Remembering the days

 I am long since retired from teaching and administration but a Twitter post from a teacher talking about parent teacher interviews brought back memories from my early days of teaching at Gibsons Elementary School when my and my teaching partner at the time took weeks for these interviews.

You see, we did not do them at the school on the afternoon and evenings for the two or three day period set aside with early dismissal for them.

We visited every student's home.

As team teachers we had double the class size and we did some really different things with the students.

For one thing, we started every day with a run and some exercise.

For another thing, we once spent every school day for a few weeks bussed to a Boy Scout camp for outdoor learning which also involved one overnight each week.

But ... the parent interviews ... these were held at the students home meeting with one or both the parents and the student. Sometimes these meetings went for fifteen minutes to a half hour, but sometimes they went for much longer.

It was quite an experience to do it this way and we got to know many of the parents very well and they became friends outside of the school scene. 

Thanks to the teacher who posted on Twitter about her experience and allowing me to remember mine from almost 50 years ago.

Adios Amigos

 I know many of you have read my email today letting you know that this is my last day in for Mr. Hunt.

I will very much miss the students and staff, but I know that with a grand daughter at Cedar Grove I will have some good excuse to come into the school at some time and join the parents and other grand parents who get into the school to volunteer and contribute to the school in that way.

I expressed in the note home how much I feel that you have a great school for your children to attend and I know a lot of that is a direct consequence of how you as families work so hard to support Cedar Grove in so many ways.

Mr. McGowan knows the school well and it won't take him much time to get to know you.

In my meeting with him today as part of the transition, I strongly pointed out that in my almost 100 days at the school, I have a scant 6 entries in my behaviour file, and none of those are duplicate student entries. Yes, I work with students weekly on behaviour issues, but they are relatively minor and I can happily say that there are so many interesting and creative things happening that occupy the majority of my attention.

I guess this will be my last blog entry and I want to thank you for reading.

Friday art comes from Ms. Andersen's class
and the great paper mache masks they are building

See you around ...

Family Literacy Day

From every bit of feedback our Family Literacy Day today was a huge success.

Staff members worked on the organization for the morning and parents provided delicious baked goods. Children brought their reading skills to the forefront and many wore PJs or costumes. I'm told the turnout was the highest number in years. Thanks for your support!

This slideshow is from some of the photos I took, but I have many more I haven't yet gone through from Mrs. Sammartino, Mrs. Webb, and Ms. Corbo.

The grade 6 and 7 boys played the "big guys" from Roberts Creek this afternoon. The game was fast! Although the Creek won the day, I could see a lot of athletic promise from our boys who are under the direction of Mr. Williams. There were lots of points scored by both teams and our team was gracious in defeat... something I know that is taught to them as being good team members. They have a good number of games remaining in the season and then the full day tourney at the end of March.

Not much time

I didn't get any really extended time to be in the classes today with a lot of administration stuff going on, including the continuing administration of the FSA to the grade 4s and 7s. My original schedule is jumbled up a bit because of different events that must take priority such as Ms. Haavisto coming today to work with the classes. Today in her presentations she got to use one of our two, new document cameras that the PAC so graciously donated for the students to use. It is a great device and will get a lot of use. One is for the primary classes to share and the other is for Mr. Pond's class and that will complete the intermediate students having one available for use in each classroom.

Tomorrow morning we have our Family Literacy day and the day begins at 8 am in the gym with families invited to grab a snack and read with the children. I know some will be dressed up for the day and some will come in pyjamas and some will just come and read. Whatever you decide to do, I hope it is to come and share some of your time with us. I'll just give a hint that I will be dressed as a character with the initials CU :)

I posted the minutes for the January meeting of PAC on the website today and you can click on the link to get them from here as well.

One of the Science displays outside Mrs Andersen
and Ms. Krannenberg's room

Looking forward to tomorrow...

Quite a day

It was quite a day from start to finish.

My first task of the day was to administer the Foundation Skills Assessment to the grade 7s and that went along reasonably well with only a few hickups and a need for a couple of students to deal with some freezing.

After recess, it was the grade 4s turn for the first assessment and of course they are new to this type of assessment and so the directions and startup was interesting :). Then it happened... it seems that Eastlink our internet provider for the district was doing some routine maintenance in the area and the internet went down. The students were about half complete so we will pick up from where they left off on another day.

Lunchtime we had our first inside day since I have been here... a full inside day and the supervisors had their work cut out for them today with a number of students wishing for a larger place to play than the classrooms.

An assembly after lunch featured the band, Mr. Williams poetry reciting class, my "What's January been like for me" slideshow, and a video from Ms. McAllister's class thanking one of our grade 7 students for the kindness he has shown them by building hockey sticks for them.

And, after school... it was off to Gibsons Elementary for our Grade 6/7 Girls first real basketball game of the season. We played two 20 minute games and were victorious in both. We haven't begun positional play and accurate positions yet so it was kind of funny when the other team talked about taking their checks. We don't quite have that yet.

Back at it tomorrow...

Back at it

We were back at it today with lots of interesting things going on at the school. One thing I like about Mondays is having the opportunity to see our "Monday" teachers at work. Ms. Krannenberg has a chance to do Science with the grade 7s and she has, of course, to be conscious of the fact that she shares only one day a week with them. They continue their work on the water cycle and other related factors. They have started a project on composting, and we talked about how this will go in class (it would be nice if we could have an out of class compost) for the next four weeks. It should be fun to watch.

If your curiosity is raised at all by this photo, you will need to drop by our assembly tomorrow afternoon to see what it is all about. Ms. McAllister's class will have something in media form to tell us about it.

As well, on the agenda is a band number being performed by our students. Ms. Leander has been working in class this past month to get them ready for tomorrow's performance. The assembly is at 1 pm in the gym.

Our senior girls basketball team has their first game of the season tomorrow afternoon after school at Gibsons Elementary School. They are pretty excited about this match since the one scheduled with Roberts Creek last week did not come to pass as the Creek was not quite ready with their team. Our senior boys played last week in Langdale and from all reports had a great visit. Our junior teams start playing next week.

I wish we could enter our Library couch in the Ugliest Couch of the Coast contest
but I would have to move it into my home for it to qualify. We are putting aside
some funds to get it replaced, though.

Another great Friday

Another great Friday watching some of the week-ending activities going on. A few weeks ago I taught some of the grade 7 students a great game from my past, Liar's Dice. I love the game for many reasons, but one that applies to student's at this level of their curriculum is that it is a fun introduction to examining probability.

It is also an easy game to play at home at almost any age, so I encourage you to do so.

Is this a great class... one of the best grade 7 classes ever?

I worked with some classes on the computer today, but not specifically Ms. McAllister's.

What a treat to hear that the students in her class were taking a look at the writing blog, reading my comments on their comments, and writing back to me.

Again... I know they are young and I don't have high expectations for their "mechanics" but it does thrill me that they have an interest in using the computers for productivity purposes. I did visit their classroom to go over things with them and to let them know that the access to that site is not only by a computer in the COW (Computers on Wheels) but is also available by going to the site from any computer connected to the internet.

Friday Artwork - Evergreen Trees in Winter

Have a great weekend!