Huzzah!

What a year. Thanks for the memories, Huzzahnians!

The last week of school is always melancholy for me: I’m happy for the approach of summer, but sad to see the school year end. So the best plan is to go out on a high note.

1. We played marimbas for Monday’s Gr. 7 grad–and we sounded great!
2. We tie-dyed t-shirts with a logo designed by Chaeyoon and our names on it.
3. We painted Ms Snowdon’s car–just look at the results–

More fun to come as we head out to beach day in the rain…

At the end of the year…
In the air there is cheer.
There is no doubt and there is no fear…
There is nothing to be afraid of, my dear.
We find each other at the beginning of it all.
And in the summer we glimpse the last wall.
School is over and summer break has begun…
Now it’s time to have some fun.

Yes, this is the last year for me and all my classmates in Huzzah but next year… We’re pretty much still all keeping our blogs. Like I said,

School’s over and summer has begun. Now… Let’s have some fun.

We have been truly privileged to this week to be working with Josh Hite of Arts Umbrella from Granville Island in Vancouver. And fortunate, too, to have the assistance of Franzeska, who is visiting the Valley from Germany. By some lucky fluke, our school was chosen for an outreach opportunity.  Josh and I met ahead of time to do some planning around creative use of some free, open-source software created through the The Glocal Project.

Josh lead us through a process of thinking about image making through a new lens–both literally and figuratively. We talked about abstraction and representation, appropriation and remix, and how to represent an idea through metaphor. Students created images around two themes: electricity and justice. One aspect of the process that was particularly illuminating was providing critiques of images; this extend much of the work we had been doing on how to provide quality feedback.

In the two weeks we created almost 1000 images. Josh printed of many of them and we then collaborated to create (and curate) a gallery of images which we installed at our neighboring high school. Some grade 11 and 12 students took part in providing feedback, again adding to the richness of the experience.

It was a phenomenal learning experience for all of us. The students and I learned a tremendous amount about creativity and design through the process, and most of all we came away feeling fortunate to have met and worked with Josh and Fanzeska.

The images below offer a taste of the eye-catching images we created. Check the student blogs for their reflections.

“All rise, Judge Smith presiding!”

Have you ever thought about what it’s like to be in a Canadian court? Well, today we (Catie and Rebecca) will tell you all about it so that you’ll be ready for a real case someday! We have just recently been working on a unit in Social Studies about justice. We have been focusing mainly on court. In this post, we are going to share with you what we have learned.

Court Members and Their Jobs

Everybody in the court has an important role to serve justice to the citizens and their community. We are going to define and explain what their jobs are.

1. Judge-The Judge is one of the most important people in the court. He/she makes the decision if the accused is innocent or guilty, and listens carefully to the people in order to make the fair decision.
2. Court Clerk-The Court clerk prepares the court’s schedule, and reads the charges of the accused. The court clerk also asks everybody in the case to swear on their religion to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
3. Crown Counsel/Attorney-The Crown counsel/Attorney is the lawyer for their province or territory. They represent society, and ask the witnesses questions and to tell the Judge the truth about what happened.
4. Investigating Officer-The investigating officer investigates the crime, and collects evidence. He/she also helps the Crown prosecutor.
5. Accused-The accused is the one who has been charged with committing a crime. He/she has the right (in most places) to remain silent and let their lawyer (the Defence counsel) speaks for them.
6. Court Reporter-The Court reporter records everything that is said in the court room during trial. He/she sits close to the witnesses to hear exactly what they say.
7. Defence Counsel/Attorney-He/she is the lawyer who works for the accused. He/she makes sure that the Judge hears the accused person’s side of the case, so the Judge can make a fair decision.
8. Court Officer-The Court officer/sheriff is responsible for keeping everybody in the courtroom safe during trial. Another thing that he/she does, is bring in accused at the right time.

Important Things in the Courtroom

Now that you have learned about the important people in court, we will teach you the important things, in the courtroom to make the trial run smoothly.

1. Closed Circuit Television-This item is used to show evidence for the accused (under 18 if it makes it easier for them to explain).
2. Coat Of Arms-Used as a very important symbol.
3. Canadian Flag-The flag is another symbol used to represent Canada. In other countries, people use their flags for the same reason.
4. Prisoner’s Box-This is used to hold accused if they happen to be in custody (jail) at the time. This is where the Court Officer would bring in the accused.

   All of these things and people, help make the courtroom FAIR. The Judge listens carefully to everybody, the Jury are unbiased and have no connection whatsoever to the Accused or the Witnesses, the Crown Counsel/Attorney defends the law while the Defence Counsel defends the Accused. Each one of these jobs and people are very important in making the procedures fair.

  We really have learned so much about court and justice in Canada, and it’s only been a few days! We really hope that you have learned as much as we have about this important topic. We couldn’t have learned all of this without this website. Thank you so much for reading this post, and we hope that you will visit Huzzah again soon! Until next time… this has been Catie, and Rebecca on Court and Justice. See you soon!

Photo Credits

Courtroom One Gavel by lambdachialpha
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License

We are happy to live where we do–it is a beautiful and inspiring place for us. This week we took time to get out and appreciate what we have. Check out out blogs to see what we think–and look at the our slideshow, too.

Guest post by Brianne

I am sitting on the school ground risers,
listening to the traffic across the green field.
I feel the brisk wind tickling my cheeks.
The clouds are like a painting by Picasso,
a real piece of art.

I can smell the evergreen pines
with their minty scent.
I glance into the clearing
that is a perfect portrait of our lovely glacier.

I jumped off the risers
and felt the gritty gravel beneath my feet.
I looked to the sky
and I notice the sun trying to peek out.
I saw a crow soaring into the distance
with its loud and screechy noise.
The graceful bird flew for its nest
and settled next to the small baby birds.

I step onto the the jungle gym
to get a different perspective
of the wonderful valley.
I gaze into the neighborhoods below.
The trees fill in deep green forests
with pine cones galore.

I love the environment,
it’s one of the most peaceful things on Earth.
What am I saying?
It is the Earth!

Photo by: Minxlij

Valley View Brings You Roald Dahl’s… Willy Wonka!

Hello, and we’re your reporters here today, Rebecca, Chelsea and Catie. Today we are going to tell you about the wonderful event that happened just before Spring-Break! Our class got on their white costumes that looked very over-sized, and made us look like big, fat… MARSHMELLOWS! We looked incredibly silly, but it was definitely worth the laughs!

It turned out to be a brilliant performance for the night, and a large success for our VVOPPA (Valley View Organization to Prevent Poverty in Africa) cookie fundraiser! The goal of VVOPPA  was to raise $1 000.00 in total, and we raised $1 050.00! Now, back to the performance, our class didn’t get to see all of the show, because we were back in the classroom getting ready, and of course, goofing off! We occupied ourselves playing… LOOMPA TWISTER! Mrs. Snowden brought in a wolf documentary as well. Right before our performance, we played silent ball.

Several students from the class were actors in the performance including: Michael G, Daniel C, Rebecca, Haley, and Michael T. We were all very proud of their performances and hard work, they all did a great job!

Show Time!

As we entered the dark gym full of actors and audience members, and we started to sweat because of the hot lights beaming down on our faces and all of the body heat in the room. (It was VERY hot in there!) One of the actors had just finished there song, and then our music cued. The first people walked on to the stage, and followed by them was the rest of our excited classmates. The choreography was full of movements that took lots of teamwork to perfect. After the song was finished, we marched our way to the risers awaiting our next song.

We had to wait for the next scene to be over, before we could perform our next song. It wasn’t long before our song started, and by then, we were all full of energy and excitement… again! After that song was finished, we were all very excited because next up was the finale! The song was very upbeat so all the oompa loompas finally got to smile and not be so serious for once! All the grade fours and sevens joined in too, and made the song so great with all the effort and energy they put into it! After that was over there was a roar of applause and all the actors took a bow, and left the stage. Willy Wonka was over and we all got to celebrate our hard work, we could finally get out of those sweaty costumes too! Everybody had a great time and the hard work was definitely worth it!