STETTLER ELEMENTARY SCHOOL -- On Friday, Feb. 19, we held our monthly assembly and spent some of that time reflecting on the many things that we have had to celebrate over the previous month. As well, our "Leader's of the Week" for the month of February were awarded certificates and invited to eat lunch with the principal. That is a highlight of each month for me. Our assemblies are usually held on the third school Friday of the month, and parents and community members are always invited to join us. At this assembly Mrs. Bromley's Grade 6 music class took the lead on introducing the school to a new "Leader in Me" song and entertained us not only with the song, but also their ability to play the cups in time with the "Cup Song" tune for this new school song. We also had our kindergarten classes take the lead by sharing a PowerPoint presentation that they had put together, so we were able to watch some of them share stories about "How They are Leaders in the School". It was very cute, but also incredibly insightful. The kindergarten students then shared with us a "Get Active" dance and we all danced the "Syd Shuffle". Syd from Ice Age, did a fabulous job leading us from our video wall, but all staff and students looked pretty talented on the "dance floor" during this stretch break.
We also tried something new at this assembly and began the assembly with the singing of "Oh Canada". Jordan Klaus from Mrs. Lang's Grade 1 class led the singing and then the entire school joined in about halfway through the song. It was a beautiful rendition of our national anthem and really quite touching.
Also worth celebrating, is the way our students work together and help each other out. A couple of formal examples of this is the lunch monitoring program and our babysitting class. In our youngest grades, we have two Grade 5 or 6 leaders monitoring in each classroom, while the students eat, and at least one of these students have completed the babysitting course offered to grade 6 students. Our babysitting class also spends a class period/week helping out in the kindergarten classes. It is very cute, but also beneficial to students at both end of our grade continuum.
Last week was a rather short week for our students as Monday was Family Day and Tuesday was a professional development day for the staff at the school. Our grade 1 team of teachers had an additional day of professional development when they all worked together to create a Project Based Learning plan for all of the Grade 1 students. It will be exciting to see all of that work come to fruition.
After several weeks of basketball practicing, our Grade 5 and 6 students (along with their coaches, of course) invited teams from Three Hills and Donalda to play in a Mini Kings' Court type of basketball tournament on Monday, Febr. 22. Everyone showed great sportsmanship and had a fantastic time and one of the highlights of the "tournament" was having professional basketball player, Leighann Doan-Reimer, show up and take part in the event. This week we are excited about having everyone in our school wear pink on Wednesday, Feb. 24. We are looking forward to showing support for this anti-bullying campaign, and will do our part by wearing pink on that day.