Ski Day and Break

Students enjoyed a beautiful sunny day on the slopes of Kinosoo Ridge on February 13th. Thankfully there were no broken limbs to report. Our thanks go out to Val from the hill and Ms. Johnstone who did a great job of organizing the trip. We also thank our many parent volunteers who stayed the day and were either outside skiing with us or inside keeping the chalet chaos to a minimum. The end of ski day marked the beginning of a week-long break for students.

As students relaxed away from school, teachers took on the role of students at convention in Lloydminster Thursday and Friday. Topics covered on Thursday included assessment, student motivation and charting results as Dr. Lee Jenkins spoke to NWSD teachers about his concept of "L to J". Some of the breakout sessions on Friday included parental engagement, leadership, professionalism, handwriting and struggling readers. This year's math initiative was supported by some of the breakout sessions including Math Wikis which was of particular interest to some of our elementary teachers. Perhaps they'll be sharing their great ideas soon.

New Blog Host

Edublogs, our current blog host, was a free blog host designed for educational institutions. It was ad-free when we first subscribed. Since subscribing, it has twice now implemented advertising over which we have no control. The ContentLink ads appear in blog posts as double-underlined words which result in pop-up ads. If you currently subscribe to this blog, you will no longer receive emails from it. Eventually this blog will be removed.
In order to maintain our site as ad-free, we are forced to change hosts. We have setup this free, and so far ad-free, account with Blogger which is Google's free blog. We have also moved the blog to the homepage of our site to be more accessible and user-friendly. Blogger also has a few more features that we hope you will enjoy.

Blue Moon Learning Part 2

Ms. Amundrud was back on Friday to implement some of her ideas into the Grade 4 classroom. For the most part, students seemed to be willing to try the activities. One corner of the room was transformed into a quiet space complete with plants, rock fountain and cushions.

Blue Moon Learning

Thursday evening, Amanda Amundrud of Blue Moon Learning spoke to a group at Pierceland School on her methodology of classroom learning environments. The audience consisted of intrigued parents, community members, SCC members, PCS staff, administration and staff from Goodsoil School too. Ms. Amundrud spoke of helping children finding peace and calm in body and mind. She referred to a new generation of children (the Indigo children) that are sensitive and fragile yet highly talented and gifted. Ms. Amundrud encouraged the use of various techniques to help children feel safe and loved in their school. These techniques included "belly" breathing, tapping the head and chest, partner massage as well as a combination of Tai Chi, yoga and meditation. In addition to these techniques, she encourages developing a calm and relaxing classroom atmosphere. This, according to Ms. Amundrud, includes the sound of running water, salt rock crystals, plants and aromatherapy. On Friday, she will work with Mrs. Kaczmar in the Grade 4 classroom creating such an environment. The evening wrapped up with participants attempting various yoga and Tai Chi moves and closing with a didgeridoo meditation. For more information on Amanda Amundrud and Blue Moon Learning, please visit http://www.bluemoonlearning.net/.