Tahltan School News
Transcription
Tahltan School News
P.O. Box 12, Telegraph Creek, BC V0J 2W0 250.235.3441 [email protected] Tahltan School News April/May 2013 Springtime at Tahltan School May 03 - Royal Ball Leadership Club is hosting a Royal Ball at Tahltan School. Get dressed up and come down to the school for the ‘royal treatment’. 7pm-9pm May 09 - Community Cleanup The staff and students of Tahltan School do their part to keep Telegraph Creek clean. We get started at 1pm. May 10th - Mother’s Day Tea Celebrate moms! The kids have something special planned at 2pm! May 21-24 - Heritage Week Please join us for Heritage Week! A full schedule of events will be sent home with the kids as the week approaches. May 23 (AM) - Transitional Day Thank you to everyone who donated to our annual Pennies for Patients fundraiser. We raised almost $200 in loose change. The money goes to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society of Canada Important Dates Tahltan School welcomes next year’s kindergarten class! May 31 - Boat Race May 13th Head downtown for our annual Boat Race. There will be a BBQ lunch and prizes to be won! We can’t wait to see the kids’ boats this year! Non-Instructional Day June 6 - Kite Day Hopefully a beautiful spring day will unfold out at 10-mile for our annual Kite Day! (another good excuse for a BBQ!) Victoria Day Community members are invited to all of our Spring Events. It’s set to be a great season. Volunteer to help out or just come down and join in the fun! See you there... (No School) May 20 (No School) From Ms. Caljouw’s Room Spring has finally arrived. Our class has completed the penguin unit they worked hard on for the past couple of months. We just planted some flower seeds and some herb plants. The students are learning the life cycle of a plant starting with an experiment. Ask your kids which would sprout quicker: a seed laid on peat moss or a seed on a cotton ball. We will begin learning about the life cycle of a frog next month and hopefully the life cycle of a butterfly if we do not run out of time. In the middle of March our classroom began learning our Tahltan language for math in our classroom. They are counting up to 40, they conclude what the weather is for the day, Yesterday was…, Today is …, and Tomorrow will be…, and we are learning the months of the year. This is all spoken in Tahltan. We hope to take a few little field trips this Spring out to Glenora, the garden, and possibly out to 6 mile. From Tahltan Language and Culture Class It brings me great joy when I think of the wonderful things the kids have been doing in Tahltan this year. We have done a lot of research on days in Telegraph Creek long ago. The kids are very interested in learning where they came from. We have finished two big projects this year. One is all the kids in Ms. Rees’ class have emailed Wade Davis about joining our fight to save the Sacred Headwaters. I think it’s important for the kids to learn about land rights and environmental issues we face as a Nation. The other project we have been working on is writing a book about Tahltan Bear Dogs. The kids have been right into working on the book. I have done the writing part and the students have done all the illustrations. The Tahltan Bear Dog books will be going on sale as soon as we get them made up. This year has gone by way too fast, but you know what they say: “Time flies when you’re having fun”. Page 2 Tahltan School News From Leadership Club Leadership club has been a huge success! Our first theme day, Celebrity Day, was a ton of fun and even led to an full-scale concert featuring The Spice Girls, Elvis Presley, and Celina Quock as an Aboriginal celebrity singer! The school slumber party was also a fun-filled evening of movies, games, and socializing. Students slept in the gym and woke up nice and early for pancakes and bacon. Thanks again to all the staff, students, and parents that have helped out with leadership club activities. Our next event is a spring dance on Friday, May 3: 7-9 pm. The theme is The Royal Ball, so be sure to get out your gowns and crowns! See you all there! From Ms Sharp’s Room Spring is in the air and our class has been busy digging in the dirt! We have been focusing on gardening, plants, and caring for the Earth. In an effort to get students involved in community projects we have planted crates full of veggies for the community garden. Students have been caring for these young seedlings, and will be making observations and measurements to track the plants’ changes. We have been weaving this theme into our academics, using perimeter and area to create maps of our own imaginary gardens. Students created some beautiful poetry to describe their gardens, using poetic devices like imagery, similes, personification, and onomatopoeia! We also read the inspirational story of a family in Honduras, who overcame their poverty and became self-reliant after learning how to improve their gardens. Students wrote in role as a character from The Good Garden book, creating some of their most detailed and thoughtful writing yet! Self-esteem and positive thinking are also important goals for our class. We have been reading books, teaching us how to transform negative thoughts into positive ones. Students also made their own lists of positive affirmations reminding them to think positively! From Mr. Chandler’s Desk Verna Vance has been doing excellent work in our Tahltan room. She has been teaching the Tahltan language for animals, colours, weather, months, numbers and basic phrases to the primary class. Ms. Caljouw has been integrating this language into her classroom daily to help reinforce concepts learned. Verna’s been getting great engagement from students by teaching traditional stories to the 4, 5, 6 class. As part of Verna’s lessons on land stewardship, our older students have written letters to Wade Davis, an internationally renowned speaker, author and environmentalist. Wade Davis has offered to communicate with our students and give them all a copy of his book, “The Sacred Headwaters”. Additionally, he’s offered to speak to our students and advocate for post secondary funding for them. Verna and the older students have also been working on a book about the Tahltan Bear Dog. This book includes local images as well as individual student artwork and text based on the traditional history of this famous dog. This book is being edited, compiled and professional printed and will be available to any person or school for purchase. A copy will remain in our library and Tahltan room for future students to learn from. From Ms. Rees’ Room In Ms. Rees’ class April has come and gone in a flash. We finished up our novel study on War Brothers by Sharon E. Mackay. ALL of the students did an amazing job on their final projects. Each student was given freedom to demonstrate their understanding of the novel in their own way. The students picked from a wide range of activities: some created mock-interview questions and then performed on film in role as characters from the book, while others created dioramas to model the setting. Many students decided to create Wanted posters advertising the crimes of certain characters, and some opted to write. We had students write alternate endings to the novel, and even a new version of the ending from a different character’s point of view. All of the projects allowed students a chance to show off their unique talents and way of learning, while exploring this novel in-depth. Students took pride in their work and demonstrated increased maturity and social responsibility as they tackled complex and difficult topics throughout this unit. April is Poetry Month! We have begun a unit on writing, analyzing, and appreciating poetry in all of its forms, including music. So far students have been studying many poetic devices and learning to use them in their own personal writing. We have some very talented poets in our class and I cannot wait to show off some of their poetic chops! Writer’s Corner Maria Luz and her Family Hi my name is Maria Luz. Sometimes my dad calls me mi carino. That means dear or sweet. But my life is tough because I am in debt. Me and my family have a garden in the back of my house. Me and my dad plant the garden but it is hard work to plant a garden when you have to plant a garden all by yourself. My dad went to work. It’s been 3 months since he left. I miss him so much but we have to harvest for the winter. I have to work on the garden. Me and my brother start gardening together. Sometimes I worry about papa and when I go to bed I have dreams about me and him planting marigolds. My friend got into debt and he had to move and I am scared to move to where I grow up. Don Pedro is my teacher. Pepito is my little brother. My mom loves me with all her heart my dad love me so much. That’s why he left it to me to plant the garden. I want to show him I could be responsible enough to plant a garden all by myself. But soon my dad would be back and all of the harvesting would be gone and so my dad would be happy about the garden. I love my dad so much but we are in debt. We need money so we don’t starve and die. When my dad comes back we will have money and we will have food on the table. I love my family so much. Faith’s poetry The clippers open like a big mouth Drip drip goes the water Chirp chirp goes the blue birds The bees eat the nectar to get honey The marigold are protecting the trees Dandelions sprout in the day The grass hugs my feet while I walk The blue bird sings to me The tree is round and cute The lily pads wiggle and push me of The flowers are falling to sleep in the breeze Whistle goes the wind Buzzzzzz goes the bees Our students think their lives are awesome! Here are some of the reasons why: Family, they always want to go hunting Visiting friends and family, hanging out, not talking much Fishing with my mom and dad, going to Tahltan and staying there for a long time. Sneaking up on people and scaring them so they scream Check net and see the first king salmon of the year Sisters because they are cool and fun to play with and they attack me like dogs When someone’s hugging you and you try to pull away, but they hug you even tighter I got a good family that feeds my soul everyday Camping for days until I smell When you do something and you can’t believe it Crunch crunch I’m eating my lunch The grass is talking to me I hear a bird chirping It sounds like lullabies The flowers are dancing The flowers feel like a soft blanket Ruff goes the dog The flowers have a family and there are two kids A girl and a boy Buzz buzz goes the bee Drip drip goes the water out of the watering can Corban’s ending to War Brothers Jacob and his friends were planning for weeks to run away from the LRA. One night Jacob said “now is the time to run away.” It took them a long time just to walk through the bushes and they walked in each other’s footsteps. While they were walking they saw a lot of footsteps. They saw the river they thought they were on the right side but they weren’t. They went to the river and just sat on the ground thinking. Hannah said that Kony and his army were thinking about trading Jacob and his friends for guns so they had to have a way across the river. There had to be a boat somewhere. Jacob and his friends heard a roar then the boys saw a old gray lion. They said “get to the trees.” Jacob grabbed a vine for Hannah she pulled herself up on to the tree. Lizard ran out of nowhere he screamed “don’t shoot!” Jacob is thinking that he is going to hurt them, and next thing you know the lion jumped out to bite them. They ran to the trees they got on the trees. The lion jumped on Lizard and pulled him away but when he got out of sight Lizard pulled his panga out and he stabbed the lion. Lizard stayed alive. Jacob and his friends did not know that he is alive. They went to go look for the boat that Kony was going to use to get across the river. There are old gray hippo’s. Jacob and his friends found the boat so they took it across. When they got to the other side there was an ape sitting right on the path no one wanted to get out here. Hannah jumped out and walked over to it and she turned back and told the boys “your not scared of the LRA but your scared of a silly little monkey.” She said “get out of the boat, come on.” Jacob got out. They were walking home and Lizard jumped out and killed Oteka and he killed Tony, he killed Paul, just Norman, Jacob, and Hannah got away. They walked in to government soldiers. Jacob said “I am Jacob.” They took him to see his dad. He was crying. But he had to go to rehab so Jacob went and got to be a real person again. But he still misses his friends who died by Lizard that day. Hannah and Jacob are married. Norman lives with them. Norman’s dad came to see. Him he was so happy to see his dad. His dad loved him so much. Hannah’s dad and mom came to see Hannah and to take her home. Jacob went home to see his dad and Ethel. When he got home they were not there. Jacob saw bullet holes in the wall. They weren’t home, Jacob thinks the LRA took them. Hannah came to the house and she asked if she can move in. Jacob said “okay.” Now Jacob and Hannah live together but Jacob hates the LRA. He misses his dad and vows to go find him some day.