AMORE du TOIT/Elementary News
Thirteen – a magical number!
Mini basketball celebrated 13 years of great success at Stettler Elementary School. It was wonderful watching the growth of our basketball players in grades 1-5 improve as the camp progressed.
On day five, it definitely looked like basketball. We didn’t keep score on days one to five, but the kids scored more hoops then their parents in the last session. A highlight for Kim Poapst, the main organizer, was coaching three wonderful graduating coaches who were the first and only SES kindergarten mini basketball participants in its initial year in 1998. Congratulations to Lauren Brus, Katrena Heier and Kaitlin Poapst for 13 wonderful years of dedication to our program. You have big shoes to fill. We would also like to thank our volunteer Stettler Middle School and Stettler high school coaches for a job well done.
Bonnie Lynn’s Grade 5 students recently completed an interesting project as part of their Early Canadian Exploration and Settlement unit in social studies. Students researched an important Canadian historical figure and then presented their reports to each other in class, but what made this project different was that the students also dressed in costume and pretended to BE the historical figure when they did their presentation.
Students later presented a mini-version of their report to their parents and teachers in 5TA’s own “Wax Museum of Important Canadian Historical Figures.” Students stood “frozen” like a wax statue until someone came along and stepped on the paper “button” that “activated” them to share some interesting facts. 5TA’s social studies teacher, Bonnie Lynn, dressed as the museum’s curator and helped guide the visitors. Parents were amazed by the amount of information students knew, how at ease they were during their presentations, and how effective their costumes were in keeping them in character.
Students and parents were thrilled with this project, and they both learned many interesting facts about Canada’s early history and people.
The Grade 3 classes are studying animal life cycles and they’ve just started their butterfly lifecycle project. The baby butterfly larvae have just arrived. Students will observe these larvae as they grow and change and then in early June students will release the adult butterflies that they’ve raised.
Kindergarten to Grade 2 students will be participating in swimming lessons at the Stettler Recreation Centre during the months of May and June.
On Monday, May 9, Grade 4 and 5 classes were fortunate enough to have a visit from the University of Calgary Solar Team along with their newest solar car, Schulich Axiom. We were thrilled to have them stop by our school on their Alberta tour. The goal of their visit was to educate our young people about sustainable energy practices.
Students and teachers received a 20 minute presentation and then students had the opportunity to go outside and see the car up close and ask any questions of their team.
We would also like to express our thanks to all the wonderful moms out there who do an awesome job in helping their children be ready to learn at school. We hope that all the moms had a wonderful mother’s day. Kindergarten can not wait to spoil their moms at the kindergarten mother’s day tea on Friday, May 13.