Blueberries, Tacos and the First Day of School

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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 of town. We drove down a dirt road, then stopped at what looked to me like an ordinary small hill, but we walked up about 50 feet and there were so many blueberries! This is a picture of my full bowl of picked blueberries, but it did not make it home full!

Left: my bowl of blueberries, Right: The view while blueberry picking
Friday was another exciting day of school, I had six students present before lunch and four after lunch. All of the students go home for the hour and a half lunch period, so sometimes they do not return for the last two periods of the day. I have had the opportunity to go home during lunch as well, since my apartment is only a seven minute walk from the school.

Mistissini hosted its 5th annual powwow on Saturday and Sunday, and I was lucky enough to attend both days! The powwow is a social gathering of the community that consisted of traditional dancing and drumming, food and clothing vendors and a feast in the evening. I was introduced to the Taco, which is homemade chili served over fry bread with a variety of toppings. All I can say is that it was delicious and thank goodness they're only served once a year!
The dancing lasted all afternoon on Saturday and Sunday, with different categories of dancing for each song. Some examples of the different forms include the Men Fancy, Men Grass, Women Fancy Shawl and Women Jingle. The different categories are based on the outfits the dancers were wearing, the Women Jingle included dancers dressed in Jingle Dresses as seen below.
Monday marks the beginning of another busy week of school, our "Getting Along Together" program starts for the first two weeks of school. This program focuses on (you guessed it) teaching students how to work together, recognize their feelings and develop positive social friendships.

More to come next week, thanks for reading!

~Vicki

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