Remembrance Day, Poppies at the Tower of London, England

More BBC pictures of ceramic artist Paul Cummins' work

BBC Video of the Tower of London Poppies

Source

Poppies at The Tower of London, entitled "Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red."  The work's title is taken from the first line of a poem by an unknown World War I soldier, which begins: The blood swept lands and seas of red, / Where angels dare to tread / (Source)

How the poppies were made

The poem that inspired the title for Paul Cummins' work:

Written by an unknown soldier poet it reads:

“The blood swept lands and seas of red,

Where angels dare to tread.

As God cried a tear of pain as the angels fell,

Again and again.

As the tears of mine fell to the ground

To sleep with the flowers of red

As any be dead

My children see and work through fields of my

Own with corn and wheat,

Blessed by love so far from pain of my resting

Fields so far from my love.

It be time to put my hand up and end this pain

Of living hell. to see the people around me

Fall someone angel as the mist falls around

And the rain so thick with black thunder I hear

Over the clouds, to sleep forever and kiss

The flower of my people gone before time

To sleep and cry no more

I put my hand up and see the land of red,

This is my time to go over,

I may not come back

So sleep, kiss the boys for me”

Remembrance Day, 2014

Source: www.amlegionauxwi.org

I'm still adjusting to a k-5 age group and found many of my Diigo bookmarked Remembrance Day online resources too scary and possibly troubling for our young audience.  The heartwarming "Halifax Seaport Farmers' Market Flash Mob" (4:42) below, however, is a great spring board for discussion.

 For more resources try Veteran's Affairs Canada video gallery

Here are eleven stories by Canadian Aboriginals from The Memory Project

Murray Mackenzie "Chief" Whetung

Teacher Michael McKay, Eaglesham, Northern Alberta, gets students to experience trench building and then sleeping in their dirt hole over night.  The below clip is from 2009, but McKay and his school are on their eighth year of this experiential learning Nov., 2014.

Dewey Decimal Rap by Scooter Hayes, and "Gotta Keep Reading" by Ocoee Middle School

Bastion students have been loving these two songs about loving to read and learning and about the Dewey Decimal System (created by Melvil Dewey).  I will list the Youtube clips below, so you can play it over and over (!) without the side bars coming up.  Sometimes the clips run an ad that you can skip after 3-5 seconds.  As this post gets "older" search for the song names above in the blogger search window to get to them easily in this blog.  

Scooter Hayes' Dewey Decimal Rap

Ocoee Middle School, "Gotta Keep Reading"

Happy learning to all, Ms. Murrells-Allaway

Amazing Successes for our Bastion Learning Commons (AKA Library)

Congratulations Bastion!  We made over $2100 at the Festival du livre and thus we were able to save $850 towards our $1200 purchase of great French books.  A reminder that the English Book Fair is the first week of December. Thank you to parents Ravonne Foulger, Tanja Hamilton, Mae Dodge and son Isaac for their amazing help.  We will need more volunteers for the next Book Fair, so please contact me, teacher-librarian Shannon Murrells-Allaway if you can assist.

Family Library Day is up and running every Wed. after school til 2:45pm.  Thank you Theda Gyimesi for continuing this great tradition.  Families can sign out up to five extra books, read with their children, and continue to build our reading culture.

"200 Nights of Reading" started Oct 28th thank you to the amazing help of parent Ravonne Foulger.  Her design adjustment and photocopy hours are much appreciated.  Drop off completed sheets to the "200 Nights of Reading" drop box in the learning commons.  We will celebrate the first 100 nights with book marks, and 200 nights with a new book choice for your household!

Warm wishes and happy reading to all, Shannon Murrells-Allaway

“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more you learn, the more places you’ll go.”— Dr. Seuss, “I Can Read With My Eyes Shut!”

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Mme Jesse's Class is Studying Sunflowers/Tournesols

Tournesol/sunflower seed germination (0:35):

A teacher's potted tournesol/sunflower growth and bloom (0:44):

The tournesol/sunflower head blooming (1:06):

 

Roderick Haig-Brown Salmon Run Field Trips Begin ...

Oct 7th, a few classes head west to the Roderick Haig-Brown Park to view the salmon run - a "dominant year."

" Every fourth year is a “dominant” salmon run, with millions of fish to be seen (2014 and 2018 will be dominant runs). The Adams River Salmon Society coordinate the celebration known as the “Salute to the Sockeye” during the dominant years. The following years are “sub-dominant” runs of sockeye: 2015, 2019. These years often have substantial returns of sockeye and offer excellent viewing opportunities. During the last three weeks of October in years where there isn’t a “dominant” or “sub-dominant” return, a small number of salmon begin their spawning cycle. The best place to view spawning salmon will be on the new viewing platform  approximatley 300m west of the the parking lot."  Roderick Haig-Brown Provincial Park 

Video footage by impressed tourists:

And get more great information from the Adams River Salmon Society

A salmon Haiku for you - as poetry simply makes a day richer!

Source: http://www.fauntleroywatershed.org/education/lessonplans/salmon_activities_haiku.pdf

I've Sadly Left My Learning Family at Parkview and Silver Creek ...

Dearest Parkview & Silver Creek students & parents:

I was fortunate to obtain a 3 day per week teacher-librarian job at Bastion Elementary in Salmon Arm, which is 10 mins from my home.  I haven't been able to make this post to say my goodbyes until tonight.  Thus, it is with very mixed feelings that I say goodbye to you all.  Nevertheless, keep in touch with me and continue to contribute to our reading & learning culture through this blog, email, and twitter. And of course, if our paths cross, let's take a moment to say hello and catch up.

I soooo enjoyed my learning journey with you.  Thank you for the risks you took with me in exercising our brain and having fun in a usually quiet library!  We've already begun dancing to Ocoee Middle School's "Gotta Keep Reading" and soon to come will be the "Dewey Rap."

You are in fine hands with Ms. Reed at Parkview, and I believe Ms Killy at Silver Creek.

Dear parents I invite you to keep updated on educational trends, issues, changes, reductions, and successes.  Our district is still in a declining enrollment situation and thus lower funding still plagues us, and yet costs continue to increase.  In order to protect the classroom as much as possible, the trustees had to make very difficult reductions in various areas last year.  Most of our elementary libraries were reduced by 43%.  Three if not four schools in our district have their libraries OPEN JUST TWO DAYS PER MONTH!  Other cost saving measures included reduced school supplies budgets, reduced principal/vice principal time, reduced secondary teachers, learning resource teachers, and education assistance, school clerical and lunch hour supervisors were reduced as well as speech and language pathologists, and the deaf/hard of hearing.  The Family  Life teaching position was eliminated, and counselling reduced.  And sadly the list still goes on.

Next year our district is projected for more cuts.

We has a culture and societal group need to pause and do some deep thinking about "public" education. What do we want to change?  What do we want to get rid off and what do we want to keep?  We then have to demand from our politicians funding to support that vision.  Together we can make a difference.  Wishing you all the very best in life, Ms. Shannon Murrells-Allaway.