Maple Leaf Sports Day

Early in the school year I found out that Sports Day would be one of the most important events of the year for me. Many students recounted how it was a highlight for them and that they looked forward to it this year. One even demanded that it become a full day event held off site at a "proper" sports facility. I learned that it had traditionally been a half day event for secondary students that was held at the school.

At the end of January, following a PTA meeting, I learned that since it was the 20th Anniversary, the PTA would like the Sports day to include the entire school AND to be a full day of events AND to be held off-site.  Wow -- This was about to take on a whole new life of it's own. (and take over most of my time!)

As I began to work with the committee, I discovered that a whole school day had never been done! In fact, we were breaking new ground in a lot of ways - new venue, adding the middle school students, a whole day for secondary... I also decided that it was time to shake things up even more by changing the structure of the day to achieve to goals -- i. get everyone moving more; and ii. give the senior students an opportunity to practice leading.

As it turns out, these two goals were much bigger that I anticipated.  Tradition at Maple Leaf (and in most other schools here) is that the Sport Day events are a mix of "church picnic" style things (sack races) and athletics (50 m dash).  A few students from each grade and house are selected to compete in each event. So a student might compete in two or three events over the course of the day. Medals and house points were awarded at the end of the day. My idea of changing to a day of events where everyone participated (students would rotate from event to event) and secondary students lead (organized and lead events, as well as leading teams of little ones) was met with skepticism by some on the organizing committee. It was surprisingly easy to achieve consensus that we could move away from awarding medals. In addition, I set my sites a little higher and contacted a local company that organizes kids adventure races to see if they could provide some events. They suggested a few things and were really keen on an obstacle course!

The culmination of all this change and planning was March 27th. A day like never before at Maple Leaf!  Over 40 students were given leadership positions -- supported by an unbelievably caring staff! Over the course of the day we had 16 events for students, 5 whole house events, a series of tugs of war, a water slide, a bouncy castle, football games and most importantly, a ton of FUN.

The pictures and smiles speak in a way that is much better than my story telling!
You can see lots more pictures by clicking here!

Special Guest Blogger -- Krista Gordon

I’ll begin with a BIG thank-you to Paul and Gayle for hosting not one, not two, but five houseguests over the Ontario March Break! Not only did Paul and Gayle welcome all of us into their Trini home, they also made sure we captured as many Trinidad experiences as we could in our short time visiting this beautiful country. From hashing, doubles, bake and shark, caves, swamps, hiking, KFC and even some liming, we jammed as much as possible into the trip!

A reoccurring theme of this adventure was that “life begins on the edge of your comfort zone!” Being the incredible teachers that they are, Paul and Gayle provided ample opportunities for all of us travellers to venture into unfamiliar territory at some point along the trip. Whether it was jumping off high rocks into deep cave pools, starting out in a mob of runners crossing a creek in a hash, completing a six-hour trek down a river in the rainforest or driving the roads of Trinidad, we all got a chance to experience an adventure outside of our comfort zones!!

Highlights of the week included catching waves at Maracas Beach, trying bake and shark, swimming in the caves, watching a four-eyed fish in the Caroni Swamp, seeing the biodiversity of the hills and forests, operating a car on the right side of the vehicle (windshield wipers do not work so great for indicating a turn!), driving the narrow, winding roads of Trinidad, and meeting new friends to share fun conversation and laughter with over dinner at Paul and Gayle’s apartment!

Thanks again Paul and Gayle for sharing your Trini experiences with us, and hosting us for an amazing adventure in Trinidad!

BAT-tastic

Growing up in a century farm house meant that usually every year we'd have a "bat incident". A bat would somehow enter the kitchen, we'd all scream and run around frantically, and then a badminton racket would appear much to the demise of the harmless bat. Combine those scarring memories and the fact that in French bats are called chauve-souris (bald mouse), I was pretty excited about a hike to the Tamana bat caves, housing the second largest colony of bats in the world.

Ok, to be honest, I WAS excited to trek out to the caves. Bats are such fascinating creatures, and our hike yesterday proved it.

The caves are located in the central region of Trinidad, about a 2 hour drive from our place, given stop and go traffic, narrow windy roads, with pot-holes the size of small craters. With Emile (our guide) and 12 hikers,we eventually reached the trailhead at 4:30 pm. A short uphill climb brought us to the cave exit, which at 5 pm was quiet and unassuming. Emile agreed to a quick climb down into the cave, which was nothing like we'd ever experienced before. The cave entrance was large, and what we considered to be bat filled. Well, how wrong were we.

Emile pointed to a small hole, and when I say small, I mean small, and said, "Ok, that's where we crawl through to get into the cave." Pardon? Paul led the way, slithering through this very tight tunnel passage. When he called out to Emile, "Are you sure about this?", confidence was not high on the meter. Somehow all 12 of us mustered the confidence to crawl through the tunnel, landing in a smelly, dark, humid and bat infested cavern. IT WAS SUPER COOL!


The Tamana caves are home to 1.5 million bats consisting of 12 different species. After exploring one of the small caverns, we re-surfaced to the cave exit. As it was dusk, the bats were exiting for their nightly feeding ritual. We stood directly in the path of thousands of bats, and let me tell you it was surreal. It didn't even look real. Bats flew directly at us, and then in the last millisecond, they'd swoop up, left or right to avoid us. The pictures don't do it justice, but if you ever get the chance to do something like this, do it. You'll gain a new appreciation for bats.

There are morepictures in the gallery!

Adventures in Teaching Math (Part 2)

I told you that there would probably be more stories from math class. This won't be the last.

For the last little while we've been studying Trigonometry. Honestly, the students are doing very well with the idea of angles and side lengths. We took extra time to make sure that everyone understood the big idea that Sine, Cosine and Tangent were RATIOS and they were able to make connections with our work on proportions (affectionately known as the "P-word") from the first unit. We did a quiz and it seemed that most of them were getting it.

As it turns out, "application" of these concepts was going to be a challenge. After making clinometers out of protractors and drinking straws, we went for a walk to look at ways we could use our trigonometry knowledge. We identified the peak of the roof of the school and I asked them measure the angle and distance. Upon returning to class, we did not have time to complete the problem so I put it off until the next day.

At the beginning of the next class I decided that we'd start the day where we had left off so I put this problem on the board:

Darla is standing 15 m from the base of a building and using a clinometer she measures the angle of elevation to be 37°. If her eyes are 1.65 m above ground level, find the height of the building.

Puzzled looks and some anxious comments followed: "I hate word problems", "You never taught us this", "What's a clinometer"...

I quickly surmised that our trip outside on the previous day was not as "sticky" as I had thought. I needed to ease the tension and provide some sort of success -- quickly -- so I said, "Why don't you try to draw a picture?...Imagine the scene and try to sketch it."

Two girls immediately pulled out their coloured markers and started making a full page drawing of Darla -- eye lashes, coiffed hair, nails, the works. Ooops. I didn't expect that!

I don't think I reacted very well when I saw that NO ONE DREW A TRIANGLE!!!  Dammit, we'd been studying triangles for two weeks, and I didn't see this coming at all. I am sure I sounded slightly exasperated when I said, "Can somebody please draw a triangle?"

It is amazing the number of ways we learn what our students need and how we respond. We've been setting up ladders, measuring flag poles, ramps, drawing pictures and solving problems for a week. 

Yet, on Friday, one of the students who'd missed 3 days drew the picture below. The edventure continues....