Raising butterflies is an amazing experience for children to witness the wonder of metamorphosis firsthand in their own classrooms.  Many of our classrooms hosted these butterflies this year!  When the butterflies arrived in the classrooms, they were a few days old.  The children tended to them and watched them grow over the course of a few weeks, as they moved from chrysalis to butterflies.  After observing and learning about the butterflies over the course of a week,the children released the butterflies in our garden and watched them flutter off. This is most certainly a learning experience not to be forgotten.   

Today we held our monthly school gathering in the auditorium.  Our gatherings are a time to come together to celebrate and share learning that has taken place throughout the month.  There are times we host guest presenters and today was no exception. 

Today, Kirsten Fox, neice of Terry Fox, came in to recognize the spirit of giving that our Strathcona students possess.  Since 1987, Strathcona students have continued Terry’s run and have collected donations to support Terry’s wish of raising awareness and money to support cancer research.  In those 25 years, our Strathcona students have raised over $105,000! 

It was with great pride that we accepted the 5 banners representing our students’ spirit of giving, commitment and leadership.  Way to go Strathcona!

Every school celebrates its own form of sports day and the children very longingly look forward to the day.  May is marked for the occasion, as at this time, the weather is cooperative for most parts.  This year was no exception, the rains held out until lunch was served!

Weeks before the sports day. the staff are planning the races, putting the teams together and the children begin to practice by revisiting all of their old favourite races!  There is a great deal of tradition at Strathcona and some of the races are ones that have been around for years!  On Friday, the classes all gathered either in MacLean Park or the auditorium to start the day off with enthusiastic cheers to begin the rest of the day’s events.

The smiles throughout the day spoke volumes.  Everyone enjoyed the day, cheered each other on, and did their very best.  Huge thanks goes out to our staff Sports Day planners who brought this all together into one fun-filled day!

An update from Kandyss and Camilla

It’s been 23 days and now and  Rainy’s gone!!  Rainy was the only chick that survived and sadly the rest didn’t hatch. He was was with us for 3 days as a baby chick. Now his owner came to pick him up , because he didn’t have anymore food left. So now our class is quiet , we’ll miss you Rainy!!

Thank you to Kandyss for this most recent update.

It’s been 21 days since the chickens have been in our classroom.  So far only one has hatched. Its name is Rainy, because it was born during the thunder storm yesterday, May 12th 2013.

The chick had a hard time getting out of its egg , but it got out anyways. The class thought it was pretty cool that the baby chick (Rainy) was born during a thunder storm. 🙂

Hi there everyone, our names are Ethan and Jadon from div.2.  Not only are we growing salmon but now we have a new addition. We are here to update you people on what’s happening within our chicken eggs. In Ms.Persoon’s class we recently received five chicken eggs. Right now they are in  a warzone called “the egg” where they are 12 days away from hatching into the dangerous jouney of the world. Meanwhile the salmon [fry stage]  are ready to be realeased on Friday May 3rd, 2013 in Beaver Creek, Stanley Park. It will be the journey of their lives, hopefuly they will survive 10 minutes.  If they get caught, they will probaly turn into a “fried” salmon.  That concludes our update on the chickens and salmon. We’ll share our salmon release photos after our trip tomorrow!  Thanks for reading our blog!!

Strathcona staff will soon be working to organize classes for September 2013.  The teachers at our school take considerable care in determining the placement of students in classes for the new year.  There are many factors that are important considerations in this process.  It is hoped that the following notes will help parents/guardians understand how student placement is determined.

In deciding the placement of students in classes, staff members consider student groupings which balance academic and social needs.    Student learning styles and relationships are also part of the process.  Parent /guardian input can also be very helpful to our process.  Our objective is to create classes which best meet the needs of our students.

Please note that if parents wish to write a letter to share information about your child’s class placement, it should be to share information about your child’s ideal learning environment in regard to social, emotional or academic needs.  The selection of next year’s teacher will be made thoughtfully by staff and the process will include any information shared by parents.  Should you wish to provide the school with extra information, please send a letter addressed to me or Mr. Brown by May 31^st, 2013.  If you wish to speak with someone about your child’s placement, please call the office to make an appointment to speak with me or Mr. Brown. Thank you.

Thank you to our PAC who once again managed to create fun and magic for our students at Strathcona.  The excitement was in the air throughout the school day – we could smell the lemons being cut for lemonade throughout the office, and then the sugary and salty carnival smells of cotton candy and hot dogs grilling took over!  A wonderful time was had by all – children, families, volunteers and staff.  Thank you as well to our Telus and G&F Financial volunteers as well!  It was a wonderful afternoon!

As Spring is approaching, many classes are looking for signs of Spring and studying various life cycles.  A few of our classes here at Strathcona are studying salmon.   Two of our students, Darya and Sierra will be sharing their observations here as a photo blog tracking the salmon’s life cycle which follows a series of stages as it develops from an egg to an adult fish. 

Hi! were Darya and Sierra and we are the student bloggers. We will be blogging about our class salmon! We will be blogging their progress until they are ready to go out into the river. Our eggs arrived Jan. 24 2013, they hatched march 1 2013! Pretty much all of them  have hatched, except for one. We are very exicted because they are alevins now! So, we will be keeping track of them along the way. Alright, that’s it for now, thank you for reading! Bye!