Produce passport

Wabamun School has been doing produce passports. What we do is every Friday we have a Fit Friday when we dance then we have a new fruit. The whole school participates in the dancing and we have so much fun. The fruits and vegetables are delicious!!! The teachers and students enjoy this day. When we dance all classes get to choose the two dances on just dance – one class chooses each week. The purpose is to have students, like myself, to try new things and to stay active at the same time.

We have had kiwi, pineapple, apple, orange, pear, cherry tomato, cucumber, mango, peppers, cantaloupe, and watermelon. The fruits and veggies are delicious and most important healthy.

Miranda is a grade 4 student at Wabamun School.

At the end of 2012 school year, I was given the opportunity to take a leadership role and be Duffield School’s Healthy School Facilitator. I decided to embark on this journey and see where the path would take our school. One of the first tasks was to build a team that would collaborate, lead and enjoy our goal of healthier lifestyles.

At the beginning of the year, students were given the opportunity to apply for our “SWAT” team. SWAT standing for School Wellness Action Team. Interested students from grade Eight and Nine submitted an application to be considered for our team. Students were then chosen based on these applications and references to be the leaders of Duffield’s School first SWAT team.

Now as the year is coming to a close, I have had time to reflect on the wonderful group of students that led so many activities. As part of my reflection, I asked the students about their year and what SWAT has meant to them.

Here are some of their reflections.

Alex: “SWAT means it is a place to have fun, get to know my friends better, and maintain a healthy lifestyle”

Samantha: “SWAT has helped me to realize how important everyone’s health is and how it impacts their everyday life. When you are healthy you are more confident and while I have always been healthy, I never knew what it meant until I joined SWAT. I was already a leader before I joined but after joining I learned so much more about leadership. You get to plan so many activities that impact people’s lives and that is great!”

Jessica: “SWAT has impacted my life so much because we have a committed team.”

Cody: “I really like sharing my ideas to the group, everyone is always open to sharing thier healthy ideas.”

Garrison: “I like helping kids and my school makes healthier choices.  Being part of SWAT has helped me learn how to be a better leader for little kids. I joined SWAT because I wanted to make a difference for other people.”

Dustin: “To me, SWAT means not having to ever feel left out or discriminated against. It means having a motivation to be a healthier and more active person. I have had many wonderful experiences and have learned important skills relating to team work and cooperation with others.”

Dawson: “It means so much to me to have a fit healthy lifestyle in our school; we are role models to show kids that being healthy is good for you and can be fun to.”

Taylor: “Ever since I joined SWAT, I have learned many things and I have become a stronger and healthier person. Before SWAT, I was more timid and I did not like to associate or talk in front of large groups of people. I joined SWAT because I thought it would help me develop as a leader and help me build the courage and it has. I can now be myself around mostly anyone; I even volunteered to speak in front of a large group of people. Thanks to SWAT, I have become a leader and I have made more friends and have had many fun experiences. One of my favorite was when our group volunteered to speak at H.A.S.S, I was presenting to a group of young students and I was really frightened because I almost never speak to people I do not know without freaking out. I love SWAT because not only have I gained confidence, I am proud to help others out as well. To be a healthy influence on the children at my school has made me feel proud for doing such a great thing. SWAT is something that I am pretty sure I’ll never forget! I will never forget my team, the skills that I’ve gained, or the fun experiences that I have had as a SWAT member. SWAT is what I am grateful for!”

I can’t say enough about the wonderful group of students, parents, teachers and community members I have had the opportunity to work with. I am very grateful to all the stakeholders of healthy schools for allowing me the opportunity to lead our healthy schools program. Duffield’s, comprehensive school health program, parallel with our vision, “where exploration, creativity, and imagination make learning exciting and where all learners aspire to reach their dreams.”   I look forward to another successful year of reaching my dreams with all Duffield Students having healthy schools, healthy futures!

Leanne Schram-White  is the healthy school facilitator for Duffield School. Together with twelve selected students, the SWAT team lead the school in healthy schools, healthy futures.

Mrs. Loe’s  Grade 5 class at Stony Plain Central School has really appreciated the use of their ‘psdblogs’ accounts. They have come in very handy in many cases. An example might be when students bring their personal devices such as iPads, laptops, and Smart phones to class, and then they can simply go on to their Gmail and email the teacher their work in order for it to be corrected or printed. Assignments are easy to hand out through their personal accounts. They can even work on the same document at the same time collaboratively. Google Docs, Gmail, and psdblogs have become a very valuable and essential part of our teaching and learning.

Here are some comments from the class about how they found “psdblogs” helpful in our learning.

Jas: “ I found it helpful when we do an assignment like spelling, I can just type it on my own laptop and then email it using psdblogs to the teacher.”

Alex: “It helps because when you are away you can keep up with assignments and send them to the teacher from home.”

Jonah: “When the computer doesn’t have internet like Safari or Explorer, then I can still go to Google Chrome on PSD Blogs and get on the internet. 

Shaylin: “When you can’t see your friends then you can go on PSDBlogs and still chat with them about a project that you are working on.”

Fiona: “I like that you can use the email instead of having to use your parents’ email.”

Trinity W: “We are saving trees by using email and Google Docs instead of paper.”

Koby: “It’s great when you are travelling then you can still use it.”

With the world of education is ever changing and new and innovative ideas coming up through the pipeline every day, it is more important now than ever before to work with teaching colleagues to develop the best lessons, tasks, and assessments possible.  Collaboration is not only beneficial for teachers, but for our students as well.

We just finished working on our AISI project for this year at Graminia, in which we collaborated with teachers from Blueberry school.  The goal was to see how feedback affected student performance on different tasks.  We worked with our colleagues to come up with a project that engaged our grade three students in our Building and Testing Materials unit.

The students were given the choice of building one of three different models; a bridge, a two door garage, or a water tower.  The project was really in depth, with the students needing to meet specific criteria, stay within a set budget, and withstand different tests designed to assess the stability of their building.  Part one was the planning stage where the students were given both peer and self-assessments to guide them in the actual building aspect of the project.  They brought in their plans, excited as ever to show off what they had come up with, and traded with a friend to get feedback.  There was a checklist to make sure that all the necessary items were in the plan, an area where their partners could make general suggestions on how to make the project stronger, and a place to describe what they liked best about their friends design.  Finally, the self-assessment aspect, where each student was asked to reflect on what, if anything, they would do to change their design after getting their partners feedback.

It was really interesting to take in the booklets when the students brought in their completed projects to see how they were able to take the suggestions their partners made, along with the self-assessments and use them to guide their building.  There were many who made changes that positively affected the outcome and there were some who ignored their partners completely.  The structures all looked fantastic, some of the bridges were able to hold people, some of the water towers were almost a meter tall, and the garages were more elaborate than I will ever own!

Overall, we came up with a great project to challenge our students and make them use all that they learned throughout the unit in order to come up with a successful structure.

Grade 3KV at Millgrove School have been working on their global citizenship skills through KIVA. What is KIVA, you ask? KIVA is a non-profit organization with a mission to connect people through lending to alleviate poverty. KIVA manages a worldwide network of financial institutions and allows individuals to loan as little as $25 to help create opportunity around the world. Once you make a loan, you receive and once the goal is reached, you are kept updated with the progress payment of the loan you provided. 3KV would like to make a $50.00 loan. How do we choose? Since students in Grade 3 study India, Ukraine, Tunisia and Peru throughout the Social Studies curriculum, we searched for individuals in these countries and narrowed it down to seven options. Below are persuasive letters written by students in 3KV to convince the class and teachers, Mrs. Verhey and Mrs. Korte, of their selection and why…

Please, I’m Begging You!
I beg you, Mrs. Verhey, to choose Yanatan from Peru for the sponsorship because he has the lowest percentage achieved. Yanatan needs more money to help him get closer to 100%. Also, animals help us live and Yanatan wants to get more animals. In addition, chickens lay eggs and eggs help people live. Please choose Yanatan, Mrs. Verhey. I’m BEGGING you!
By Brody H

KIVA
I choose to support Ivan from Ukraine because my mom likes coffee and Ivan works for a coffee company so I’ve made a connection. Ivan deserves it! He needs to catch up on his goal. He’s a little away from his goal and needs our help. I choose Ivan from Ukraine. Please, please choose Ivan.
By Thuan

If you would like to read more student persuasive letters, please go to our classroom blog; http://www.psdblogs.ca/korteverhey/ and if you would like to look into making your own KIVA loan, please visit www.kiva.org. This website truly helps students recognize that even $25 can make a difference on the other side of the world. Global citizenship at its best!

Ali Verhey is a Grade 3 teacher at Millgrove School.

For those unfamiliar, “The Daily 5” is a structure that helps to develop the daily habits of reading and writing by working through 5 literacy tasks:  Read to Self, Read to Someone, Word Work, Work on Writing, and Listen to Reading.  During Daily 5 time, each student chooses which literacy task they wish to work on; as well as where in the classroom they would like to work.  Fostering independence in students is essential to the success of the program.

After much collaboration and thought, I decided to implement “The Daily 5” in my classroom.  Ordinarily, this wouldn’t be a decision that needs much consideration; however, I do not teach an ordinary group of students.  I teach grade 1-3 students in the Early Years Alternate Program; students with severe emotional and behavioral challenges.  The mere thought of changing the structure of my classroom from a highly structured and controlled environment to one that encourages more student responsibility and choice was scary.

After Spring Break, my students were welcomed back to an entirely different classroom.  Individual desks were changed to trapezoid tables.  The bookshelves were moved to create a gathering area, furnished with a rug and beanbag chairs. Literacy tasks were organized and labeled in a common area allowing for easy selection and access.  For the entire month of April, students were taught the expectations and routines involved in each of the 5 literacy tasks.

The Daily 5 structure has been fully implemented in my classroom now for 2 weeks and the transformation that has been made in my students is incredible.  They want to work on literacy activities.  They are engaged and working independently.  They are cooperating with one another.  They are excited and proud to show their work.  “The Daily 5” is helping to improve the basic language arts skills in my students.  But more importantly, it is teaching them the importance of motivation, cooperation, independence, and self-reflection.

I am so glad I decided to step outside my own comfort zone and offer my students the opportunity to become active participants in their own education.

Linda teaches students in the Grades 1-3 Early Years Alternate Program at Forest Green School.

Jr. Achievement Program at Blueberry School

Hi, my name is Chloe. I am in grade six at Blueberry School. We had an opportunity to participate in this amazing program called Jr. Achievement; it’s where Randy Rosen, a very successful business owner that gave his time to help us,  came to our school and taught us how to run a business using just our friends to do it.

When Randy first came, no one knew what was going to take place. Or what was going to occur. He introduced himself by telling everyone who he was and what he did for a living. It turns out he owns a few very successful business of his own out in Sherwood Park. Then, he started to talk about the businesses from other schools. It turns out everything has always worked out perfectly. He told us about “Planning is Key”. We started to plan by organizing ourselves into specific teams.

The next time we saw Randy he helped us organize ourselves into groups for the program and we decided on a charity to donate the proceeds of the sale to. We chose Mutts Adored in Stony Plain a dog shelter for dogs without homes. We decided to purchase dollar store items and mark them up a bit to make the money.  There were five teams: Merchandise, Set-up, Promotions, Sales and Book Keeping. Let’s start with Merchandise.

• The Merchandise Team was in charge of buying all the goods for the sale. The members were a big help in the final sale. I was on the merchandise team, it’s challenging because you always have to keep track of what amount of items you buy and how much it was. Everyone was assigned a few items and what amount to buy. A popular item were the Blurps, they were sold in less than 30 seconds at the sale. We had over 100 just of Blurps!
• Next is the Set-up Team. They were in charge of setting up all the tables and the cash registers. The members were also in charge for all the decorating at the tables.
• Promotions Team was in charge of all the posters, announcements, and flyers. Their duties were to get the schools attention and get them to visit the sale. They did a very well job with illustrating the school with their magnificent drawings and visiting all the classes to show off the merchandise!  There was paw prints leading all around the school!
• The Sales Team was on the job of selling every last item to the customers. They succeeded! Actually so many people came to the sale Randy had to recruit the merchandise team to help sell.
• Last but not least it is the Book Keeping Team. They were in charge of keeping all the receipts and making the total count of money. Also, they got to deliver the huge check to Mutts Adored!

The sale was the huge event! Our sale took in $814.79 in total amount of money after everyone bought their items. A nice student on the book keeping team did chores at home and got paid $110.00 and she decided to donate it to the sale so instead we raised $924.79! But, what goes up always comes down. We had to subtract the total amount of money the merchandise team spent. After all that Mutts Adored got $522.79 to help save puppies. WOW!

The Junior Achievement Program taught the entire grade sixes a great lesson on being independent and learning to work as a team player. Everyone should get this awesome experience!

I explained the challenges of the project to the students, and the goal of producing six high-quality chairs that the purchasers would be proud to take home. Frankly, it’s not an easy project! There has been a high level of buy-in from the students, with some exceptional leadership shown by my “veteran” students”. Those new to our shop are getting an excellent chance to see what we do at this end of the building. This is a process I hope we can replicate yearly!

Some examples of captions were:

• Boxy Lady
• His dream was to be a boxer.
• They told me to think inside the box,
• They said I could never teach a box to walk.
• Create, learn, explore – that’s why we have an imagination.
• Muir Lake school inspiring dreams.
• Muir lake school inspires creativity and makes dreams come true.
• Dream. Believe. Create. Inspire. Together, we can accomplish anything.

The Muir Lake Students found this to be a very exciting and fun activity.

As well as the captions, Mrs. Badry had another well-organized exercise for us. There was a picture, and we were trying to guess what it was, but she only showed it bit by bit. Not only was this activity creative, but it was also inspiring. With each part of the picture she unveiled, each of us brainstormed our own ideas of what it could have been. Both of these activities were a great way to get us to… Think outside of the box.  

Serenity Vanner-Vevoda is a grade 9 student at Muir Lake School.

At the start of the year students were given the opportunity to apply for a place on a student driven leadership club called the “We Care Team.” Students from every grade level responded to the call, and submitted an application letter to be considered. Students were then chosen based on these applications and references to attend the very first We Day conference ever held in Calgary. 

The speakers and performances at this conference included Larry King, Spencer West, Liz Murray, Hedley, Lights, and many more. The overall message was that of youth empowerment to make a positive change in the world! After hearing the powerful stories from these dynamic individuals, our students were inspired to do more than just listen. They came back to the school with a flood of ideas that were driven by their heart to help others. This initial spark ignited a wildfire within the Greystone community, and as a result the entire student body has in some way been involved with a We Care outreach initiative this year.

The local outreach project the students decided to focus on was the Stollery Children’s Hospital Foundation. This charity supports research, education, and training into new treatments and cures for child health issues. It also provides specialized programs to assist patients and their families as they encounter unimaginable challenges. Inspired by family members and friends who have received help from the Stollery, the We Care team approached this project passionately and creatively.

With the penny on its way out of circulation, the We Care team decided to declare a “Penny War!” Each grade was given a large water cooler bottle to fill at the front of the school. Every day the We Care group counted up the tally of coins coming in from each class, and recorded it publicly to fuel the competition between each class in the school. A penny would grant the class one positive point, but if student brought in any silver coins or bills they could be sent to other classes as negative points to sabotage their tally! The competition was fierce and students spent weeks scrounging under couch cushions at home to bring in as many coins as possible to contribute to their class count. Some might think that something as small as a penny might not make that much of a difference.  In fact, some people might consider a penny worthless. But when our students combined all their pennies we started to see how much of an impact “pennies” could have when added up together!  After only a week the table the coin bottles had been sitting on actually collapsed under the weight of all the pennies! With students and volunteers still rolling and counting pennies, we estimate that we have collected well over $3000 worth of “change for change!”

The international project the We Care voted to support is called “Operation Smile.” This is a charity that provides medical support and operations for children born with a cleft lip. Without medical help children in impoverished areas around the world with this deformity have difficulty eating, drinking, speaking, socializing, or even smiling. According to statistics on Operation Smile’s website one in ten of these children will die before their first birthday. Learning about the desperate need these children had made an impact on the students in the team.

The We Care Team first created awareness in the school by presenting their research to parents during a school event, and then to the rest of the school in an assembly. They also organized a plastic egg hunt the day before Spring Break. The whole school was invited to seek out hidden eggs all over the school which each held a fact about Operation Smile and a draw tag.  If students found an egg they could put their name and class on the draw tag, and enter to win a prize. The catch was that they had to remember the fact about operation smile to collect their prize! The outcome was an entire school population who now understood why the We Care team needed their help to make a difference around the world. This publicity was followed up with a school art auction to raise money for the charity. Students in each grade donated crafts, drawings, and paintings to be auctioned off to fellow students. The response was overwhelming, and the team continues to invest time and energy to support this cause.

Probably the most exciting thing about the We Care leadership is that after each event I have students approach me about joining the team! The numbers of our We Care Team have grown dramatically with engaged, enthusiastic, and driven students who are invested in making a difference in their school, community, and beyond. The Greystone We Care Team is already making plans for their next outreach. Three grade five girls presented the team with a plan to create an anti-bullying outreach and support the Kids Help Phone this spring.

It is remarkable to see what students are capable of accomplishing when they are inspired and empowered. We hope that other schools or individuals are motivated by what our group is doing, and that those with experience in leadership are able to offer advice or ideas as we take on new challenges!