During the school year we usually spend a couple of evenings a month with students who attend Aurora College in Yellowknife and their families.
Students are busy people, especially if they have children. It can be difficult for them to take their children to various events in town, so we bring crafts and fun times to the families through the Aurora College’s Family Night on Campus.
Children enjoy making art and coloring. We let them explore their own ways to do their crafts, like making paper planes and coloring pictures.
We’ve made a healthy parfait using the Little Chef’s resources. We’ve made goop with food coloring as suggested in our Science Fun and Recipes for Fun resources. We’ve read the Red Parka Mary story and made paper boxes with foam stickers. This activity can be found in our Books in the Home: Northern Books resource.
We made flubber fun out of Elmer’s glue, borax, water, and food coloring. The children enjoyed playing with this putty-like dough; you can even blow a bubble with it using a straw.
We’ve helped families turn gently-used t-shirts into bags and made Christmas decorations and cards with foam stickers and glitter glue.
We used our The Mitten Storysack as a launch for making masks and mitten crafts. Sometimes a student advisor from the College or an older child will read a story out loud to everyone towards the end of the evening.
Thank you to Aurora College for providing these nights for the students and their families. We’re happy to support this program. We enjoy putting the activities from our family resources to use and testing activities that might end up in new resources.
- Patricia Ilgok, Family and Community Literacy Coordinator
