Woo, 2 great cultural celebrations so close together! If you could please write up about 5 things that you learned about both Dia de Los Muertos (Day of the Dead) and Diwali (Aka Deepavali or Dipavali) that you thought were interesting. Do you have any questions about either of these festivities?
Halloween, as we learned about, has quite a history behind it. We learned about its old Christian and Celtic roots, and how today it has become a commercialised festivity. One such way that it has become commercial is how much people spend on it- from candy to costumes. We learned that people dressed up in scary costumes, but sadly some people in today’s society, do not understand how hurtful and humourless their costume choices can be.
One of my favourites is when people dress up in another person’s cultural dress. For example, some of the popular ones are: a Kimono (Japan), Saree (India), Thobe/Keffiyeh (Arab), or Aboriginal clothing… which are NOT Halloween costumes!
But unfortunately, we should have written this post before a large group of elementary teachers decided to make a very terrible mistake. This is how:
And sadly… it get’s much, much, MUCH worse…
These pictures were posted on the school district’s Facebook page but were quickly removed. But just to briefly summarise- the top picture is a bunch of teachers wearing very stereotypical
Mexican dress with maracas (instruments) and sombreros (Mexican hats). If you look
really closely, the lady in the middle’s hat reads ‘Mexican.’ The bottom picture is a group of teachers holding a wall which says ‘Make American Great Again.’ Remember who spoke of the wall and why?
Yep, none other than Trump, who said that a wall between Mexico and the US would stop 99% of illegal Mexican immigrants- many of whom are drug dealers. (Obviously, a completely and utterly false and racist remark).
These teachers are from Idaho, US. Idaho is located by Washington and Montana… they are very close to Canada.
You can read the full story here: https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/02/us/idaho-teachers-border-costume-trnd/index.html
So now it is your turn to weigh in on this. Do you think that these individuals made an innocent mistake which was not meant to hurt anyone’s feelings? Or do you think that they should have known better than to dress and act in an insulting manner? How would you feel if your ethnicity or culture was Mexican? Would this have offended you? Since these individuals are teachers (clearly not as great as yours :)), does this affect your opinion of the situation at all? Remember to write detailed answers which are roughly 20 (grade 5) to 25 (grade 6) sentences.
Division 5 hard at work paper macheing with their kindergarten buddies ! 
In case you forget or want to take a look !! 
So! On Saturday, I went out and voted. I do not know why everyone doesn’t! After all, we are very privileged that we live in a country where we have the freedom to vote- without fear or intimidation. I love feeling like I’m doing my part too as a proud Vancouverite. I know tha
t you all can relate because you probably had family members and friends who voted but what about you? To vote in Canada you must be:
How do you feel about the voting age? Do you think that it is fair that you have to be an adult of 18 years of age to vote or should you be able to vote at any age?
Unfortunately, a devastating 7.5-magnitude earthquake and ensuing tsunami hit the island of Sulawesi on September 28th. Sadly, many have been hurt, killed or displaced.
As you can see on the map, Indonesia is situated beside Malaysia, the Philippines, Australia and New Guinea. Indonesia is the world’s largest archipelago (a group of islands) . It contains roughly 17,000 islands!!
You may read the full article here as well as some video links:
https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/07/asia/indonesia-earthquake-5000-missing-intl/index.html
For your blog post, you will be writing two separate paragraphs. One paragraph will focus on facts about Indonesia. There are links listed below for you to perform your own mini-research on Indonesia and write about at least 10 new facts (grade 5) or 15 new facts (grade 6) that you did not know about. All of these facts must be in complete sentences.
Links:
Your second paragraph will be roughly 10 sentences (grade 5) or 15 sentences (grade 6) about your thoughts/feelings about what has happened in Indonesia. You can also talk about how the earthquake occurred and why it caused so much damage (look up ‘liquefaction’).
Since this is a sensitive topic, please treat it as such…which I know you will!
Today in class we discussed the history behind Thanksgiving and why this holiday is such a crucial one for showing our appreciation of all those lovely people in our lives. Below are some acrostic poems that we wrote in class!
Division 5 learned about the significance of Orange Shirt Day and who exactly Phyllis Webstad was. Students wrote about why they personally feel that every child matters and created their own orange t-shirt to stand in support of those who unfortunately endured residential school. We were lucky enough to have our teacher-librarian, Ms. Zimmerschied read us a story to understand the impact that residential schools had on our Aboriginal people. 
Hello all 🙂
I am very excited to launch yet another year of exciting blog posts! Feel free to comment on posts from your peers but most importantly, to have fun and critically / creatively examine some of the topics that we will discuss!
-Ms. Panesar !
