A Special Field Trip and Other Activities

What a busy week. Here are some highlights.
On Tuesday we had Aboriginal Day celebrations and crafts. Here is a picture of the dancers. Note that the youngest one is a preschooler. They start dancing at a young age.

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Remember all the fundraising we did for a field trip? Well, we went on Wednesday. This was an expensive beach day, but it was definitely worth it. It will be a memory for my students and the students in Port Hardy for many years to come.
This trip was to meet up with 2 of the classes I met while I was in Port Hardy at Spring Break. I went to see how technology was being used in the school.there. My host teacher teaches Grade 2 and I spent a lot of time with her class. I also spent some time with the Grade 3 class because one of my students moved to Port Hardy at Christmas and she was in that class. I thought it would be fun to have the classes meet and perhaps set up a buddy class situation for the future. I also wanted my students to see what other parts of the island looked like. The teachers liked the idea, so we made plans, had a Skype call to introduce the classes and we were off.
We started at 7:00 a.m. and took a 3 hour bus ride to the north of the island. This was the first time most of my students had been that far north. This was my second trip.
We headed to a very popular beach called Storey's Beach where we met up with the 2 classes. This was very similar to a beach we have nearby called Miracle Beach. It has a great sandy area when the tide is out and it also has fields to play on.
The tide was coming in, so we didn't have long on the sand bar, but the children enjoyed it anyways. The boys could hardly wait to get out on the sand bar and play soccer.
We had 6 different activities to do after some fun on the beach. The children were mixed into 6 groups and they rotated through 4 of the activities. (We didn't have enough time for all six.)

Having fun playing on the beach.

Playing soccer on the field during the group activities.

Tug of War anyone?

Making rock and shell pets.

Following the time on the beach, everyone jumped on the bus and we headed to Eagleview Elementary for lunch. After eating, the soccer games continued for some as others played on the playground.

Searching for beach items and creatures.

In the afternoon, we headed to a different beach at Carrot Park. Here we did a beach scavenger hunt.

Checking in with our finds.

We returned to Eagleview, said goodbye to the classes there, played some more on the fields, and then loaded up the bus and headed home. We arrived back at school at 7:00 p.m. and promptly headed home and crashed. (The parents too! Some even power napped on the bus!)

The trip was excellent. We hope to set up some buddy activities with our future classes as well. Perhaps blogging, writing penpal letters, doing some other field trips?