This year, Delta’s Interagency Youth Committee (with representatives from the School District as well as all our agencies who support our children and youth) met to discuss how we wanted to do something different for May’s Mental Health Awareness Week.  An amazing opportunity came our way.  We happened to see an article in the Province where a reporter spoke to Whitecaps player, Andy O’Brien, about his struggles with anxiety and depression that impacted his life and career.

When the Whitecaps were contacted to ask how we could bring Andy to Delta to talk to our students, they proposed a more exciting option – bringing our students to a Whitecaps game, and then meeting with Andy O’Brien.

On May 1^st, 100 students from every high school across the district were bussed to a Whitecaps game where Andy O’Brien played as team Captain.  The Whitecaps won an important semi-final match.

Even more importantly, after the exciting game, we were escorted to a banquet room where Carl Valentine introduced Andy O’Brien who shared his personal story for the first time with an audience.  His honesty and “realness” touched both students and staff.  As a male as well as an athlete, his message was powerful in encouraging individuals to not see personal struggles as a sign of weakness or embarrassment.

After he spoke, Andy stayed to have photos taken with every student who attended.  Many students spoke to Andy and thanked him for his courage to share his story.  Students are sending him personal thank you’s such as the following:

“I would like to thank you for bravely sharing your story with us.  I think it’s important for kids to see that, despite our struggles, we can do great things.  Many of us are dealing with mental health issues like depression and anxiety, and I’m sure you know as well as we do, just how hard it can be to face everyday things.  We think you are amazing for staying strong under so much pressure.  Your admirable strength to fight through it and speak in front of so many people has made you a role model.”

Here at South Park we have seen much evidence that the students have integrated many of the SEL strategies that have been taught into their daily routines. Students are familiar with the vocabulary and with many self-calming strategies. We are all on a continuum of implementation, and different teachers focus on various pieces of the whole. Some emphasize breathing techniques while others emphasize WITS skills.

Every once in a while, a staff member experiments with a new strategy that ends up wildly exceeding their expectations and which leads to a meaningful connection with the students and/or between the students. One such example of this occurred last week in Mme Schultz’s grade three class. She was thrilled about what her students were learning during their first encounter with Yoga as another too for self-calming and cooperation.

Mme Schultz had unleashed Yoga Pretzels; a resource found in our library. In the gym she had put out large mats and placed a yoga pretzel card on each one. Students were in partners and rotated around to the different mats. They would read the instructions and try the activities. Her students were fully engaged in complex yoga poses. At times being successful or falling into a heap. The risk taking was amazing to see. These kids were connecting with one another and calming themselves. Mme Schultz was floating a foot off the ground from excitement.

Who loves yoga? Everyone! Moms and Dads do it for peace of mind. Football players do yoga to get stronger. The Canucks do it before their games. Try yoga at school to get calm and clear before a test or just for fun. Daily yoga helps you concentrate better and run faster. Cooperation and balance are just two of the endless reasons for including yoga in your day are endless!

(Adapted from Peaceful Piggy Yoga by Kerry Lee MacLean.)

McCloskey sweeps the Richmond-Delta Regional Heritage Fair!  Students show the power of Inquiry-Based learning!

On Friday, May 3, 11 students were selected to represent McCloskey at this year’s Richmond-Delta Regional Heritage Fair in Richmond, BC.

Heritage Fair is a Fair that showcases inquiry-based research projects on Canadian history. Over 115 projects competed in this year’s Heritage Fair. The students selected to participate in the fair attended a field trip to see the new Steveston Tram, participated in a workshop on Chinese Canadian stories and presented their projects to the judges.

We are very proud of the hard work our students in Division 5 & 6 put into their projects. Not only did they do an enormous amount of research and writing, but they also made an array of creative components to compliment their research. These creative components included: models, slideshows, prezi’s, artifacts and journals. Great work everyone!

A special congratulations goes to the following students who received awards at this year’s Regional Fair:

• Anisha Gill won the Stellar Jay award for her project on the “Komagata Maru”.
• Fraser McKay won the Stellar Jay award for his project on the “History of the Richmond Review Newspaper”.
• Shreeya Maruri & Alicia Mann won the Industry award for their collaborative project on the “Britannia Mine”.
• Krish Nahan won a special award for his project on the historical Vancouver Island Town “Paldi”.

Congratulations to all of the winners! We hope you continue inquiring in the many years to come!

Initially, when I applied to borrow the ipad minis, my intent was to use them as a tool for digital literacy. What I didn’t expect was that we would be pulling them out all the time. Admittedly, I was slightly despondent when Neil came to fetch the ’toolbox.’ Nonetheless, I am thankful for the opportunity to use them in our grade four classroom.

Our initial time for discovery included the students working together to familiarize themselves with an app. Using appletv, students were able to mirror their images and discoveries onto the big screen to discuss. Some students became very adept at using Doceri. Attached is a link to their explanation on using Doceri. I found it to be a great tool to use as a quick lit review. For example, we have been working on ’Voice’ in our writing. Students were asked to bring in a short story that shows voice. Doceri provided to be a accessible tool to show their understanding of voice.

We also used a number of apps for math. I think I would like to see Show Me on the ipads. It is an easy app to use when I need students to quickly mirror their thinking. Other great apps to use were:
WWF Together: beautiful visuals, soothing music, informative info about animals
Story Wheel: Creating short stories with buddies, building a story, voice over
PlayART: fun app to use in the style of famous artists
Educreations: Use for math, can record thinking
BrainPOP: morning starter to project on big screen
Math Manipulatives for working with fraction strips

Blogging into the ipad mini blog site in WordPress was also a highlight for the students. In fact, over the past few weeks, students have blogged more in this way than on our class blog. Making writing accessible with the option of adding visuals is appealing. The ipad minis were a great tool for teaching and learning. They are welcome to stop by again soon!

I live in a drafty, old, character-filled house.  I love my house with it’s lacquered wood doors and mutton bar windows.  Somewhere in 1928 the Davidson’s moved from Saskatchewan to Delta with the promise of owning a beautiful chicken farm.  They bought 10 acres and built the house that I now live in with my family.  I’m sure that Mrs. Davidson must have loved to garden.  From the old pictures I can see row upon row of vegetable gardens, vines and plants thriving in the large yard.  She obviously wasn’t strictly into planting to feed her family because there are remnants of several ornamental plants around the yard that pop up in the funniest places.

I have snowdrops in a circle beside the driveway where there once must have been a tree. There’s a plant with sweet yellow flowers and velvety leaves that peeked through the soil by my garage a few summers ago after I had removed the sod and added some mulch to create a flower bed.  One of my favourite plants that has managed to survive the ninety years is this amazing 15 foot tall and about 10 feet around rhododendron.  (If you look closely in the above picture you can see the rhododendron’s stalk and leaves just to the left of the stairs.)

Every year around this time it produces these massive, bright pink blooms. I love this plant not just for its blooms or it’s colossal size, but for it’s tenacity.  You see somewhere between 1928 and 1991 when I bought the house someone spliced the rhododendron with another less grand purple rhododendron.  My pink rhodo with it’s glorious blooms, large, light green leaves and gnarled old branches is slowly being enveloped.

The purple rhodo seems to be a hardier, maybe because of youth, plant and several years ago began to grow around the pink.  It wasn’t that noticeable until last year when the rhododendrons bloomed.  The back of the plant was always filled with purple blooms, but last year the purple overtook the pink in the front.

If I could, I would go back in history and change what happened to my pink rhodo.  I would defend the rhodo’s right to persevere through whatever difficult times it might have had.  I would encourage the gardener-of-the-time to value it for its pale green leaves that curl in the heat of the summer and its majestic blooms that all too quickly lose their colour, fading from dark pink to almost white.

Recently, I have felt like the pink rhododendron spliced together with a system that values grades above tenacity; percentages above perseverance.  I want to continue my education, but it appears as if history is in control of my choices.

I completed an amazingly engaging two year program in graduate studies last year.  The program has had a huge impact on the way I practice teaching and I realized how much I love learning.  I decided that I would apply for the third and final year.  Two days ago I was told that I need to appeal to the Dean because my GPA from my undergrad degree from 1988 does not meet one element of the university’s criteria for acceptance.

I persevered through school, elementary, high school and my undergrad.  I learned, though I never felt as if I was valued and knew that the majority of my written work was a C+ at best.  I failed high school the first go round and chose to attend night school.  I put myself through university despite the challenges of working two jobs and moving from my home at sixteen.

I am the pink rhododendron.  I am trying to reach out and move beyond the grades and percentages.  I no longer want to be smothered by the system that tells me I am C+, which isn’t good enough, or that I have little value because, like my rhodo, I pale in comparison to others.  I am so much more than how others choose to define me.

Meet Delta’s Mentorship Team

Delta’s Teacher Mentors are a group of teachers who believe that “the most important function for mentors is to embrace a growth orientation, understanding that the work is to increase their [and our] colleague’s effectiveness as professional problem-solvers and decision makers” (Lipton & Wellman, 2003).

In an effort to achieve that end, we have been learning about facilitating learning-focused conversations, building professional relationships, and aspects of effective pedagogy. Clearly we are learning and growing as much as our protégés.

Recently the Mentor Team spent some time exploring their role as agents of growth.

Here are some of their thoughts:

“As mentors, we want to foster a professional culture that encourages risk-taking, healthy reflections, perseverance, and the praise of actions not attributes.”

“As mentors with a growth mindset our role includes creating a positive process of learning from inevitable mistakes and communicating in a way that inspires protégés to focus on action-based growth.”

“As mentors we need to model a growth mindset, actively listen and provide feedback to encourage positive growth in our ourselves and in the protégés.”

What is Essential to Effective Mentoring?

Lipton, L., & Wellman, B. (2003). Mentoring matters: A practical guide to learning focused relationships. (2nd ed., p. 1). Sherman, CT: Mira Via.

Over the last 6 weeks I’ve had a Delta iPad Crate for use in my Primary Supportive Learning Classroom.

The iPads were a huge success in the classroom. The students were completely engaged with the iPads and used them for reading, math and HACE. Every student shared the iPads and being in a Supportive Learning Classroom, this helped teach the students how to work and interact in pairs/groups. We reviewed strategies on how to use them for calming ourselves down and were able to create presentation skills. It really helped us explore technology and not only benefited the students socially and emotionally, but academically. We really enjoyed having them.

Some of the apps we loved were:

Khan Academy: Videos for older students, but helps you walk through different subjects step by step.

• Flipboard: Let us search the internet for certain topics and talk about world events. More beneficial for older grades, but interesting for kids to see.
• Clea.nr videos: It is affiliated with youtube, but they are clean videos and all in one easy place to watch. Used for clips to assist with lessons.
• Slice it: An easy way to talk about fractions.
• Tangram or Tanzen Lite: An easy way to talk about Tanagrams.
• Math Zombies: Adding and subtracting for quick practic
• White Board: An interactive white board.
• Google Earth: The typical use.
• Hangman: For fun, but easy way to look at letters.
• Dot to Dot: we use this for fine motor
• Kidblog: we use this as our blog site
• Show Me: Fun and easy way to use presentation skills.
• Sparkle Paint or brushes: paint for the classroom
• Science 360: a world of science videos. You have to search but you can find anything to assist with science.
• Leaf Snap: Tells you all about plants and leaves around the world or your area. Helped us introduce our plant unit.
• Plasma Globe: is a game we use to help with fine motor skills
• Music sparkle: a music program where kids can use different instruments to make music
• Fluid Monkey or Heat Pad lite: calm down tools for kids. They listen to the sounds.
• Aviary: we used this to alter pictures and talk about identities

We did have a few issues with the iPads. The iPads are great, but really individual. It would have been nice to have one for each student. Also, they took a lot of time and hand over hand with the young kids. In the short period of time we had them, we spent a lot of time reviewing and reiterating the same information, because the students needed a lot of support. Also, not having an actual keyboard presented a challenge, as the students really struggled typing on the actual pad.

Overall, the kids were very respectful and very engaged. I thought they would like them, but they kept asking to use them more. I also thought having a million apps to go through was amazing. You can find anything to help you out.

This was a fantastic opportunity. I really enjoyed having them in the class (just as much as the students) and I really enjoyed learning more about the technology. It has really fueled a new passion for technology. I would love to have more for the class and will be sad to see them go.

This year, Ms. Morrison’s Psychology 11 class had a Psychology Fair in our School Cafeteria.

The project was inquiry-based in that students chose an illusion that interested them and then found the best way to simulate this for other people to experience. They also needed to learn why our brains perceive these illusions the way they do. Her students set up their projects and staff and other classes were able to learn a little about Perceptual Illusions.

Students demonstrated the illusions to an awestruck audience and then explained why we perceived what we did through the use of their background knowledge and the use of 3-d brain models that they had made earlier in the year.

I was fortunate to experience some Perception Illusion Projects. It was a delight to be learning from her students and seeing the role reversal of teacher and student. Students were excited to show off their learning. Really we are all learners in this community!

Thanks Ms.Morrison and DSS Psychology 11 students for sharing your learning.

Moments of pride occur for parents when we are able to see our child shine ~ these become moments we truly cherish! One that stood out for me occurred a couple of weeks ago at Delta’s Math Celebration held at Port Guichon Elementary School.

My son Matthew was invited to participate in this outstanding, well-organized math event held by Donna Bletcher, Delta’s Mathematics Consultant. Students were grouped into teams that worked collaboratively to share, discuss strategies, and discover solutions to mathematical problems. As a math educator, I loved that the focus went beyond simply getting the right answer and instead valued the process of learning. An inquiry approach was used as the questions were open-ended and had multiple pathways to answers. This promoted active learning requiring both a hands-on and minds-on approach. Points were awarded for exploration, communication, risk taking, use of multiple strategies, and cooperative learning. Students worked as communities of learners, helping and learning from each other.

As I observed my son and the other students in the room, you could see the high levels of engagement, enjoyment and motivation, as evidenced by the smiles and laughter upon the faces of all of the participants and observers. It was mathematics at its finest!

Not only was I proud to be Matthew’s mom, I was proud to be a parent in the Delta School District. A huge thank you to Donna Bletcher and all of the other educators who took part in creating proud mathematical memories for students and parents of Delta schools.

One might expect when walking into a library they would see people reading, but if you walked into Hawthorne’s library lately you would also see students eagerly working on the brand new iPads the PAC had purchased for the library.

The challenge? To make a book trailer (think movie trailer but for a book instead!) to promote a favourite book. The students were given a quick lesson on using the iMovie app and were quickly creating amazing trailers. You could feel and hear the enthusiasm. When it was time to pack up at the end of each period the students were asking if they could come in at recess and lunch to continue working on their projects.

Check out a sample of Chester’s Back! (Will only play on Safari Web Browser)

J.Ratzlaff