Month: June 2019

It is with sadness that I write this last Blog post for Division 6 class of 2019. What an incredibly special group of young learners this class was. I look back upon this past year with the fondest memories, a full heart and an excitement to continue to follow the journey of possibilities that lie ahead for the children.

Thank you to all the wonderful, curious, eager children I had the chance to work and grow with this school year.  To the families of Division 6, thank you for your unconditional support, involvement, dedication, commitment and joy that you shared with your child and myself. It meant the world.

As per request, we started off our day with a DISCO BALL! It was performance day after all and the disco ball really set the tone! We began the morning with some centre time, checkers was in full swing, architecture building was under way, creative play-doh creations were developing before our eyes as well as the fossil exploration!

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Another great idea from a student during our party planning was to have some time with the Kindergartens. We met in the morning and had an extended recess outside in the sunshine!

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This afternoon it was SHOWTIME! Students shared their favourite toys, creations and talents. To end our day we had a VERY special visitor who was a complete surprise to everyone, it was…. ALFIE! I don’t know who was more excited, myself, Alfie or the kids?!

Last week the kiddos put on their social committee thinking caps and collaboratively worked together to come up with our last hurrah activities to celebrate our time in Division 6. There were many wonderful, thoughtful and creative ideas. I did my very best to incorporate all their plans into our last week together.

One of the ideas was to have different station activities. *POOF* Collaborative, creative and critical thinking centres appeared first thing this morning! Not only was critical + creative thinking involved during their engagement at each station, but so was determination, flexibility, patience, teamwork, communication and resiliency.

Students were divided into three different groups. They rotated between three different stations.

Station A: What can you make?

There were a variety of materials at Station A where students were left to rely upon their creative thinking to create something. There were building blocks, clothes pegs, popsicle sticks, string and straws. It was interesting to see what each child gravitated towards in terms of materials that they wanted to use.

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Station B: Create a straw bridge

Students were challenged to develop a straw bridge that could balance toy cars, connecting from one desk to another. I enjoyed overhearing the conversations that would ensue as they would develop and construct their ideas. Some students were drawing upon real infrastructures that they already knew about, such as the Lion’s Gate Bridge, where as other students solely relied upon their imagination and creativity.

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Station C: This was a doozy! The Spaghetti Tower

Students were given 30 (raw) spaghetti noodles, a piece of tape that was the span of my arms and one giant marshmallow. These were the materials that was provided and they had to work strategically as I would not provide any more materials (this meant be careful not to break the spaghetti noodles; also use the tape sparingly, if you were overzealous to begin you might not have enough remaining tape to finish your structure). The objective was to create the tallest, free-standing structure that could balance the marshmallow on top.

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This took place all morning long and the students were buzzing with brainpower and excitement. After lunch there was a surprise!

It was time for FOSSIL EXPLORATION! Ask your child how many fossil ‘shark teeth’ were discovered during the Anthropology Dig!

I wonder what tomorrow’s festivities will include?

Words that echoed the halls on Friday were ” THIS IS THE BEST DAY EVERRRR!” Our day began with an individualized hip hop choreographed routine. Practice makes perfect, everyone gave it their all to learn a multi-stepped routine in just a mere 45 minutes!

To help decrease our elevated heart beats after our invigorating dance routine, we not only calmed our bodies, but also our minds by practicing a positive mindset practice through the making of stress balls and colourful calm-down jars.

To end our morning we had the opportunity to explore our creative outlet by developing a creation with a mason jar – what did your child decide to make? a painted creation? a succulent garden, or an aquarium?

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Our hearts were full with utter happiness, joy and razzle dazzle. Our school was also vibrating with school spirit (the extra noise and energy could have been contributed by some of our Parkcrest Alumni, gr 8’s and 9’s, who were volunteering their time to participate in all the fun in the sun!) Our tummies were equally full with juicy watermelon, hot dogs and juice! Following our delicious lunch we had one more mini dance session in our grade groups to practice for our very own school FLASH MOB.

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The afternoon zoomed by and it was now SHOWTIME. Each individualized group took the floor and performed their morning dance routines, followed by our school-wide flash mob. To our surprise once we were done our performance we had the privilege in watching a mini performance ourselves. Our talented dance instructors put on an epic dance routine and our minds were blown. Watching these talented artists showcase their talent and passion instilled the spark into many of kiddos to take up this form of artistic expression. And let’s be honest, the back flip had the crowd go WILD! What an amazing and incredible day from start to finish!

“I never teach my pupils, I only provide them conditions in which they can learn” – Albert Einstein

I can honestly say that these young learners have all blossomed into curious, adventurous, passionate, sensitive learners who carry a sense of maturity with them. They are respectful to themselves as well as others. They acknowledge and take accountability when an ‘whoops’ has been made and ensure that they fix it in a caring and respectful way. Communicating and resolving conflicts in a diplomatic way has been something that we have been working on all year long. Recently there has been a great leap in independence when it comes to problem solving amongst themselves. The language, empathy, care and respect that flows within our classroom walls is absolutely beautiful to witness (my bucket is constantly overflowing). I feel so proud and happy to be a part of these young learners’ lives.