Wow! I really don't know where September went! It really has just flown by. Coming to the party a bit late in August, I didn't have a lot of time to digest the enormity of the Classroom Champions program before hopping into our ever growing classroom! We started at 27 and as of today are up to 32, grade 6 students! I do feel fortunate that I also get to share this experience with 2 classes as I also co-teach with another teacher and felt it only right we include our second grade 7 class as well!
Starting on the first day of school, students were already abuzz about what "Classroom Champions" was and what that was going to look like for us. Because we have such large numbers and two classes we had a shorter reveal process then a lot of classes did but the student's enjoyed it nonetheless. It was a constant barrage of questions for about 4 days until we finally got to see Kieran's 'Welcome to Our Journey' video! Everyone was in awe of the Hockey Canada facilities and felt really fortunate to be getting an "inside view." Our small town of Haliburton, Ontario is CRAZY about hockey. A large majority of my students play hockey (both girls and boys) and if they don't they like to watch it on TV. They were over the moon to find out WE had a hockey player for a Mentor!!
Once we found out Kieran was our Mentor, we spent lots of time learning about and watching the paralympics in our class. The kids were full of questions - many I didn't have the answers too, but that we could look deeper into! It really led to some deep, mindful conversations about equality, sportsmanship and determination. We even had the opportunity to see Mentor Lex Gillette jump for a silver medal! The kids were over the moon and really believed he "flew like superman!"
This year as a school we really wanted to focus on teaching our kids to "Dream Big." September being Goal Setting month was a perfect way to get us started. To kick things off, this "Olympic Addict" obviously had to show this amazing Highlight Reel from CBC to the Tune of the Tragically Hip! We talked about things that excited us about this clip, as well as the things that inspired us. We talked about what we thought the dreams were of some of the people in the video and how they might have gotten to that point.
We had a lot of great, deep conversations about the need to have dreams and the importance of goals to get us there. After watching Kieran's video and accepting his challenge we decided to bump up our challenge. Each student created 2 Dream Maps. One dream they had for this life, and one dream they had for this year! This really got the kids thinking about the steps they need to take to get somewhere. Finally, we made class Dream Maps for each of the 2 classes.
We look forward to continuing our work with Kieran and working toward our goals inside and outside of the classroom. Our video is coming soon! The kids have taken over production of it completely. I can't wait to see what they have done and share it with you all.
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