Last day 2018

Our last day of school 2018 was another whirlwind!  Everyone came dressed I. Their fanciest duds for the trip to the gallery.  Before we could go everyone had to put he finishing touches on our Adinkra and kente pattern inspired box projects.  Students rolled up theirs sleeves, put on paint smocks, and stamped Ghanaian Adinkra symbols on their box tops to reflect ideas or characteristics that they found most interesting.  After laquering the boxes, we also got to French before hopping on the bus to head to the gallery.

Final days of 2018!

We did it!!  135 items from our class.  1500 from our school for the local food bank!

Our Adinkra and Kente pattern art project nears completion!  

The last sin a long of 2018 is in full swing!

Our skate at Dulude today was a great way to get some exercise and to gang out with the grade 6’s from room 308.






Things got pretty cutthroat during our gift and take :-) the volume of the class certainly went up and up and up at times due to everyone’s excitement and frivolity.

Christmas Miracle Story

Christmas Wish Takes Wing

BY RON CORBETT, OTTAWA SUN

FIRST POSTED: THURSDAY, DECEMBER 24, 2009 06:53 AM EST |

This is a story about a Christmas present. It is also a story about children, although not in the normal way, with children being either the supplicants or the beneficiaries of some seasonal largesse.

In this Christmas story, to be honest, there is barely room for adults. It is grade-school children who play the major roles. Who push along the narrative. Who craft the ending.

All the children in the story attended Churchill Alternative School in Ottawa's west end. Many still do, although others have moved on to middle grades at various high schools.

Churchill Alternative School is part of the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board, with grades running from junior kindergarten to six, and this is a story about what happened there two Christmases ago.

Many of the children you are going to meet have wonderful names - Willow Sharpe, Aisha Jansen, Johan Westeind - and all play major roles, although to be fair and accurate there is one child at the centre of the story.

She is a nine-year-old girl named Anna MacDonald. We'll start with her.

- - -

Anna MacDonald was born in 1998 with Down syndrome. The second child of Mary Jansen and Al MacDonald, her parents had no warning of how their life was about to change. They learned of their daughter's medical condition in the delivery room.

Down syndrome, although it seems a strange thing to write, was only the beginning of Anna's troubles. She was also born with a congenital heart defect. At the age of eight months she had open-heart surgery.

Then, at the age of four, she was diagnosed with leukemia.

"It seemed to be one thing after another," remembers Al MacDonald, who works in the mapping division of Statistics Canada. "I had to go on a reduced workload, just so I could be there for Anna. Mary became a stay-at-home mom. It seemed we were always in the hospital."

The strange thing about Anna, though, was she never complained. When she lost her hair because of chemotherapy treatments - no complaints. When she was too ill to eat - no complaints.

In fact, Anna tended to celebrate even a bad day. She would organize tea parties with her nurses. Or plan exotic, sea-cruise vacations with other children in the cancer wing of the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario.

In the autumn of 2006, with her cancer in remission, she was re-enrolled in Churchill Alternative School, where her older brother Duncan was a student.

No one who was at the school at the time will ever forget her arrival.

- - -

It will help with the rest of the story if you can conjure up a mental image of Anna MacDonald. Imagine a nine-year-old girl with a plump, full face. A constant smile. A voice that was singing as often as it was talking.

Now imagine confidence, a child without an ounce of self-doubt and definite views on how a day should proceed. All right, you may be getting there.

"I have seen Anna march onto a soccer (pitch) and get players to stop and help her with a play," says Lyne Filion, a special-education instructor at Churchill school.

"She would stop the game, and then she would tell the boys: 'I need you to be the squirrel. And I need you to be the prince.' What's more, the boys would do it."

The boys needed to help out at costume parties as well. And you better high-five her whenever you saw her in the hallway. No excuses, or she'd track you down.

The children at the school, even the youngest, were aware that Anna had Down syndrome and battled cancer in the past. Yet if there was anything patronizing about the way they treated her, no teacher ever saw it.

"She was Duncan MacDonald's little sister, and great fun to be around," is how Ray Kalynuk, a grade 5-6 teacher at Churchill, describes the children's attitude.

Anyway, she was a hard child to ignore, let's put it that way, and maybe that's why the next year, when school started again, she was missed right away.

The children heard that Anna's cancer had come back. That Duncan had been a perfect match for something called a bone marrow transplant, but the operation had not gone well.

They were still thinking of her, it turns out, when they attended a Remembrance Day Ceremony that autumn. And it was while learning about the horrors of war that the children first heard the story of the thousand cranes.

- - -

Sadako Sasaki was two years old, and living a mile from ground zero, when the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima Japan in 1945. At the age of 10 she was diagnosed with leukemia.

Sasaki spent the last nine months of her life in hospital and during that time she heard a fable about a thousand cranes, a popular Asian myth that says a wish will be granted to any person who makes 1,000 paper cranes.

Inspired by the story, Sasaki started making majestic, multi-coloured birds in her hospital bed. She had completed 644 of the birds before dying on Oct. 25, 1955. There is now a statue to her in Hiroshima.

The children at Churchill Alternative School heard the story and later they discussed it. By all accounts it was two 11-year-old boys - Johan Westeind and Richard Terrion - who were the first to think of Anna.

"I remember thinking that Sadako had the same disease as Anna," says Terrion. "Then I started thinking, 'Maybe we should make 1,000 cranes for Anna."

Within five minutes every child in the class had started folding paper.

- - -

The children take over the story at this point. Just take it over.

Within days, every classroom at Churchill Alternative School was making origami birds. The children worked day and night. Homework was origami. Recess was origami. The thing you did before you went to bed at night, or worked on your Christmas list, was origami.

"I remember doing nothing but folding paper that Christmas," says Willow Sharpe. "Once we started, we couldn't stop."

The teachers at Churchill watched the frenzied arts and crafts activity with amazement, but also some concern.

"A lot of boys were involved in this," remembers Kalynuk. "I kept waiting for them to lose interest. I mean, these were hockey-playing, rough-and-tumble boys we're talking about, and yet here they were folding coloured paper any chance they got."

It's not quick work, by the way, making 1,000 paper cranes. Before long the children had conscripted siblings and parents in the task. After that, anyone who had a few spare minutes and was lurking in the vicinity. They did, after all, have a goal in mind.

And sure enough, they pulled it off. They made 1,000 paper cranes. To give to Anna MacDonald as a present. So one wish could be granted her.

The present was given to her six days before Christmas.

- - -

The story goes in different directions here. After making 1,000 paper cranes, then fashioning them into two mobiles - one for Anna to take home, one to hang in the foyer at Churchill Alternative School - the children never saw Anna again.

They gave her the present during a special ceremony at the school, then went home for Christmas. Anna did the same.

In the new year, when the children returned, they thought little of Anna's absence. It was now a regular part of their school routine, and only occasionally did they remember the impromptu plays and the hallway high fives.

Yet they were shocked to learn, on Feb. 24, 2008, that Anna MacDonald had passed away. She had battled three bouts of cancer. Survived open-heart surgery. But in the end it was a stroke, a complication from the medical treatment she was receiving, that killed her.

Children who had spent an entire Christmas season folding pieces of paper and hoping that wishes do come true were devastated. Willow Sharpe remembers being "sadder than I thought possible." Richard Terrion remembers thinking "nothing should be that unfair."

The young girl's funeral was better attended than that of a celebrity politician. Hundreds assembled at the Unitarian church in Westboro to remember a remarkable life. Her dance troupe performed a number choreographed especially for her. Children from Churchill sang her favourite songs.

She is buried now in a small cemetery at Pinhey's Point, one of the most beautiful and rugged spots in the region, a place where the Ottawa River rumbles beneath steep hills that once attracted an English lord who made a doomed attempt to build a grand empire.

Anna MacDonald was nine years of age.

- - -

So what to make of it? The question seems to hang in the air, as I sit in a living room with Al MacDonald, talking about a thousand paper cranes that were once given to his daughter as a present.

Did anyone feel disappointed? Did anyone think a wish had not been granted? I can't help but wonder about it, as I sit through a painful interview with a man still struggling to understand life and why his daughter is no longer part of it.

His son still has trouble dealing with his sister's death, he tells me at one point. His wife is too distraught to be here. He's keeping things together as best he can. It's day by day.

But he did want to talk about the 1,000 cranes. He tells me this without any prompting. I haven't yet asked a question about the present.

"My wife has thought about this a lot," says MacDonald. "And we do want the children to know what they did for us for that Christmas."

"Yes," I say, "It was a wonderful present."

"No," says MacDonald, "I don't mean that ... You know, it's a funny thing, and you can never be completely sure about any of these things, but Anna had a doctor's appointment the day after the cranes were given to her."

He pauses a minute. Looks around his living room. There is a Christmas tree framed against a front window. In the opposite corner is the mobile given to Anna to bring home. The birds are flying over my head.

In remission

"Funny thing was, her cancer was in remission during that appointment," MacDonald continues. "As sick as she was, she was in great health that Christmas. It was probably the best Christmas she ever had.

"That's a strange thing, don't you think?"

We spend the next hour looking at photos taken of Anna that Christmas. A young girl ripping apart wrapping paper. Posing with her cousin. Not a care in the world, or so it would appear. So maybe, just maybe, a wish did come true. In Ottawa two years ago. A Christmas wish.

Granted by a great many children. And 1,000 paper cranes.

Math Field Trip

We have been working on using spreadsheets (google sheets) to organize data and create graphs in math.  Tuesday we took a ¨field trip¨ to Doug (our custodian)ś office to collect the hydro, gas, and water data that is recorded twice a day.  We collected 10 years of data to use in class.  We then took a trip to the school basement to see where the gauges are that the data is read from.  It was easily a highlight of the day, getting to see the basement, and some students were bubbling with excitement.  We will continue to manipulate and use this data in the coming weeks of school.

The crazy week, and food bank

Our Class goal was to collect 100 food items for the food bank… And we’re all the way up to 81. The students tried to have them lined up all the way around the carpet and we are just a little bit short as you can see from this picture. Hopefully we can pander to your generous natures to send in more food items this week.  

During the sharing, which our class hosted in a very professional manner :-), we learned that the local food bank is desperately looking for hygiene products like toilet paper, toothbrushes, soap, shampoo etc., as well as baby formula. Any of these items would be very much welcome and as you can see from our circle of food items on the carpet they would help us reach our goal.

I would also like to remind everyone that we are skating on Thursday, from 11 - 12 at Dulude arena.  Yes we have back to back skates this month!  We would welcome everyone who can make it to come and help with lacing up skates, and then take some turns on the ice.

Also on the horizon...This Friday we are travelling to the National Gallery of Canada for a special end of 2018 trip, together with all of the other junior classes.  We are planning on dressing as formally as possible for this trip.  We hope to at least give the illusion of sophistication for any of the photos we will be taking.  It is a nice way to celebrate the end of 2018 together.  I am still waiting on the $11 fee from a few families who sent in forms without money.  Please get that in by Tuesday at the latest as that is our last day for banking before the break.

The trip Friday means that Thursday is our last day together as a class until next year.  We will be having a sing a long at the start of the day, then skating in mid day, and the last part of the day we are going to do some "reflective study on the spirit of the holiday season" (the class wants to do a holiday party/activity).  What we are going to do is have a voluntary 'gift and take' activity.  Most of you are likely familiar with this activity.  All students who want to participate brings a wrapped, but unlabelled gift (typically everyone does, and I bring in a gift or two for those who forget, or are unable to...so anyone who can send in two gifts it would be appreciated).  Our price limit is in the $7 range.  All students will get a chance to select a gift from the collection (we will place them under a 'holiday celebration plant' - likely a ficus I have in class) when it is their turn, or to 'steal' a gift from one of their classmates who have already opened one.  The rules are pretty clear, and it is fun/funny for all...but it can also get hilariously cut throat in ways.  In the end everyone ends up with a gift.  The students are excited with this idea.  Please ask your child if they are taking part, and remind them to have a wrapped gift in by Thursday.  The class is also interested in celebrating the end of the year by bringing in some special snacks to share, so anyone who wishes to send in some snacks for this celebration is invited to do so.

Also to note, we are a good way through our work on a special painting project.  We are/have been working with acryllic paints.  I have provided paint smocks, but if you know your child is...prone to getting a bit messy (ie unaware that their shirt or sweater is dragging through their food/wet paint) then you may want to ensure they don't wear their best/favourite white clothing Monday to Wednesday.

Finally, Wednesday we are doing a winter craft, and I am looking for some uncooked rice, and some stuffing that is used in sewing/pillow making.  I have most of what I need, but I am just a fraction short with both of these.  If you can send in a bag of rice it would ensure that we don't run short on Wednesday.  I have most of what I need, but I am looking at it and am not sure that I have a full cup for each of the 25 students, so a bit more rice will sort that out, and the same with pillow stuffing.  On that note...anyone interested in doing a bit of sewing, we would gladly welcome you to class during the second block of the day on Wednesday.

I hope that the insanity of the season is not effecting your families the way it is getting to mine...but hey, it is only once a year.  If you have plans to be away later this week, and your child will not be with us for the end of the week, please let us know.  One of our classmates will not be returning after the break, as she is moving away, and we are trying to make her last days at Churchill memorable ones.  I would not want to end 2018 without saying goodbye to anyone who is going away for a hockey tournament or something like that.

Thanks for your support.  Make sure everyone sleeps well this week...it'll be a busy one!!

Skating fun!

Adinkra Art Project Background

We are looking at art from the Asante region of Africa this week.  Here is a slideshow we will look at in class to help us learn more about Adinkra stamping.


https://www.slideshare.net/nbarker9/adinkra-powerpoint-28609474

We will also be talking about Kente cloth, and looking at the colours and patterns found in this popular African cloth.
Kente cloth slideshow

Link for Math Buddies

https://www.coolmathgames.com/

http://www.glencoe.com/sites/common_assets/mathematics/ebook_assets/vmf/VMF-Interface.html

Ottawa Temp Data 2017 for Graphing

Here is the temperature data for Ottawa for our google sheets practice graph we are working on in class.