Tag Archives: welcome back

Onward and upward

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April 17th update

Welcome to Friday!

I hope you are finding your way through our activities without too much difficulty. It seems like many of you are at different places along this new path, and that’s OK. I do want you to reach out and let me know what has been difficult or confusing and I especially want to know what help you could use. Please leave a comment on the blog, use the question form, or send me a message via email.

Today is a day to finish up the activities you’ve chosen to work on over the whole week [choice or flex-time]. Review these along with the other activities for each day, including preparing to meet together onine on Tuesday.

It has been good to be able to reconnect with more of you, and I’m sure it will keep getting better. Talk to you soon!

March April 16th update

[Oh My! I do feel foolish! All week I’ve been naming the wrong month when writing the date! Comments and work submitted show me you are carrying on despite my error, but I do apologise for adding more confusion to this confusing time. Yikes!]

Over the remaining days of this week, we need to spend some time preparing to meet as a class online. It might be a little tricky at the start, but we will get better at it. You might have had some experiences visiting with family members or other groups online over the last few weeks. That experience may be helpful, though our meeting will be a little more formal than a visit with family and friends (we will be in school after all, or at least in a virtual school setting while not actually in our school building).

Please leave a comment on the blog about an experience or a question you have about meeting or visiting online. (Maybe you have a funny story about a pet interrupting your video, or maybe you have a frustration to share or a helpful tip.)

I am including some new activities today, but it is also important that you spend some time reviewing & asking questions about what we’ve done so far.

March April 15th Update

How did yesterday go for you? Let us know by leaving a comment or by sending me a question [especially if you are having any difficulty with tasks, links, logins, or anything else]. 

Reading a few new comments to the blog, getting a few questions from students & getting to talk to a few folks from school on the phone yesterday made my day. I think most students are still adjusting and getting used to using the blog and office documents again. I am available through the school day to give feedback and answer questions.

I’ve added updates to activities for this (short) week for you here. Check them out and give them a try. And please keep letting me know how I can help!

March April 14

I hope everyone had a good weekend. I am glad to welcome you back with a short video message.

Click the image or click here to play the video (and give it a moment to load)

Then visit my last post, Still Growing, to leave a comment or follow this link to find a few activities to get this (short) week started.

I’m excited to see your comments and I’m looking forward to your questions too. See you soon! (Well , you’ll see me in the video, but it’s a start.)

 

Activities to get started on will be found here.

Still Growing

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[ngg src=”galleries” ids=”5″ display=”basic_slideshow”]For those of us used to going to work or school from Monday to Friday, our world seems out of order. (Today happens to be a Monday, by the way; if you are like me, you may be finding that changes in routines are making it a little more diffficult to keep track!) The patterns that seem to govern the way we live don’t fit like they used to. Some of the time, that is a bit of a relief, but often the difference in our days can be disturbing, unfamiliar, uncertain. Sometimes I feel that way. But then, I suppose I should ask myself, “Who doesn’t?”

I spent some time thinking about that. Most people are having to make the same kinds of adjustments to routines. Many people are facing very great difficulties. And it seems like everyone feels like life is upside down. But when I look around and ask myself the same question again, “Who doesnt?” I realise that there are plenty of lives and routines around us continuing as always. Sunrise sparks a chorus of activity from the birds. Flowers blossom, attracting bees and other pollinators. The ravens have built a nest by the Sperling Skytrain station to hatch another generation, like they do every spring. The cherry blosssoms are lining the neighbourhood with their pink explosions. The frogs have been singing their evening choruses. And we have reached what I like to call, “peak magnolia”, when what might just be the most respendent magnolia tree in the province (found just a short walk from my home) is almost hidden by its thick display of heavy, white and purple flowers.

Growth is happening all around us, and it continues in our own lives too. I am hopeful that the differences we are experiencing in life as we know it will spark more of the kind thinking that will hep us to better understand others’ lives and our own. Perhaps a good place to start is to pause, pay attention, and try to be even more aware of what is around us.

What are you becoming aware of?