Please welcome our youngest writers in the school! Ages 4 and 5, our Pre-K & K class, with the help of their teacher, Ms. Meghan, has written their first blog post! Hint: Our classes pick their own class names for the year. This year, the youngest and smallest decided to pick Pygmy Shrew as their class animal! Other classes are the Coyotes, Bobcats and Moose. Common language for Via Vita, but we realize the rest of the world has no idea what we're talking about! Enjoy the read, straight from the mouths of our youngest, and especially inquisitive, students! One day the Pygmy Shrews went to school. We wake up at home and we get dressed in Via Vita Clothes. Then we eat breakfast so we don’t get hungry. We get in our car and go to Via Vita. We get our jacket and boots off, then get your lunch box and bring it into the gym. Then you play in the gym with toys and friends and with imagination. After a little while we clean up then go upstairs for Morning Meeting. We sit quietly with everyone in the school and put your hand up if you have to say something. We have a morning talk and we talk about suff that’s going on and what is happening. We then read the quote and its about hard stuff and its about anything, important things, so we can learn. Then we sing O’ Canada and start the day.
We read books, like Annie and Jack’s story, and we go on Epic! to read whatever we want. We can’t go on other peoples things, but we can watch other peoples books. We like books about kitties, big foot, and dogs, and sharks! We draw pictures about what we read and then we sit in a circle and tell about what we drew. Before we leave the room we have to do our sight words. We wash our hands and we sit with any of our friends in the whole school, like the big kids. We play outside in the snow, hide and seek, sledding, and throwing snowballs at everyone but we don’t hurt them, we throw it at their legs. We go inside and the big kids help us hang our coats and snow pants up and we line out boots up against the wall. With our teacher we do our weather, the things of the day like the calendar and numbers. Then we draw a picture and write of anything that we like! In the kitchen, we get dishes out, we stir up the food to make it mixed all together. We can cut stuff too but we use these round things to cut, knifes are sharp, be careful! We put some stuff in the oven, or it goes in the heater on top. The food is yummy and tasty. It can be sour, yummy sometimes. We make cakes for birthdays for everyone, and sing with candles and it’s happy! We learn about the world so we know what’s around and so when we go somewhere, we know stuff like how stuff is made. Gym can be Taekwon-do where we kick and punch, but not at people. It can be outside at the playground to play. We do Yoga adventures. Sometimes it is with the big kids, and sometimes the big kids show us how to do stuff they can do. We like to play with them because they help us and they are fun. The other teachers come and teach us, too! Ms. Adele does music and we sing, dance, play games like pretend, and we practice what we’re going to do for the next show. Ms. Yolanda does art like painting and colouring and cutting. Ms. Alicia does French and we say Bonjour, and Merci. We do french songs. She also does patterns and math. At the end of the day we do Chores. Like clean the kitchen, sweeping the floors, vacuuming upstairs and downstairs, wipe the walls, clean the stairs, clean the sinks, flush the toilets, and wipe down tables. The yuckiest job is compost because its smelly and yucky. The best job is vacuuming, toilets, wiping the whiteboards. Those are easy peasy! Then we go home, but sometimes we don’t want to. We want to stay at Via Vita. It’s fun!
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It has been one year since we announced the opening of Via Vita Academy.
Wow. A lot can happen in one year! We've grown from merely 2 owners spreading the news of a new school coming to Lower Sackville, to a supportive and powerful group of people we now call the Via Vita Family, 23 students strong. From information sessions, business networking, to work parties, and open houses. And, with our most recent family Turkey Dinner & Concert ,we have defintely brought our dream to real life. We look back at a year of many firsts, and many new beginnings. Of new friendships, new learning, new opporunities, and new faces. We are so grateful for the support Via Vita continues to receive from families and friends. Also, to our Via Vita family for the many memories we were able to create this past year. Here's to a fabulous 2016! See you in the new year! Teachers are on the front line of education. They live and breathe it everyday. They see what is happening, and they see what is not happening. So, when things need to change, who, logically, should be ones who have a say?
Teachers, right? New curriculum roll outs, policy changes, new and newer initiatives, standardized testing, priority schooling, specialists overseeing teachers, unbalanced class sizes, decreasing student supports, meetings, evaluations, reports, assessments, data, data, and more data… The list goes on. The thing is, for years, in Nova Scotia, teachers have not been asked. Changes are made, things keep piling on, but not by teachers, not by the ones who are teaching… in classrooms… today. We look at the above list of things coming down the pipes for teachers today and we’re left, scratching our heads, wondering - when do teachers get to actually get to do what they so truly love and prepared for - when do teachers actually get to teach? When are they given the time to get to know what each child needs? When do they have the opportunity to talk with each of their students, every day? When do they have time to pull together ideas, activities, and resources to better support each of their students? When are they supported in their judgment on how to best support the children in their class? When was it acknowledged that teachers, good teachers, were leaving the school systems behind to pursue other endeavors due to lack of support, resources, and freedom to teach in the way that best suits their students? When was it documented that each child is different, and therefore learns differently, so therefore, we need to support the teacher who is reaching each of those children in a different way? What about that each community holds a vast diversity of learners, with varying support networks of their own and that that should be taken into account when attempting to blanket assess students today, or rather, when administering standardized testing across the province? When were teachers recognized for being the ones who know, who really know, what their students need – be it extra one-on-one support, a breakfast, a moment to take a breath, a smile, or someone to listen? When was the last time a teacher was asked, in their professional opinion, because they are professionals who received specific post secondary and often post graduate education in their field, and they live and breathe the education system everyday – when were they asked how the education system could better prepare students for the world they are growing up in today? With the current conditions, teachers are working to make things work, but they’re hearts are breaking because they know many students are not getting what they need. They’re doing what they can with what they have, but there is so much standing in their way: piles of work unrelated to actually teaching the children sitting in front of them and funds that seem to be missing the connection to what these students actually need to prepare for a future so vast and ever-changing. Teachers need a voice. They need the help to make things change. We hear you, teachers of Nova Scotia, and we are proud to see more teachers taking a stand and making changes for the sake of our students and their future – our future. Our friends, our colleagues, our fellow professionals are making history by standing up for their students in the only way they can – the only way in which everyone will hear them all at once, finally. They’re saying it’s time for a change, and we couldn’t agree with them more. Meghan and I, owners and teachers at Via Vita Academy, are teachers, too, who, not that long ago, chose to take a different path in the field of education for the very reasons many teachers are standing up today. We believe there is a better way to teach, to educate, to inspire, and to make a positive change in our world. We opened a school in hopes to make a stand for that needed change in education in Nova Scotia. Education matters. Let teachers teach and stand up for our children. Let teachers do what they so truly love to do, inspiring students to succeed and making a better future for us all. |
Welcome to Our BlogEach post is written by a supportive member of Via Vita Academy, be it a teacher, parent, student, community member, who is invested in the topic of education. Take a read and comment below! Archives
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