebrate our student's final year in elementary school and transition to high school.

MC Lindsey knocking it out of the park!

We were also able to hold the Grade 5/6 Prom. In an effort to make staff and students feel more secure, a sign in system was organised. Several of the nurses volunteered to help out with chaperoning and one even offered to DJ. Plenty of games and activities like a photo booth were set up to keep everyone engaged. The event ran really smoothly in comparison to previous proms and school events that I've been to in Garden Hill and I think all the kids had a really good time.

On the last day of school we had our end of the year party. We had snacks, watched Sozin's Comet (the finale of Avatar the Last Airbender), played gaga ball and generally tried to just say the best goodbye we could. While we weren't able to do everything we wanted to this year, I think we were successful in making the final days of elementary school something positive for our students to look back on.

It's a relief to be home and to know that next year we'll be living in a place where we feel safe and comfortable. And while I can't imagine living and working in a place like Garden Hill again, I'm truly going to miss these kids and leaving was bitter sweet.

Goodbye Garden Hill

Two Weeks

Keeping watch over the sacred fire.

If you've been following the news you'll know that things in Garden Hill are pretty terrible right now. Last Friday we finally went back to school after three weeks of  uncertainty. The community is still grieving but now we've been able to have a funeral things seem to be moving forward. We finished our reporting and are now focusing on completing an AQ and I'm finishing the star blanket I started in the winter.

Lesson on probability.

Graphing dice probability.

We have less than two weeks left of school and then Alex and I are home for the summer before we move back to the United Kingdom for our new teaching jobs. We'll be teaching our high school subjects and we're looking forward to the change. After three years in Garden Hill I can say that this year has by far been the hardest. It's also been really rewarding but it can be hard to focus on the positive when there has been so much to bringing you down. I'm going to miss the kids and grade six has been a blast, but it's time to move onto new things.

Teamwork!

We're getting down to the final weeks of the school year and there is still so much to do! I still want to get a lot of writing done, and Ender still needs to cover an entire unit of science. There just is not enough time in the short and often disrupted Garden Hill year to cover things the way we want to. It`s frustrating but we're still really excited for summer.

Before March Break, Ender and I  did a lot of group work activities with our students. In science our students were investigating electricity and renewable energy. To finish up the unit, Ender assigned an in class research project on renewable energy which we called the 60 Minute Poster Challenge. For the challenge, students were given tablets and art supplies and needed to research and complete an informative poster about their chosen energy source within 60 minutes. Each group had to assign a leader, an artist, writers and researchers, and answer specific questions about their energy source. At this point in the year, students have a good idea of their strengths in a group so they can assign these roles themselves. It was interesting to see our students make the same choices we would for leadership.

We had some technical issues with the internet connection, but otherwise the activity went really well.  It was a close competition but the winning poster was for Biomass Energy. Their information was the most accurate and we liked their little trees.

In social studies, we have been investigating Indian Residential Schools and the Canadian Government's assimilation policy. Many of my students have grandparents or great aunts and uncles who attended these schools, but very few of them have really talked about what the schools were or what assimilation is, they just know that they were "bad." It's a difficult and sensitive subject, but the kids are really engaged and are asking good questions. To start off the unit we read Shi-shi-etko by Nicola I. Campbell and illustrated by Kim LaFave. It's a story about a girl who is counting down the days until she will have to leave her family and attend residential school. We talked about how we can be afraid of and excited about something at the same time. We also discussed the differences between having a school in your community and going away for school.

We also looked at photos taken throughout the history of the schools. Students listed all the things they saw in the photos and we talked about what information we might be able to learn from what we saw. For example, the photo of Thomas Moore, which was used to promote the effectiveness of residential school for the purposes of assimilation, many of the students had a hard time identifying that it was two photos of the same person.

Finally our school elder Lucy spoke to the class about her experiences at Portage la Prairie Indian Residential School. Before she came to speak we read Sugar Falls, a comic by David Robertson and illustrated by Scott Henderson based on Cross Lake First Nation Elder Betty Ross's real life experiences at residential school. After we read the comic I asked the class to think of questions they might have for Lucy. Afterwards we reflected on what we had learned and thought of new questions we could investigate on our own.



We also finally finished this collaborative map for ELA. Students were focused on shape and space, and needed to check with their classmates to see if their pieces would fit together. The map is from the TV show Avatar: The Last Airbender which we are watching in class. I'll post the finished map next time.