April comes to an end

I feel so very fortunate to be graced with the musical knowledge and expertise of Miss Lizzy. She makes our Friday mornings so much fun, and she has taught our class more than I could ever imagine teaching without her. Ask your child about the spaces and the lines on the staff, and what it means to 'step' or 'skip' as we move up and down the staff.

We have been working with Mrs. Granger's class to explore the book, CHALK by Bill Thomson. Ask your child to retell the story, including what each of the three children in the story draw, and what happens after they run into a fairly BIG problem. As we wrapped up the book today, students shared their connections and their learning by drawing a problem situation and a solution with chalk.

Spring Take Me Outside Day

On Wednesday, April 26, the Outdoor Ed students at Selkirk set up amazing stations at Wycliffe Regional Park for all of the Marysville and Lindsay Park students to rotate through. The elementary school students participated in a variety of tag games and were taught how to make their own fire starters. Susie MacDonald and Anna Keiver told the tale of the mouse and the douglas fir around the campfire, where students also roasted marshmallows! Students loved the animal names their groups were given, such as coyotes, rabbits, moose and timberwolves. Students from the Alternate Ed program supported each of the groups, which was immensely helpful and fun. The only complaint that came from the day was that students and teachers wanted to stay longer, so we are hoping to make this a full day event in the future! A HUGE thank you goes out to Jenn Meens, Dan Clark, and all of their incredible students who put together such a fun event for our students!

Celebrating special moments

We have had a week filled with special moments of connection, teamwork, creativity, and celebration! 

We have missed having Mystery Readers in, and really enjoyed having a special Grandma come for a visit! We also loved her book choice (Ada Twist, Scientist), and it got us thinking and talking about all of the explorations we will be doing this spring. Thank you so much for coming in, Peggy!

We have loved experimenting with a variety of One Minute Challenges. This week, we challenged ourselves to find as many maple keys (helicopters), pinecones, and pieces of garbage as we could in one minute. 

I recently came across the question, "what if joy is our only matrix for success?" It's really had me thinking a lot about how much we can learn from young children, and the faces in this picture are now the faces that come to mind every time I think about success. 

Ms. Kraljic's grade 3's put together an amazing Earth Play for Earth Day event on Thursday. We absolutely loved building and creating with recycled items and items found in nature. While building with our grade 2 buddies, students worked cooperatively, sharing materials and building on each other's ideas!

In honour of Earth Day, all of the students at Marysville were joined by the students from Lindsay Park for an amazing drumming circle. Mrs. Keiver and Mrs. Driscoll worked so hard for months to collect and create drums with every student, teaching students all about the power of drumming along the way. The experience of standing in the field with well over 300 students drumming a beat together was incredibly moving. Students were extremely focused as they experimented with different beats. We were so thankful for our special guest, Bonnie, and all of the parents and community members who came out to show their support for this special event.

On Friday, we honoured a student who is moving away with a specially requested PJ party!

We even had special guests from grade one join us to teach us how to make flowers during our party!

And we loving mixing up icing colours and decorating our mini cupcakes before we gobbled them up at the party!

The emotions that arose and feelings that were shared throughout this week showed me just how close this group has become, and how deeply they care for each other. I was so touched by the thoughtful, kind words shared during our final reflection circle about our classmate who is moving, and I know the memories created as a class will be carried forward in the hearts of all of these children. I feel so privileged to share in such honest, loving human connection!