Please welcome another wonderful post by our Master Gardener Colleen Alexandra. She has been a great help in starting Via Vita Academy's garden and establishing a love for the outdoors for our students. Enjoy the read! It was late August and while many of us were thinking about harvesting and putting our gardens to bed for the winter, Via Vita Academy was in garden start-up mode.
I enjoyed the wonderful meal and the opportunity to meet the families and students who came out to participate in preparing for a new school garden. Bellies full, we headed out to the garden area. Our task list included staking out and leveling areas for new raised beds, identifying an area for a grassy play area and general weeding and tidying. Enthusiastic helpers picked up tools and got to work without prompting! It was a pleasure to watch how each child approached the work. Some stayed close to mom while others ventured off independently to learn how a landscapers measuring reel worked or to pound in wooden stakes. Older students explored nature with younger ones while others found the blackberry patch and spent some time berry picking and feasting. It was a happy mix of work and play! With the school year now in full swing, the garden will become an integral part of the curriculum at Via Vita Academy. Already, students are planting, watering, composting, and maintaining the garden - experiencing hands-on learning that will stay with them for years to come.
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Please join us in welcoming Alicia DeBaie, our newest teacher and, now, whether she likes it or not, occasional blogger! She is passionate about good education, serious about loving your job and the life you lead. We are a lucky bunch of teachers and families to have such a great individual on board. Enjoy this delightful read, and get to know Alicia a little bit more! An amazing looking loaf of bread made by Ms. Alicia Debaie, Teacher Via Vita Academy I like to bake my own bread.
It’s kind of becoming part of my identity; I’m the girl that makes homemade bread. I get it, it’s not something that a lot of people do anymore. But to me there is just something so satisfying about turning those simple ingredients: flour, yeast, salt, sugar and water, into something as amazing as bread! But making bread is a process, it takes skill, effort, and time. It’s a lot like teaching. Teaching is also a process that takes skill, effort and time. Skill. You might not realize it but baking bread takes skill, knowing what you can change about a recipe and what you can’t is a tricky thing. Some ingredients just have to be there, like flour, yeast and sugar. Just like in a classroom, some subjects just have to be there, like reading, writing and math. But who said you have to use plain old white flour when there are so many options! Here is where the skill comes in, how do you choose? Whole wheat, oat, rye, spelt, the list goes on and on, but will they all work? Can they be combined in different ratios? Are some better than others for particular types of bread? Knowing which flours to use and how to combine them is a skill learned through trial and error. The same goes for the sugar. You could add regular white sugar or you could use maple syrup, honey, molasses or agave. Then there are all the other things you can add! Grains, seeds and nuts – oh the possibilities! The mixing bowl is just like a classroom; textbooks aren’t the only way to teach math. Instead let’s build, measure, draw, model, and discuss! And who said we always have to read those books based on reading levels, there are so many things to read! We can read poetry, short stories, comics, graphic novels, newspapers, magazines, novels, and maybe even a blog or two! But just like with the bread, it takes skill to mix all of these things into the classroom, skills developed through taking chances and trying new things. Effort. Not always, but most of the time you have to put in the effort and knead the bread. There are those no-knead recipes out there and they are pretty great, but with some breads you just have get in there and get your hands dirty. Kneading dough is work, but it is work that I enjoy because you can see and feel the dough change as you work with it. The classroom is the same, sometimes the graphic novels and pattern blocks just mix right in, but often it takes some effort and you have the knead them in. Gathering all those resources and ideas, organizing them in a way that makes sense for kids to learn with them and from them takes effort and planning. So it is work, but again it is work that I enjoy because I get to see that look on a kids face when they figure it out on their own, when they put in the effort. I get to see the satisfaction they feel when they did it all by themselves, and I see the pride they feel when they truly understand because they created their own meaning in the lesson. Time. That loaf of bread needs time to rise. Time to just sit undisturbed and let that yeast work its magic. I need time too, time to clean up, making bread can get messy. As a teacher I also need time, time to reflect. After a lesson, a unit, or even a whole school year I need to reflect. What worked, what didn’t? What did I love, what wasn’t so fun? What do I want to scrap all together? What needs to be tweaked a little bit to hopefully make it work just a bit better for next year? Kids need time too. Time to absorb, digest, and reflect on what they have learned or maybe didn’t learn. Time is a great thing. As the bread spends its time rising the flavours and texture improve. As I spend my time reflecting I become a better teacher. When kids spend time thinking about what and how they learn they come up with new questions and ideas. Maybe tomorrow those questions and ideas will guide our lessons and lead us to some new and exciting learning. There is no such thing as a perfect loaf of bread. Each one is unique, bursting with it’s own successes and potentials. Potentials that spin off into new ideas, recipes, inquiries, and experiences. Just like savouring and learning from each loaf that comes out of the oven, I truly value the moments that build my experience as a teacher. Each student, every moment teaching and learning, every ounce of effort, skill and time, are the ingredients to the most meaningful career I could have chosen, and am lucky that I did. Dear Students of 2016-17, It's almost here.... The first day of school! We hope you are enjoying your summer and that you come filled with stories to share on that first day. We too, have been making memories. Memories, yes, with our families out in the sun just like you, but also memories of a different kind. Memories of making a dream come true. This school you'll be attending in just a few short weeks really started as a dream. You may not realize the pieces of passion, energy, dedication, and excitement that went into making your school happen, but we sure do and we can't wait to see you flourish in it. To see you grow, learn, and smile. To see our dream of school become a reality. This school has been a long time coming and you, YOU, get to be in it's first group of students. That's a pretty special role. You are the students who set the groundwork for everyone else who walks our halls, who runs in our gym, who creates in our classrooms, who performs on our stage, and who explores our backyard. You are the students who will be apart of something wonderful. Something we, your teachers, will never forget. You are part of a very big memory, whether you've realized it or not. We are pretty excited for this particular year to begin! We've been busy this summer, getting everything ready for you. Making sure we have all the tools needed to make our days together fun, creative, and interesting. You might do things here a little differently than you're used to. You might not even know what to expect! You might even be a little nervous about making new friends, learning in a new building, or having a new teacher. Just remember - we are all feeling those feelings, the good ones and the bad ones. We are all a little nervous and excited at the same time. We're excited for you, for this year, for this school! We are all apart of this - together. And together, we will make this an unforgettably amazing school year. You may notice this week, or next, that you'll have received a letter in the mail from your school. That mail is yours! It has YOUR name on it. Go on, open it up! We were pretty excited to be writing your name on that envelope. We get to have YOU in our class and that's something to celebrate! Inside your letter, you'll find out some pretty cool things about your teacher. We just couldn't wait till the first day of school to introduce ourselves. There was so much we wanted to say! We told you some things we thought you might like to know, some silly and some serious. We even included a little part for you to do, too. But, wait! We have more! We still wanted to tell you more but just couldn't fit it in the letter. There's so much we want you to know! As we get back to cleaning up your classrooms, painting and putting fun posters on the walls (and weeding the garden, too!) we'll leave you with just a few more things we think you ought to know before we meet in September. No matter who's class you are in, no matter what grade or age or ability or interest, we really think these things are important. We try to live by them everyday. Together, we'll show you how exciting learning can be when you live by them, too! See you soon! Sincerely, Your teachers for 2016-17 Ms. Adele, Ms. Alicia & Ms. Meghan 10 MORE Things we want our Students to Know:
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