Life's Whirlwind Adventures

Don't let the frown fool you, he had a good time, he was just pretending to be sad. In fact he wanted my camera and because I wouldn't let him have it he decided to put out the big lip!! Canada is now 150 years old! That's a pretty significant event especially if you consider that our first 150 years have been fairly peaceful, there haven't been a lot of wars fought on Canadian soil or disputes about Canadian borders.  I don't know if there are many countries in the world who can make that claim. Canada is celebrating our 150 in a variety of ways, free park passes, free library cards (thank you RDPL!!), big fireworks on Canada day, and many more.  I am happy to partake in them all. Canada is a wonderful country and I am so happy to call this place home! I look forward to the next 50 years of Canada being a shining example of what the world should strive for, even if we forget parts of our country every now and then (I'm looking at you Mr. Prime Ministe...

We did four big field trips in June with the class. June is such a hard month because most students have checked out of school by the first so we didn't want to do anything too taxing on them.  So we booked a lot of field trips to let the students enjoy some amazing locations within a half an hour drive of the school. The first place we took the kids to was the Thuluum Tulip Farm just east of Red Deer.  It was a very neat experience and the owners were amazing! I was so happy we got to go and the students all seemed to really like this trip.  It became the benchmark to which all other field trips would be measured.  The next trip we went on was a walking tour around Red Deer. We visited 10 statues that were erected to show the history of Red Deer.  The statue above is Mr. Mann who conducted the Red Deer Royals and a few of our students had known him. This was a long day of walking but the kids did great and we had a lot of fun at the spray park during lu...

 I work with two very different groups of kids, but I am fond of each of them for different reasons. One reason I love working with these kids is that they always keep me on my toes.  The first group each student is vastly different but they find small joys in places where I have forgotten to look.  They often need more help navigating the social regulations of society, but more often than not they are more accepting of each other's differences. A lot could be learned by watching them accept people for who they are and not what they can do. This group of kids will often scare other teachers because they "don't know what to do with them", but that for me is thinking too globally, get to know them, form a relationship with them and you will see that what you need to do isn't really all that different than what you are already doing. The second group gives me faith that not all millenials are lazy.  This group is hard working and has a lot of drive to get...