Gardening Season

Are you ready for Spring? Thanks to Emma (grade 1), her mother and father, and our Edible Garden team (students and teachers), we will be ready soon.

We have our plants getting ready to grow in our front hallway. When they are ready, they will be moved to the courtyard planters.

We are looking forward to seeing all our vegetables grow.

Take care

Weclome to Our Garden

Classes have started to plant in the newest addition to our school, our courtyard planters. A few teachers have brought in some fruits and vegetables to see how our garden grows.

Thanks again to the parent volunteers who made the boxes, put them in place, and filled them with soil.

We look forward to seeing our garden grow.

Take care

Gym Sense

Today our intermediate students started working on their gymnastics unit. We have partnered with Gym Sense Gymnastics to learn a variety of exercises and routines. The focus today was learning about the equipment, understanding safety expectations,  previewing the stations, and practicing following proper transition routines. In future lessons, students will explore how they move through space, work on strength building exercises, practice balance, learn to roll safely, and work safely with their peers on the equipment.

The Gym Sense staff will be joining us for the rest of the week, as well as for two weeks after Spring Break.

For you primary parents out there, don’t despair. We will also be using the small gym for gymnastics towards the end of the week, and then continue for a bit longer after Spring Break. All students will have a chance to participate in a variety of safe gymnastic activities.

If your students had gym today (in the large gym), ask them how gymnastics went. I’d be curious how they respond.

Take care

Respect and Recognition

Our whole school met this afternoon in the gym for an assembly on respect and recognition. In previous years, we waited until June to recognize everyone for their contributions to Cleveland School. This year, the Cleveland staff decided to try and provide more timely recognition for students who have already made contributions to our school culture. We did not have the opportunity to recognize everyone, but we did take the time to recognize some groups. Lauren and Dylan were excellent MC’s, and we really appreciated how they modeled respect, and how they ran a smooth assembly.

Mme Gordon’s class showed us what respect looks like in a class, as well as doing a small dance (well done Barbara).

Mme Zwart!s class presented a series of skits about respect.

Ms. McIntyre’s class had two students talk about the Spread the Word to Stop the Word campaign. Fanny and Sera reminded us all to stop using hurtful words and to help make Cleveland a better place by making better choices with our words. These two grade 5 girls gave me permission to reprint their speech here (the colours were on their speech, so I included them here). Thanks girls.

Here at Cleveland, respect is very important. It is what makes Cleveland a better place to be.

So why do we litter? Why do we use bad language? Why do people constantly get picked on and bullied at recess? And especially, why do we use the R-word?

The R-word is known as retard. This word was used to describe people with intellectual disabilities. Today, the definition of the R-word is known as stupid.

We know for a fact that people with intellectual disabilities are not stupid. They just have more challenges in life and it’s not right to insult them.

If you use the R-word, you are not just insulting the 7,000,000 people with intellectual disabilities but also the friends and families supporting them.

This word is considered a hurtful insult, but together we can change the R-word to respect, which is what our main topic is today.

If everyone tried not to use the R-word, it would make an out of this world difference!!

THANK YOU”

~ by Fanny and Sera, grade 5.

The video, Spread the Word to Stop the Word, was made by students at Argyle Secondary School in North Vancouver.  Ms. McIntyre has made it available on her class web site, in the Interesting Videos section.

Today, we were able to recognize the cross country team, the basketball teams, the lunch monitors, and the safety patrol members. We also recognized our community and parent coaches.

Thank you students for helping show respect in the classes, in our hallways, and on our playgrounds. Together, we can make this a wonderful school for all.

Take care.

Anti-Bullying Month

October is Anti-Bullying Month.

Why only one month? We can do better than aiming for one month.

I watched a few videos this morning that were linked from an article on the post Five-Minute Film Festival: Preventing Bullying.

Some quotes from the video’s.

  • “students set the tone in the school building…they can turn a entire school around.” ~Lori Urogody-Eiler (Not In Our School video)
  • “you can make a change.” ~ Tiana (Not In Our School video)
  • “Stand up rather than stand by.” from the video Cyberbulling Educator toolkit
  • “After those photos were posted there was a lot of tension. I didn’t want to go to school…” ~ Daniel Cui

All videos can be found on the post linked above. Please take the time to view the videos.

Are we doing anything about anti-bullying month in our classes? It differs from class to class. We have a number of programs here that focus on social and emotional issues (Kids in the Know, Stand By Me, Second Step). We work on cyber issues (with Jesse Miller and Mediated Reality). We have workshops on healthy relations (with support from Saleema Noon), and we have Roots of Empathy in our school.

Ask your child’s teacher about what he or she is doing to support a safe and caring school for all students. We need to talk about this topic more often.

Start Talking.

  • “The whole school had stood up for someone who needed it. He was a normal kid, just like us.” from Facebook: We are all Daniel Cui.

For more information about what schools can do, visit the British Columbia’s Ministry of Education Safe, Caring and Orderly Schools web site.

We will keep talking and learning together.

Take care.