Week 3 and Happy Birthday to Me!

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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 specific to that restaurant, so you can't find the sushi we ate there anywhere else! It was definitely worth it, because each round got better than the last.

Instead of staying in Quebec City itself, we stayed on l'île d'Orleans which is a small island 20 minutes drive from the city. The island has the largest strawberry crop in that area of Quebec! I would share a picture of the strawberries, but I ate the 1.5 litres we bought too quickly!

On our last day in the city, we stopped at a Chocolaterie on the island to get a dark chocolate-dipped ice cream cone. Although it was 11am, it was the best chocolate I'd had in a very long time.

That afternoon was unfortunately less nice out, so we ran some errands in the city. When I say errands, I mean we went to every big chain store we could think of. Sadly, the most exciting part of the rainy afternoon was our trip to Wal-Mart...my first time in a Wal-Mart in a month! Once out of the superstore I was very grateful for living in a small community because I think all of Mistissini could have fit in that store! I was happy to be in a larger city so that I could pick up some daily items that are too pricey up north. We would have made a stop at the Cosco, but my car is too small to fit all of our shopping plus three people, so we decided to stop there the next time.

I have started doing an alternative workout called PiYo with my friend from school, PiYo is a fusion of Pilates and Yoga and it is INTENSE! I had my first workout on Tuesday and I'm feeling it at its worse today (Thursday)! Of course I decided to do another round tonight, so hopefully I can sit on the floor with my students tomorrow without being too sore!
More updates to come at the end of the weekend!
Thanks for reading,
~Vicki

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