Dear families:

Maywood Community School has the most wonderful opportunity to work with artist, Rain Awakens. We will be working with Rain Pierre to create a school-wide, artistic collaboration, resulting in a wall mural for our school. Yesterday, classes were introduced to Rain and we learned more about him and his process of coming into his passion for art and working on large-scale projects. To see more of Rain’s work and other useful links, scroll to bottom.

All students have been asked to contribute to this collaboration and will given some class time to work on this.

The contest runs from Monday, February 14th- Monday, February 28th

All Intermediate students will be entered into the contest. Please read the guidelines below.

Guiding themes: nature, community, connectedness, identity, reconciliation

• Students will be provided with a white 11×8.5 piece of paper.
• They must write their name, division and teacher’s name on the back.
• Using Rain’s art as examples to guide them, students are to create an art piece that reflects one or some of the guiding themes. This could be a picture, words, phrases, etc.
• Try not to include very fine details that would be difficult to replicate on a mural.
• Rain has encouraged the students to experiment with using Coast Salish Design elements such as trigons, crescents, and circles. Student should not colour their submission.

On Monday, February 28th, please return all submissions for your class in the envelope provided.

Once the Indigenous Education Team has made their selection, your class’s work will be returned to you. Students will then colour their artwork using a medium of their/your choice (markers, pencil crayons, pastels, paints, etc.) The entire school, primary students included, will be putting up their work in March or April to create a Maywood Art Gallery.

Useful links: 

• Visit Rain’s website and explore
• Revisit the Coast Salish design elements (NOT formline. This is not Coast Salish.)
• And other site: https://legacy.uvic.ca/gallery/salishcurriculum/art-project/coast-salish-design-elements-templates/
• http://ined.sd79.bc.ca/curriculum-resourcess/printable-resources/ 

Hi friends!

We are nearing the end of Term 1 and this week students will be posting their best work in writing. Students have chosen their three best blogs and will be posting them to their blogfolios . Please take the time to look at and read their work. Students have been working hard to improve their writing, sharing ideas with details, examples and evidence from text to back up their thinking. They’ve been working on including interesting introductions and summative conclusions.  Take a look! What do you think? I’m sure they’d love your feedback!

If you are unsure how to get into their blogs, please email me; I can help. Your username is usually the first part of your email address with a password that you would have set up at the beginning of the year. If you can’t remember your password, there is a feature to change it.

Happy blogging!

Hi friends!

We are collecting thin cardboard for our latest art project – papier mache masks! To get us started, we will be using a  paper template to cut and paste onto thin cardboard. This will help form the structure of the mask. The required cardboard is the thickness of card stock or a cereal box. We will need a LOT of this, so I’m asking for you to search your home, paper recycling, ask around, and collect as much of it as you can! I will be asking the Maywood community for their contributions as well. If we pool our findings, we should have enough for everyone!

For a further look at the art project, view this YouTube video. I’m very excited! This one will take time, patience and perseverance – skills we’ve been working on this year. I am hopeful! 🙂

This week, the grade 5/6’s in Divisions 3, 4, and 5 will receive the workshop, “Safer Space: Staying Safe Online” – a presentation given by experienced and knowledgeable presenters from Plea, Children of the Street. They will focus on the following topics:

• healthy vs unhealthy relationships
• digital citizenship
• online exploitation
• catfishing
• consent
• scenarios that could be dangerous online
• apps and video game safety

This week, parents were invited to Maywood PIE night and more info regarding this program was discussed. If you missed PIE night, but would like to learn more about this program or organization, please visit their website. For more program-specific information, visit here. This workshop is designed to be age-appropriate and gaged for the Gr. 4/5 audience. (Next month, Grade 7’s will receive the Gr. 6/7 program).

To download the Safer Space Resource, click the link. You will find all sorts of useful information designed to keep our children safer online.

Today, at Maywood, we celebrate Black Excellence Day.

Join us today (and tomorrow, Jan 15 – a newly proclaimed day of Black Excellency in BC) to celebrate and “acknowledge the strength and resiliency of Black communities in British Columbia to overcome hardships and fight for justice and equality for all“.

Black Excellence Day is an initiative created by the Ninandotoo Society that came out of last year’s successful first Black Shirt Day. This year’s event was created after consulting with various community members, including the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre, and the BC Human Rights Commission, and is a joint anti-racism initiative. Burnaby School District is one of many districts who have committed to celebrating and learning about Black contributions and achievements in Canada. As a school community, we will be looking at ways to acknowledge and celebrate the awesome diversity we have in our school, community and country.

Today we are reminded about the importance of uplifting diverse voices and the importance of sharing the stories of racialized groups to provide a more inclusive view of history and society.

With Black History Month (February) just around the corner,  Maywood classes will be learning more about Black history and celebrating the excellence of many Black Canadians. This week and next, the Grade 5/6’s will be focusing on the inspiring story of Eugenia Duodu, a Canadian chemist and the CEO of Visions of Science Network for Learning – an organization supporting STEM in racialized and low-income communities. We will be listening to her inspiring story here – TEDxYouth The Unlikely Scientist.

Stay tuned to view our class pop-art project!

And don’t forget to wear a black shirt today (and tomorrow!)

In solidarity!

To read more about this, visit the CBC news story: Black Excellence Day aims to boost education, create unity in fight against racism

Learn more about BC’s proclamation of Emancipation Day 

For more stories about the experiences of Black Canadians — from anti-Black racism to success stories within the Black community — check out Being Black in Canada, a CBC project Black Canadians can be proud of. You can read more stories here.

Please remember tomorrow (Friday) is Forest Friday and Div. 3 will be going to Central Park RAIN or SHINE. Hopefully we will have another day like today, but that means it will be chilly. Students are encouraged to bring warm coats, mitts and a warm hat. If it looks like rain, remember – rubber boats and rain coat are best!

With only two weeks left, Maywood is hustling and bustling with holiday cheer! Here’s what we have coming up.

Deck the Halls – December 1-10

Maywood classrooms will be decorating our windows. Windows will be judged and winners will be announced.

Student Leadership Food Bank Collection:  December 6-10

Student leadership will be collecting $$ donations for the food bank each morning. Thank you for your contributions!

Pancakes and PJs:  Thursday, December 16th.

Bingo and STAR Assembly:  Friday, December 17th 

This term, we are studying the life and art of Vincent van Gogh. Today, students began to sketch the first draft of their interpretations of the famous Starry Night. Check out samples of their work on our ART page. I was so impressed with their work. You will be too!

Despite calls for much rain in the afternoon, Division 3 got lucky with an afternoon of mild weather! Students ran and played in the forest, jumped and threw rocks in big puddles and got themselves a little wet and dirty! Success! 🙂

This morning was a little exciting with news that there was a coyote spotted on Maywood grounds. It was shooed away and seemed to trot in the direction of Central Park. We kept our eyes peeled this afternoon but saw no signs of the coyote. Students were reminded about safety around coyotes and I thought I’d share some information.

Coyote Safety

“Coyotes can be found in rural and urban area across Canada. They often shy away from humans, but if one does approach, here’s what to do:

• Be aggressive. Wave your arms, stomp and yell loudly in a deep voice to deter it from coming closer.
• Stand your ground. Stay where you are and look it in the eye. Never run away; it is more likely to consider you prey, give chase and seriously harm you.
• Be prepared. The best defence is a good offence; carry a whistle, flashlight and/or personal alarm. This is especially important for small children who play outside or walk to school in areas where coyotes have been spotted.
• Stay together. If you are walking in an area that has high coyote activity, never do so without a companion.
• Don’t lure them with food. Coyotes are scavengers. If you have pets, feed them inside the house. Don’t leave meat scraps or products in compost buckets outside your house, and keep regular compost in an enclosed area. Also ensure garbage bins have tight resealable lids to keep out animals”. CBC News 

• Nov. 11 is Remembrance Day – Maywood will remember our fallen soldiers and reflect on the importance of peace and diversity, Nov. 10th. No school Nov. 11
• Nov. 12 is Forest Friday. Please dress for the weather! (calling for 50% chance of rain right now).
• Interim Report Cards go home Nov. 29th. Teachers will be assessing and reporting the month of November.

Division 3 will be celebrating Halloween this week by carving pumpkins. We won’t be able to visit the “Maywood Pumpkin Patch” like in years past, so I’ve purchased some pumpkins  for our class to carve together. I have one pumpkin per table (6 in total). If your child would like to carve their own pumpkin, they are welcome to bring one to school. Otherwise, 3-4 students will work together to carve a pumpkin. We will be providing the carving tools (no knives will be used). Carving will happen this Thursday afternoon. Please dress in clothing that won’t stain easily as it can sometimes get messy!

This Friday we will be watching Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas. Watch the trailer here. Students are welcome to bring extra snacks for themselves for the movie (any snacks brought for sharing should be wrapped individually).