50th Anniversary

This week my son’s elementary school is celebrating it’s 50th anniversary. I was actually a student there when the school celebrated it’s 25th, and I remember celebrating it. I graduated there 20 years ago this June. It’s nice being able to celebrate this with my son being a student there.

Today I got to volunteer to help with the Retired Teacher’s tea/coffee event. A bunch of my former teachers came! Above, I’m standing with my grade 5 French Teacher (next to me) and on the right, a teacher that I had I think for Science (in French), but looking through my report cards right now, I didn’t have her as a main teacher for homeroom. I was in French Immersion back in school.

And this was my Kindergarten teacher! She now (still!) teaches Art (as a specialty) at my son’s school. I only had her for half the year, as she went on maternity leave from January onward. She is retiring this June after 37 years teaching at the same school. My son doesn’t have her as she only teachers grade 2-6. Kindergarten & Grade 1 do a lot of art in class, that they don’t have art as a specialty.

I got a group shot of past & present Principals and Vice-Principals. The man on the right is a general director or something, he popped in to see how our event went this morning. The two gentlemen in the middle were my VP (blue shirt) and my Principal (stripped sweater) when I was a student there. The current VP is on the left hand of the photo and the current Principal is the lady with the long scarf. (Actually the current VP and Principal are both wearing matching scarves, the school green color). The other VPs and Principals I don’t know at all.

It was a huge trip down memory lane this morning and I am so glad to have been able to take part in this. It was nice reminiscing with my former teachers and showing them my little brag book of my family. They were all shocked that I had a child in Kindergarten at the school already and that I was a mom of 3. I’ll definitely never forget this experience. I am very fortunate that I have the opportunity to be so involved in my son’s school. Between volunteering my time in the library weekly and being on governing board (and next year Home & School) and the Parent Participation Organization, all as secretary, and sitting in on the allergy committee (since I am a mom with a child with an allergy at the school). Sean’s teacher also appointed me as Class Mother this past year and I have been helping her out in every way that I can. This past week and a half I was at the school almost every day helping out in Sean’s classroom for the 50th Anniversary. The school held an open house Wednesday and Thursday night this past week and half the classes had live exhibits one night but were open for visits and the other half was the 2nd night. (The school invited the parents of the live exhibits to come on their respective nights) as the school has somewhere between 525 and 550 students (I can’t remember the exact number) and the school cannot accommodate that many students + parents on one night. Sean’s class exhibit was last night, and I had been working hard with his teacher (and another mom on one of the days) to get the exhibit on display.

Sean’s class, worked on Abécédaire, which is French for The Alaphabet, and they displayed it over time. The kids made booklets with things starting with the letters of the alphabet, (which are the white booklets hanging from the wall in the image below). They made their own Alphabet Ebook (which works only in iBooks as it was made with Book Creator, an iPad app) and each kid did a letter or two of the alphabet, they took a picture with the iPad of their page, and said what it was (in French of course) and the class turned it into an ebook. The pages are the ones on the construction paper below hanging). Then, on the table, is displayed from every decade starting in the 1950’s, 16 different ABC books in both French & English. For the night that our class didn’t have a “live” exhibit, Sean’s teacher wanted to display the book covers and not the actual books, as she didn’t want them to go missing, since they belong to some of the students, or even to some the relatives of some of the students (for example, my mom sent in one book). So I went in two weeks ago, photographed each of the 16 books, sent them to Costco to print in 5x7 size and they are on the blue part of the wall, behind the books, as a timeline, which is pretty cool. The kids were impressed on how the images of the ABC books changed over time from the 1950’s to today. It’s really hard for children to understand time – but this was a great way to help them learn.

It’s been a long week and a half – making sure everything was done perfectly and set up just right. I’m so proud of all their hard work!