The second half of October was busy, busy, busy! Here are some highlights from the last two weeks.
1. Literacy Day! This week Eric Walters visited our school. As we celebrated reading “Between Heaven and Earth,” students did Art, Drumming, listened to book talks about adventure novels, watched presentations on biodiversity and learned about wilderness survival. We are some of our highlights:
“Eric Walters was great. He got the whole schools’ attention while he was talking. He would get everyone involved and made everyone laugh, including the teachers.”- Vanessa
“Biodiversity in ecosystems are all very important because it creates a balance of all living things in the ecosystem. Over many years, our impact on the world became much greater as we began going industrial. We dump our waster in the waters and forests, we cut down trees and we use resources, which other living entities need to survive. Our race has thrived and has yet to reach its peak, but at what cost? On Oct 19th, we had a few visitors – Eric Walters (an author who is very active in local and African communities), Chris Miller (Coquitlam Public Librarian for Teens & Young Adults), and Jaya (a woman who studied ecology). Jaya was invited into our school and was asked to do a presentation regarding biodiversity. It was slow to start, but as I listened further I began to understand how important every single species is to each ecosystem’s structure.” – Liam
“Eric Walters is actually very funny. When he was at our school this week, he talked for for two hours and I didn’t get bored! Listening to Eric’s life experiences was actually very interesting…. He used to be a teacher. He sometimes brings animals into class, he even brought a tiger to one class. After he was a teacher, he went on many adventures to write his books. He walked across the Sahara desert, climbed Mount Kilimanjaro and has interacted with tigers just to make his novels more realistic. Eric Walters surprised me with his personality and life. He was completely different from what I thought we was from reading his books.” – Kevin
“Stations were organized for the students and a group from Youth Impact helped with the obstacle course. The course was … fun! Setting up tents for the first time ever was a definite challenge. And taking it down was even more challenging.” -Eunice
“After Nut Break, all of Yellow Team went on a walk through Mundy Park. This was the PE portion of our day, kind of like DJs hike to Kilimanjaro, of course not really, but Mundy Park was the closest we could get. When we got back, we watched a video on biodiversity. I didn’t find it extremely exciting, but I could understand how it related to DJ’s climb and the scenery he saw on the hike and how we need to protect it.” – Maddie
2. Ooey, gooey, eyeballs… grade 8’s dissected sheep eyes – perfect for Halloween week. More coming soon about the dissection….
3. Many costumed-students roamed the hall this week….
4. Our grade 8’s a getting ready for the feudal games. Each student received the role that they were ‘randomly’ born into this week. We have a king and queen, a cardinal, some merchants and nobles, and of course lots of serfs. Stay tuned for more news about our Feudal Games.
5. Explorations first term finished and second term has started. Grade 6/7’s moved from Tech Ed to Home Ec, and from Home Ec to Art. Grade 8’s moved on from Life Links, Art and Dramus to Tech Ed, Dramus and Life Links. Report cards will be coming home shortly and we’ll posted some pictures of some of the completed projects next week.
6. Literature Circle books & assignments are well under way. Due dates are approaching soon. Log in to Edmodo.com to read your students’ feedback and to take a look at what we are doing.
7. We started our Random Acts of Kindness a little early this year. All three classes participated in the sugary sweet Random Acts of Halloween-y Treats. Very efficient teams of students decorated cookies, packaged and delivered Halloween cookies to local businesses in Como Lake Village and to the Staff at Parkland Elementary.
8. Today we had a Remembrance Day book talk with Chris Miller. He talked about fiction and non-fiction books that relate to the World Wars and other conflicts. Some of the titles he discussed: Shot at Dawn, The War to End all Wars, Canada at War, The Sniper, Shadow of the Mountain, Burning for Revenge, Fly Boy, Bomb, Ultimate Deathmatch, A Relentless Onslaught of the Toughest… Ever to Live, I am the Great Horse, Wounded, Behind Enemy Lines, Fire in the Sky and many more. Mr. Miller also told us that there are many resources in the public library about World War 2 aircraft, if we are working on that task for our literature circles.
9. Mr. Meagher took 25 students to Evergreen Cultural Centre for an Anime & Manga workshop. Thank you very much to all the parent drivers who volunteered to drive for this trip. Students from all of the Yellow Team classes attended.
