 Doesn't it feel like things get a little crazy when the weather warms up in the spring? Practice starts- for spring soccer, baseball, flag football etc etc etc. Times that by multiple children with multiple activities. And now the joys of yard work and gardening are added on top of the usual list of inside jobs like house cleaning, grocery shopping, laundry, meal preparation etc etc etc. And that's just the weekend chores. Notice I'm not even mentioning 'spring cleaning' (what's that?). Add in the additional responsibilities during the school/ work week and its enough to make you feel like your head is going to explode. Where do we find the time?!? Almost makes one pine for the dull dreary cold months of winter when snuggling up with a cuppa and fuzzy blanket in front of the TV to do some bingeing is totally acceptable. Almost.
Have you heard of a little thing called a Beyblade? They were very popular about 20 years ago when my own boys were small and have had a recent upsurge in popularity again. Unfortunately, they are quite expensive and not all the children have them, although those that do are very generous about sharing theirs. Both Team Awesome and Mrs. Farber's Friends have become obsessed with Beyblades and have been creating them with almost every building toy in both classrooms. Unifix cubes, Brain Flakes, K'Nex, magnets, blocks- you name it and they've tried to make a Beyblade from it. It was a losing battle trying to convince the children to build something new as they persisted with their obsession. So Mrs. Farber and I threw up our hands and decided that if we couldn't beat them, to join them! We gave them a number of challenges- to build the tallest Beyblade, the tiniest one, a Beyblade that would spin longer than all the others or the largest one. They chose their challenge and planned out their Beyblade accordingly on paper before we took all of our materials to the gym to build and challenge others. We discovered that sometimes our plans and materials did not work as anticipated (playdough didn't work so well), so this week we revisited the challenges, adjusted our plans and retested them, making tweeks as needed. We built, we battled, we rebuilt, we had a blast!
On April 5, schools across SD 73 held assemblies and activities to honour and recognize Secwepemc and Nlaka'Pamux territory as well as other First Nations and Aboriginal groups. In Kamloops Thompson School District this is now known as the "Day of Sucwentwecw." Sucwentwecw (sook-went-wa) means to acknowledge one another. During this day a number of events, activities and assemblies were held to recognize the Secwepemc and Nlaka'Pamux Nation and to teach students and staff about the traditional aboriginal and First Nations people, their histories and the territories SD 73 now occupies. The theme for this year's Day of Sucwentwecw was 'Balancing Our Actions: The Self, The Family, The Community, The Land'. At BEST our gathering opened with Mr. Law welcoming our guests and making a short speech about how lucky we are to live in the best country in the world. Each class then moved through four stations throughout the morning, each of which highlighted an aspect of First Nations culture. Team Awesome participated in some dancing and drumming, as well as learned about powwows and played lahal. Everyone then gathered again in the gym for some short closing remarks from both Mr. Law and Ms. Chernoff, a music video made by students from Chu Chua followed by our own drum group drumming us back to our classrooms for the remainder of the day. The Day of Sucwentwecw is a day to celebrate and acknowledge one another and I would like to think that we at BEST do just that every day and not solely on April 5.
|
