Category Archives: Active Living

My Students Have Mad (Snow) Dance Skillz

Snow Dance

Canada is called the Great White North by some because of the blanket of snow that covers our country in the winter months. Neighouring provinces have already had their first blizzards and people are dealing with snow and cold weather. Our local ski resort, Mount Washington, already has 1.5 m of snow at the top.

Here in the valley, though, snow is a rarity, and snow days that close the schools are rarer still.

But the power of Snow Dance came through! A bit of wiggling, hand twinkling, turning in circles, and squinching of the eyes….and taa daa! Snow Day! I hope all my students get out, make snowmen, build snow forts, and have a snowball fight with family and friends today.

And thank you for your dance moves, Division 12.

Favourite Things

When you ask people about their favourite things, you hear about more than an object. You begin to understand what they care about, what gives their lives excitement and purpose. Often these objects connect them to other people and their community. These things don’t tell the whole story of someone’s life, but they act as symbols that give you insight into what makes them tick. An object is not someone’s identity, but taking time to notice it can help you appreciate their unique qualities.

Today is Orange Shirt Day. We’ve learned about the consequences of trying to erase the identities of Aboriginal children in Residential School in past decades.  Taking a young girl’s treasured orange shirt from her is a symbol of that assimilation.

We conducted short interviews to find out the significance of objects to who we are. Take a look at some of our favourite things and read about their connection to our identity, below.

If you are a visitor to our blog, tell us about your favourite thing, from now or when you were younger, and why it is significant to you.

 

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Grade Sixes Set Sail!

This guest post was written by Faith and Jessica.

Hello, visitors to Huzzah!

This year our Grade 6s got the wonderful experience of going sailing. We learned how to tie knots, rig the sails, work together to take the boat down the boat ramp, and get underway. On the water, we learned where the boat goes if you push or pull the tiller bar, how to read the wind, and most challenging of all, how to work as a team.

We had to listen carefully to our instructors

We had to listen carefully to our instructors.

Learning how to attach the sail to the halyard.

Learning how to attach the sail to the halyard.

To make the boat move, you have to have wind, which we had a bit of while we were sailing. We learned that you can’t turn your boat directly into the wind or else your boat will stop moving and you will get stuck. The front tell-tales tell you if your sail is too loose. If they are flapping and going everywhere, that means you should pull in your sail until the tellies are going straight. It’s almost the same thing with the back tell tails. If they are flapping, that means you should loosen the sail until they are going straight with the ones in the front. There are two ways to turn your boat. Into the wind, and away from the wind. Turning into the wind is called tacking and away is called jibing. When you’re tacking, you have to pull your sail in, and when you’re jibing you have to let out your sail.

We had to work as a team to get the boat to the water.

We had to work as a team to get the boat to the water.

Getting right in the water to set sail is cold work!

Getting right in the water to set sail is cold work!

Even on days with little wind, we were able to sail.

Even on days with little wind, we were able to sail.

To finish the three weeks of off, we went to a wonderful beach where our instructors have built a great hangout, the Tiki Hut. On our second-last day we went stand-up paddle boarding and kayaking. It was so much fun! (Even though some people fell in multiple times. The water is warmer than usual, we were very lucky.) Stand-up paddle boarding is easier than it looks! All you have to do is kneel on your board, a very sturdy Styrofoam object, and paddle around a bit until you feel like you can switch hands at ease. Then carefully stand up. It’s a little like skiing, because it’s easier to stay on two feet if you a) bend your knees and b) keep your legs not too close together in both sports. Don’t forget about the paddle, though! To paddle correctly, you should have the angle away from you, like you’re looking down a mountain. If it’s backwards, then it will wobble in the water and be harder to control.

A wet suit was a definite benefit!

A wet suit was a definite benefit!

These sit-on kayaks were easy to maneuver.

These sit-on kayaks were easy to maneuver.

Sailing is really fun, but it takes a lot of concentration. All of the grade 6’s had a great time sailing this year. It was a challenging learning experience and I think that everyone will remember the great times that we had sailing. The instructors were really nice and helped us a lot to learn how to sail and be safe on the water.

Readers, do you do any water sports? What is your favourite thing to do on the water? Let us know in a comment!

The Over/Under Challenge

(This post was co-authored by Heather and Mia.)

Hello, visitors to Huzzah!

We have been challenged by Mr. Toft’s class in Ottawa, Canada to do something fun: the Over/Under Challenge. We’re showing you our completed challenge. You’ll have to watch the video to see how high we got! We have also challenged our buddy class (Ms. Bulger’s at Climb High!) to do the same challenge and we hear they are pretty fast.

You’ll notice in our video that we mess up our count in two places–counting too quickly and then too slowly. If you don’t think our final count is accurate, try turning off the audio to check our count. You’ll also notice some of us wore silly pants. That helped us a lot. 🙂

For those of you who are confused about what we are talking about, we will tell you what the over/under challenge is all about. The rules of the challenge is to pass the ball in a circle with the pattern of over and under. You are not allowed to drop the ball or throw it to other people otherwise you have to restart. The object of this whole challenge is to pass the ball as many times as you can within the time span of one minute. You have to make an UNEDITED video of your class doing the over/under challenge.

Happy Huzzahnians!

Happy Huzzahnians!

We hope to see your completed over/under challenge videos–please tell us in a comment if you try it.

Good luck!

The Dragon Has Landed!

Over the weekend a geocacher by the name of Lazonain deposited the Huzzahnian Dragon travel bug in a geocache near our school. To know more about how this adventure was begun by Mr. Miller and his class, read here and here.

With the help of a Mr. Berry, our principal, and a GPS, we took a little walk and located the cache on Monday morning. It was a beautiful fall day here so the walk in the forest was especially sweet. Pictures of our adventure coming soon!

Please give us some feedback on the survey below or in the comments. Is this adventure over or does a new adventure await us?

Huzzahnian Dragon heading this way!

This is just too exciting!

Our friends in Mr. Miller’s Room 162 in central California have included us in a very exciting project: they are sending a travel bug our way. Now, who sends their friends bugs? Geocachers do!

Here is our cute-as-a-bug bug, the Huzzahnian Dragon:

Huzzahnian Dragon

According to Geocaching.com, there are 1 210 622 active caches all around the world. It’s an outdoor sport–a hide-and-seek sort of game–that’s only been around for a decade. Geocachers hide things for others to find. Some of the more active geocachers have thousands of finds. Such is the case with VCTrails, an avid cacher who is currently transporting our dragon: he has over 3400 finds to his credit! Some caches contain travel bugs that are on their way somewhere. The Huzzahnian Dragon is travelling to a cache near us!

The dragon started in California, near San Miguel. He/she/it was placed in a cache by Mr. Miller, then sat in the dark for three weeks. Luckily for us, he/she/it was was found by VCTrails who is heading north to–of all places– Vancouver, British Columbia, just a ferry ride and one hundred or so kilometres away!

And what an adventure he/she/it is having! Take a look at these photos by VCTrails (captions added–but I am sure that is what the dragon was thinking): All three were taken at Redwoods National Park. The map at the bottom shows how far the dragon has gone–more than a 1000 km. We are really grateful that VCTrails is going out of his way to show our dragon a good time.

Redwoods National Park

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Fern Canyon

Map 11 Oct 2010

Huzzahnian Dragon: hero, villain, or just a regular guy?

So what is this dragon like? Well, cute for sure, but about other important things? Is it a boy or a girl? Young or old? Friendly? Quirky? Intellectual? What does this dragon eat? Drink? Read? What does he/she/it sound like? Does he/she/it miss the kids in Room 162? (If you are from Room 162, please let us know how you are managing without him/her/it.) Would this dragon be a good partner in charades? Does he/she/it have good table manners? What do you think? We are starting a new page with our best guesses about the Huzzahnian Dragon. Please feel free to add your thoughts there! But if you just want to say hi, or tell us about your geocaching experiences, please comment below. And VCTrails, we’d love to hear from you!

Image credits: Dragon indoors–Mr. Miller Dragon outdoors–VCTrails