Ulluriaq School

When mid-June arrives, its time to wrap up the school year. And in traditional fashion, we finished off the year with a BBQ picnic. There were running races and tug-o-war competitions as well. Following the hotdog feast, the students and staff went to the gym to view the slideshow on events from the past ten months. It was great year--enjoy the summer vacation!!

Click here to see the gallery of photos.

Continuing this year, was the Fly Tying and Rod Building Project.  Students had the special opportunity to learn to make their own flies for fly-fishing.  In addition, some students with a dedicated interest in fly-fishing had a chance to make their own fishing rod. Amelie Langlais and Gary Thibault worked patiently with the students to share their passion for fly-fishing. The students who completed their rods even had a chance to go to the river and try them out.

The entire project is funded by Brighter Futures and New Path in Education.

Click here to see the gallery of fly tying pics.

Click here to see the gallery of rod building and fishing pics.

 

Last week, all of the secondary students gathered with the culture teachers and two Elders to learn about cleaning a seal. The seal was shot and shared by Tommy Baron. A large amount of information was shared by everyone who attended. In addition to learning how to clean the seal, Elders talked about the anatomy of the animal and shared interesting facts on how the body parts were used in the past.  The students were extremely interested and attentive.  It was a very valuable learning experience. The group couldn't resist having a snack during the workshop.  The Applied Culture classes are funded by Brighter Futures.

Click here to see the gallery of photos.

The Teachers VS PeeWees hockey game is a tradition that has been running since 1996. There is only one problem problem--the teachers are getting older and the students are staying the same age. It was another hard fought battle. But for the first time in three years, the Teachers were victorious.

A big thanks to Chris who organized the event. Also, thanks to the teachers who played and helped out.

Click here to see the gallery of photos.

Ulluriaq School celebrated Earth Day 2010 with nature-inspired poetry and a school-wide garbage clean-up around the town. Despite still having a great deal of slush and snow on the ground, all the classes managed to find garbage around the village, making our community a cleaner place to live.

The Earth Day activities were organized by Elisabeth, who also provided the poems read aloud and the garbage bags and gloves necessary for the garbage pick-up. It seems that everyone understood the importance of the earth on this very special day.

Thursday April 22nd 2010 was an exciting day--the very first bilingual Spelling Bee ever held at Ulluriaq School. The Spelling Bee Committee (Kirsten, Lesley, Luc and Manon) worked hard organizing the event and coaching students on learning their words--and other teachers participated by ensuring their students studied hard as well.

There were about thirty participants and four champions (one each for primary French and English and secondary French and English), each winning fifty dollars and an electronic dictionary. It was very exciting as the audience felt the tension when the finalists went head-to-head, spelling challenging word after challenging word.

The Parenting Class, this year's pilot course in Personal and Social Development for secondary English students, is progressing well. With some great successes, the students completed their second semesters acting as 'parents'. Many students complained that they would not be able to 'go out' or 'have fun' with their dolls, but some did take their 'babies' out with them. It seemed unanimous, however, that students learned some of the responsibilities necessary of caring for an infant, resulting in choruses of "I am never having kids!"

 We are also awaiting some new materials: pregnancy simulation suits, and dolls representing babies who are Fetal Alcohol Affected and Drug Affected, and another doll demonstrating Shaken Baby Syndrome. Students will focus on the health, safety and discipline of babies and children for the rest of the school year.

Once again this year, the IPL group and their teacher Daniel Annanack organized dog team excursions for all the students in primary. Leevan and Daniel mushed groups of students to Old Woman's Lake where they had a tent set up. The students made fires, ate lunch, jigged for trout and hunted ptarmigan. Students and teachers really enjoyed the excursions. The IPL boys and girls did a super job at helping out and taking good care of the younger students--GREAT WORK!

Click here to see the gallery of photos.

Due to the size of our school, this year's Culture Day festivities were spread over two days. Tuesday was the day for primary students. After the drive by skidoo through the trees to a small lake to the east of town, students arrived at a tent village where elders had already begun preparing tea, soups, fish and bannock for lunch, shared stories and were demonstrating traditional skills. The smiling faces and excited giggles could be heard all around the lake as the kids played games with a sealskin ball, snow shoed through the trees and slid down the hill on seal skin slides.