Blog

A great thing about the holiday season is all the time off work and school that we can spend with our loved ones. While family time is great, sometimes we find ourselves looking for ways to keep the kids entertained and busy while limiting TV and other screen time. Here are some suggestions to beat boredom over the holidays. Take a holiday light tour. Go for a walk (or drive, depending on how… Read more.

The NWT Recreation and Parks Association and Youth Centres Conference this past fall was full of information and inspiration that is helping to re-shape our Take a Break resource for parents and family literacy programs. Qaggiavuut! an organization that promotes Inuit culture and language use through the performing arts suggested using cultural activities to create a bridge between generations… Read more.

Our favourite Christmas gift to give or receive is a book. No surprise there. Here are our favourite books to give this holiday season. There’s something for Dad, for a three-year-old, and everyone else on your list. The Fox and My Boot, by Lana de Bastiani I am giving my mother The Fox and My Boot, by Lana de Bastiani, and illustrated by Janet Pacey. This book tells the true story of a… Read more.

The Speak English Café is part social club and part orientation to northern Canada. It’s certainly more than just a chance to practice English conversation skills. The Café is a well-attended Tuesday evening meet-up at the Public Library meeting room in Yellowknife. Community Connections coordinator, Karen Johnson, begins each session with a group activity, such as a game or video. Then… Read more.

A lot of talk happens around the issue of poverty, yet “we”, as a society, do not provide the supports necessary for people to move out of the poverty cycle.  Often poverty is described as living below a certain income level. However, the lived experience of poverty is more complex than that. There’s often a variety of other poverty indicators and circumstances that define and create poverty,… Read more.

For my Master’s in Special Education I wrote a northern children’s picture book called, The Fox and My Boot.  My University of Northern British Columbia graduate program allowed me to use the development of a children’s book as my final project. While the book itself was the product, months of research and writing went into producing the report to make my project ‘Master’s worthy’. Some of the… Read more.

Dechinta Centre for Research and Learning is creating an open access online publication. The first edition is set to be released in early 2019, with a focus on the topic of Elders. Since Elders are a most vital part of our community, Dechinta will honour them by publishing stories from students and Indigenous northerners that reflect and cherish our Elders. Dechinta will publish three pieces… Read more.

The recent fundraising dinner for YWCA’s Rockhill apartment residents is a good example of what our Community Connections program is all about. Community Connections helps newcomers to Canada connect with people, events, and activities in the city while improving their English skills. There were many donations and efforts to help the families devastated by the September fire at the site of the… Read more.

Halloween is upon us! What this means for northern kids is planning a costume that will be big enough to fit over a snowsuit, planning the best route for trick-or-treating, and finding the biggest pillowcase in the house to fill with candy on Halloween night. There is a lot of excitement leading up to Halloween.  Why not harness some of that energy with some holiday-themed activities? Arts and… Read more.

As an educator, I have witnessed the effect that literacy skills have on people’s lives. In my first years as a teacher, I focused entirely on my students and actions to aid them to become more literate, thus helping them to experience success. I soon realized that my students often struggled if literacy was not encouraged in their homes. Enter a supportive principal and the NWT Literacy Council… Read more.