From Seed to Table
Today was a very special day at Myrtle Philip. We were fortunate enough to feed 33o students and approximately 50 parents and teachers with homemade soup made from the vegetables that were grown in our own community gardens. Students were part of the whole cycle and process of building the garden beds and planting the seeds last spring to farming and harvesting the veggies this fall.
Over the past few weeks, our students and many parents were involved in creating todays lunch – peeling, washing, chopping and roasting veggies, culminating in the most delicious pot of veggie soup. According to our kids, the soup was
- “A 10/10, actually it was 2000/2000”
- “Five stars – unless the rating went higher then it would be a six”.
- and one of our Kindergarten students described the event as “a whole lot of yummy”
This event was more than an opportunity for us to come together as a school community, it represents much more. Our aim was to develop a level of understanding for our kids about where our food comes from, and how much time and energy goes into the food that we eat. In building this understanding, we will become a more appreciative and sustainable culture. We were thrilled that this was a zero waste event and appreciate all the students bringing in their own bowls and spoons.
None of this would have been possible without the dedication of our teachers and parents and the work of our students following out the process from seed to table. Jen Black and Christy Craig were instrumental in planning and coordinating the many parent volunteers throughout the project to make it an extremely successful and educational experience for our children. On behalf of the whole school I would like to thank every parent and teacher that gave their time and energy into creating this opportunity for learning for our kids.
We would also like to thank the Grocery Store, the Hilton and the Four Seasons for their generous donations from cooking supplies to table dressing that made this stone a huge success.
Chen kw’enman-túmi, Kukwstumckacw,
Jeff Maynard
Myrtle Philip Community School
Principal
604-698-8003
School Goals
As we turn the corner into October, and we are well away into the new school year, I want to share some of the exciting things we will be working on over the course of the school year. When building our school growth plan for year, we saw a collective desire to move our all of our students into a deep level of personal motivation around their learning. In order to reach this outcome, we knew we had to structure and scaffold the learning environment in a very thoughtful and purposeful manner that involved focusing on reflection, feedback and developing our personal and group learning goals. With this in mind we developed this guiding question to lead our work…
Our Guiding Question at MPE:
If our staff and students engage with perseverance as reflective learners (set personal goals and embrace challenges when the learning gets hard) will our students be more successful in their overall competency development?
Under the structure of this guiding question we believe that we need to develop these 3 aspects of student learning;
- We need to make the “process” student learning visible to the students who are doing the work. To this affect, we will be using new tools like SeeSaw and eportfolios to showcase the process of learning (not just the outcome of learning). This will allow the student to be able to reflect on their learning as they are learning.
- We will build on their capacity to be reflective of their learning by using tools like the ladder of feedback to strengthen their capacity to learn deeply from their tasks.
- We have hired Mr. Dontas to work as a Collaborative Support Teacher will all classroom Teachers to build some common language around Goal setting and developing personal learning targets that eventually will be student generated through use of feedback and reflection that is authentic to the individual student.
It is our theory of action, that if we focus on the development of these three aspects of student learning we will see an notable increase in the individual and collective success of students developing their skills in all competency development.
We are all looking forward to this work and seeing the progress over the course of the year. As parents, you will first start to see this work coming though classroom communication and into our report cards (as every child will have elements of self reflection and goal setting on their report cards this year). However, as we develop our work around this growth plan, we are hoping the language and mind-frame/mindset is evident in the language your children are using at home.
Sincerely,
Jeff Maynard
Orange Shirt Day
Ha7lh skwayel Whistler Community,
Today we gathered in the school gym, dressed in orange, to recognize and honour our Residential School Survivors. Today is one small act towards our united community in building reconciliation. Residential schools are a part of our Canadian history that requires a humanistic understanding that runs deeper than seeing it as a fact on a time line, or a bump in our past. It requires us to develop a level of understanding that will enable us to see this act for what it was, so that we can start to move forward with understanding equality and social justice. It is about honouring the voices and stories of the past.
“Reconciliation will be about ensuring everything we do today will be aimed at a high standard to restore the balance of the relationship between aboriginal and non-aboriginal peoples”.
Orange Shirt Day is a legacy of the St. Joseph Mission (SJM) residential school commemoration event held in Williams Lake in 2013. It grew out of one survivor’s account of having her shiny new orange shirt taken away on her first day of school at the Mission, and it has become an opportunity to keep the discussion on all aspects of residential schools happening annually. The date was chosen because it is the time of year in which children were taken from their homes to residential schools. It is also an opportunity to set the stage for the coming school year as we look to implement new curriculum material about residential schools and reconciliation. Orange Shirt Day is also an opportunity for First Nations, local governments, schools and communities to come together in the spirit of reconciliation and hope for generations of children to come.
I have added a link to a short news clip regarding the foundation of Orange shirt Day. Please watch this video and talk with your children about what they experienced today. Today is about honouring and remembering the stories of the past. Every child matters, and every voice needs to be heard.
Kukwstumckacw,
Jeff Maynard
Welcome Back!!!
Hello MPE Parents and Guardians,
I trust that you are all having a wonderful and relaxing summer and finally enjoying some summer weather.
- First Day back is SEPTEMBER 6th from 8:30am to 10:42am (please note that our first day back is not just an hour).
Below is some important info regarding first few days back at MPE this coming September..
For all Kindergarten students:
Below is some information regarding the gradual entry process for our Kindergarten students this year.
Tuesday September 6th 11:30-12:30
All Kindergarten students will come for a 1hr. session on Tuesday September 6th. During this session they will be grouped with a other kindergarten students and will rotate through three different activities with all three Kindergarten teachers.
Wednesday September 7th
There will be no School for Kindergarten Students on Wednesday. We will have EA’s calling parents individually on Wednesday to set up an interview time for Thursday or Friday. Please except a call on this day.
Thursday Sept 8th and Friday Sept 9th
Interviews will take place with the Teacher, Parents and student. If you can, please keep any siblings at home, and preferably all guardians can attend. The purpose of these interviews are about building a relationship with the teacher/student and family, and acquainting the child and family to the learning process of Kindergarten.
Monday Sept 12th
Class for Kindergarten students will take place from 8:30 – 12:00. This will be a one day gradual entry. There will not be bus service for K students on this day.
Tuesday Sept 13th
Students attend for the first full day of Kindergarten.
For any new student to MPE in grades 1 to 7:
All new students to MPE should report to the library on Tuesday morning, Sept 6th at 8:30. New students will be placed in a temporary classroom until Thursday morning.
** If you are new to Whistler and still need to register your child at MPE, then please email me at jmaynard@sd48.bc.ca Our office reopens on August 29th, however I will still be periodically checking email over the summer.
For all returning students in grades 1-7:
School will begin on Tuesday, September 6th at 8:30 am. Students will be dismissed at 10:42am. The bus will be running to reflect this schedule on Tuesday the 6th.
Wednesday Sept 7th will be a full day with regular bus schedules
Students in grades 1 to 7 will return to their last year’s teacher for Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday morning. New classroom placements for this year will be done as soon as possible. Our goal is to have students in their new classes sometime on Thursday September 8th.
Sincerely,
Jeff Maynard
Principal
Myrtle Philip Community School
A Leap For Literacy
On Nov 3rd 2015, I jumped off the bridge at Whistler Bungee in response to the Scholastic Book Fair Challenge held by our School Library. These two videos are our way of sharing that challenge with the school community. For your witnessing pleasure, I duct-taped a goPro to my hand so you can all see (and hear) the terror in my face as I plummeted toward the river basin.
The official Trailer…
The Official jump movie with S L o w M o t i o n
The Name Song
Here is the link to our students singing the Name Song that they wrote last year with Glenn Mishaw. It will be on Shaw TV today on a program called GO at 9am, 1pm and 5pm. The easiest way to watch is to click the link below. Thank you very much Glenn for dreaming up this wonderful activity and seeing it through to this final product. This song will also be presented during WE Day in Vancouver.
Marimba at Myrtle
Last year Myrtle Philip was given a substantive grant though Whistler Backcomb to purchase 10 full scale Zimbabwe style Marimba’s. Because each instrument had to be handbuild, this order took several months to complete and the instruments arrived late last spring right in the middle of our Musical theatre productions of the Lion King and Willy Wonka. So it wasn’t until today that our intermediate students were able to start their first Marimba class with me. Each class had 50 min to learn a new song and we recorded the outcome of that block to share with the school here on Sound Cloud. I was very proud of our students today, as they worked very hard as a team, and in a very short amount of time were able to create some great music. It is a real testament to the many years of musical literacy Mrs. Mcphee has been building in our student population. Follow the links below to their songs.
Grade 4’s
https://soundcloud.com/jeffgmaynard/balaphone-4s-2015-2015-10-09-208-pm
Grade 5/6
https://soundcloud.com/jeffgmaynard/two-three-desbrisay-2015-10-09-205-pm
https://soundcloud.com/jeffgmaynard/two-three-beaton-2015-10-09-203-pm
Grade 7’s
https://soundcloud.com/jeffgmaynard/mbira-jam-2015gr7-2015-10-09-1217-pm
Next Friday at 12:30pm – 1:30pm we will hold a parent Marimba session. Please RSVP to jmaynard@sd48.bc.ca if you would like to join in and have some fun playing and learning on these great instruments. We will start playing by learning some of the songs you have just heard above. We will limit this to 20 parents, so please sign-up quickly if your interested
