Au Nord Du Quebec

The last two weekends have given me many opportunities to enjoy myself in the snow. I had my first adventure in snowshoeing! This was a big deal because the snow is so high in places that you would sink right to your waist. Luckily we have ski-doo's and ATV's that pack the snow on the trails in the woods which makes it easy for people and dogs to pass on foot. I made the impulse decision to buy a pair of snowshoes while in Quebec City a few weekends ago, and I have since used them twice. The snowshoeing itself was difficult at first because it was awkward to have these large pieces of plastic on your feet. The places where you put your feet actually go up and down and are not 100% attached to the larger piece that goes around your feet. When you walk the piece that is attached to your foot goes up and down but the entire snowshoe actually stays in the snow.  It is definitely a workout walking through multiple feet of snow and trying to keep up with two large puppies!

Happy Holidays! I know that it has been a few weeks since my last update, and let me tell you it has been very busy! Unfortunately we do not celebrate American Thanksgiving so that Thursday was a normal school day and a normal school week for us. I am not the only American in town, so a few of us got together and shared a home-cooked Thanksgiving dinner on the Thursday night.  Winter has also arrived here in Mistissini, bringing us lots and lots and lots of snow. Below is a picture of Lily enjoying our favorite snow trail. The trail below now has 3 more feet of snow covering it, which makes it impossible to walk through with winter boots. I bought myself a pair of snowshoes so I can make the trek this winter and give Lily some much needed walks. I have yet to try the snowshoes, but I know it will be an experience. Lily and my friend's dog named Nara are good friends and they enjoy playing together. They are both around 5 months old and are growing very quickly! A

I hope that everyone passed a wonderful Halloween! Here we had a nasty ice/snow storm on Halloween day, so the fire department postponed Trick-Or-Treating until November 1st. I sat outside with a giant bowl of candy and enjoyed all of the creative costumes. In class we decorated our door, I had the students draw their stinky feet to put in the witch's cauldron. The students enjoyed making Haunted Houses that opened up to spooky surprises! The past week snowed nonstop, every single day! At first it was just a centimeter or two per night, but we are expecting up to 20cm today and tonight. The snow makes the trails that much more beautiful, and the dogs really enjoy playing in the snow. Nara and Lily are sitting patiently for a treat in the picture below.  There is a nice trail that goes all the way to the lakeside, but during the fall the path isn't sturdy enough to walk on. Now that there is snow, we can walk the entire trail to the water. The view is so still

Happy Halloween everyone!  This post will be slightly shorter, but filled with pictures because I have had requests for more images of where I live and my adorable puppy.  I have been training Lily and taking her on a long walk almost every day and she is learning so quickly! She can sit, give her paws and even wait for her food until I tell her "okay". When we go on long walks, they are still in the community but we go more into the woods and on ATV or 4-wheeler paths. This way I am able to let her off-leash so she can run and play with her doggy friends if we walk together. My mom runs a wonderful small dog rescue in Massachusetts called Yellow Rose Animal Rescure (check it out  here ) and she sews bandanas and chew toys to fundraise for the rescue. In the picture below, Lily decided she didn't want to sleep all the way in her bed, and she is showing off one of my mom's bandanas!  The picture below was taken on Sunday morning when my neighbor and I

I was lucky enough to attend the "Achieving Excellence for Indigenous Canadian Learners" Conference in Montreal this past week. The conference lasted from Wednesday to Thursday and was excellent. It is so important for us to realize how we are putting our indigenous youth at risk by believing they are at a disadvantage. In many situations, the best way to up the success of students is the response to intervention and put a system in place to simultaneously catch students up while teaching them grade-level material. It is a challenging feat, but with support, good teaching and early intervention more students can be successful. The conference featured many keynote speakers and breakout sessions dealing with various aspects of teaching and learning. I found it very interesting the idea that a toxic school environment and staff/admin relationship can sink a school very quickly. The students are the most important part of a school, but too often decisions are made based on what t

I cannot stop staring at the sky. I know that my last post was about the sky but I want this one to be about it as well because I saw the Northern Lights for the first time last night! At first I thought it was just some clouds laying low in the sky, but then I noticed the stars peeking through. I was in my backyard and right away I called my neighbor over to look at the sky. He also said it looked like the Northern Lights, so we drove to a spot outside town with no lights and stared at the sky for 45 minutes. The lights were breathtaking. I couldn't get any pictures because everything was so dark, but the lights were shimmering and almost dancing across the sky. There were clouds of the lights and they looked like they were alive in the sky. A couple came to the spot we were at and set up a tripod to get some long exposure shots and those caught the lights in the most amazing way. This evening on my way to the gym, the sky was glowing yellow, orange, red and purple. The pictures

Another week gone by and we are one short week away from Canadian Thanksgiving (Columbus Day for you Americans). In Canada we celebrate Thanksgiving in a very similar way as in the US, but the holiday is on the Monday, so celebrations are typically Sunday dinners. This time of year is the best time to hunt moose, so many students in all grades are absent from school to go in the bush with their parents to hunt and trap. I only have 10 students in my class and 2 of them were in the bush this week! Although I only had 8 students, it was still an active and busy week. Friday was Declaration Day for the Cree School Board, meaning that the school gets a certain amount of funding based on how many students are present that day. Since we want to encourage students to be present for the day, we organized activities and snacks throughout the day. Each class got hot dogs and rice crispy treats just before lunch! Once the weekend started, I knew I wanted to take advantage of the fall weather.

I know the title of this post may not make a lot of sense but it has been a busy two weeks since my last update! Since my last post I have been trained in the Young Warrior's Program (http://www.youngwarriors.com/), gone to Sherbrooke and back and been on many nature walks. To begin, last week I was in training as a Young Warriors Sensei. This program was developed by David Jurasek and is a program targeted at risk youth who struggle with learning difficulties and/or behavioral issues. The program teaches students a combination of emotional regulation and Aikido, a martial art. The program will be introduced to a small group of students at the Elementary School in October and I hope that I will be chosen as one of the sensei's for the class. Since the entire week was training, my students had a substitute teacher each day. This was difficult for me because I was able to see my students at the beginning of the day and at the end, but I did not get to continue my bond with them

Yet another week has passed and I am finishing up my third full week of teaching Grade 1! This week we started our reading program called "Success For All", so every morning until recess I have a whole new group of Grade 1 students come into my class to learn their letter sounds, different words and how to read and write. The program is a lot of fun and has a lot of interactive components and many fun books the students enjoy reading. More exciting than teaching was my birthday weekend! I decided at the last minute (of course) to spend the long holiday weekend in Quebec City with a few friends. We spent our first day in the city exploring the Vieux Port and the Old City. Needless to say I spent way too much time shopping! The view from the Chateau Frontenac was breathtaking. My birthday dinner was at a small sushi restaurant on the other side of the City, I was lucky enough to get the 5 round special. All of the maki and sushi included in the special are spec

Week 1 has flown by. My students are getting more comfortable with me every day, and I with them. The most important lesson I learned this week is: LET THEM PLAY! In my first few days, I was trying to have them do too much without a break, so now I give them free play time as a transition between activities. So far it is working very well, hopefully my success continues. The most interesting part of my week was on Thursday night to celebrate Mistissini Day. Another fun tradition in the town is fiddle dancing. Unfortunately there weren't any live fiddle players, but there were live dancers! I got to watch many different groups, both youth and adult, dance to fiddle music throughout the night. Lucky for me, the host of the night asked all doctors and teachers to come out and dance to a song, so I, along with 25 other teachers and doctors, went to the middle of the plywood dance floor and danced my butt off to fiddle music for 5 minutes straight. It was the most fun I had in a long

This past week has been full of firsts! I started my teacher training on Monday at the High School where we had breakfast as a full staff. The Chief welcomed us and wished us a very successful school year. The next three days were full of planning, meetings and classroom set-up. At last came Thursday aka The First Day of School! My classroom was all set up and ready! I was as prepared as I could be for the students that were about to come my way and be my first students ever. I have ten students on my class list and five of them came on the first day! You may think that's not a lot of students, but the first day of school here does not have the best attendance record. I was able to meet my students and spend most of the day with them, showing them the class and the school and making sure they were comfortable with me and with each other. Since Thursday was such a draining and exciting day, a few friends of mine (also teachers) and I went blueberry picking on the other side

Welcome to my blog! I am very excited to be sharing my experiences as a first-year teacher, an American in Quebec and as a resident of a remote community. For those of you who do not know me, I am a recent graduate of Bishop's University in Lennoxville, Quebec, where I graduated with my Bachelor of Arts in Education and Bachelor of Education in Primary Studies. I am originally from a small suburb outside of Boston, Massachusetts and am now teaching Grade 1 in the Cree Nation of Mistissini in Quebec. Needless to say that I am very far from home, 776 miles or 1250 kilometers to be exact.  Check out the route I took  here .  My journey North was done in two legs, one 5.5 hour drive to Sherbrooke, Quebec to stay overnight then a 10 hour drive to Mistissini. There were many stops along the way, stopping for food, gas and bathroom breaks as often as I could. The most north I had been before now was Quebec City, but I passed Quebec City only 3 hours into the second part of my drive. B