STETTLER ELEMENTARY SCHOOL -- With the music festival ending, and the students all having had an opportunity to showcase their work at the Dinner Theatres held on Tuesday and Wednesday, the Stettler Elementary Choral Speech Club held their wind up on Friday, April 29. The school choir is continuing to meet and to practice as they have another performance scheduled for May 9 at the Legion.
Along with all of the extra-curricular activities, our students have also been actively participating in their curricular work as well. Most of our classes have participated in some project-based learning (PBL) work, throughout the year, and this last week saw many grades participating in culminating activities. The Kindergarten classes recently completed their PBL unit on trains. With that, they were very excited to go for a tour of the Alberta Prairie Steam train. As well, over the past several weeks, students have been bringing in recyclable items from home, and with those items they designed their own trains. They recorded their ideas on paper and then using their blueprints, they created trains. They learned about the various types of train cars and what trains can be used for—passengers or cargo, so it only seemed logical to put their new found knowledge into practice.
Our Grade 1 classes walked to the town office on Friday, April 29, to launch their latest PBL project. These students are learning about how the town creates plans and what new facilities are needed to sustain the town. After obtaining this information from Mayor Dick Richards along with the expertise of Leann Graham (director of planning and development) and Melissa Robbins (director of operational services), these young students returned to the school, ready to plan their own towns. These tiny towns will be on display at the school's Leadership Day on May 18, and I am confident that the town councillors will be looking to contact our students for ideas on how to implement some of these in Stettler. Our students were truly privileged to take part in this tour and to gather information from such amazing town staff members, and we are all proud to be apart of a town that employs talent such as that seen by our students on Friday.
Grade 4 students are working with PBL in their classes as well. 4BL has recently completed their Titanic project. The students researched and learned many facts about the Titanic, its passengers and crew, how it sank in April of 1912, and the discovery of the shipwreck in 1985. The class then used their math skills to solve Titanic word problems, construct timelines, and tell time using analog clocks. The students also read novels and non-fiction books based on the voyage, and they worked on a variety of writing projects including writing mini-newspaper articles about the launch and the sinking of the vessel, as well as creating a personal journal about a fictional character that could have been on the Titanic on the night it sank. The class enjoyed sharing the information they learned and reading their writing projects to friends. These Grade 4 students have also been busy studying "Wheels and Levers" in science, and recently all of the students brought in their own "Drink Can Dragster" to race. Students spent quite a bit of time experimenting with different design options and accessories, trying to improve the distance that their "dragster" would roll when they eventually raced them in the gym. Congratulations to all racers for solving the many different problems they encountered along the way!
Our Grade 6 students are once again keeping busy and staying actively involved in the environment and in wellness initiatives. They are excited to be taking part in the David Suzuki Foundation's 30X30 Nature Challenge this year. Over the last decade, researchers have documented what most of us know intuitively: Nature is good for our health and well-being. During the month of May, 6EP will be joining people from across Canada and around the world in spending 30 minutes in nature every day for 30 days. If you, as a parent or community member, are interested in signing up, please go to http://30x30.davidsuzuki.org/ and join the challenge. After all, nature is calling.