Tahltan School News

P.O. Box 12, Telegraph Creek, BC V0J 2W0
250.235.3441
dean.chandler@sd87.bc.ca
Tahltan School News
April/May 2013
Springtime at Tahltan School
May 03 - Royal Ball
Leadership Club is hosting a Royal Ball at Tahltan School.
Get dressed up and come down to the school for the ‘royal
treatment’. 7pm-9pm
May 09 - Community Cleanup
The staff and students of Tahltan School do their part to
keep Telegraph Creek clean. We get started at 1pm.
May 10th - Mother’s Day Tea
Celebrate moms! The kids have something special planned at
2pm!
May 21-24 - Heritage Week
Please join us for Heritage Week! A full schedule of events
will be sent home with the kids as the week approaches.
May 23 (AM) - Transitional Day
Thank you to everyone who donated
to our annual
Pennies for Patients
fundraiser.
We raised almost
$200
in loose change.
The money goes to
the Leukemia and
Lymphoma Society
of Canada
Important Dates
Tahltan School welcomes next year’s kindergarten class!
May 31 - Boat Race
May 13th
Head downtown for our annual Boat Race. There will be a
BBQ lunch and prizes to be won! We can’t wait to see the
kids’ boats this year!
Non-Instructional Day
June 6 - Kite Day
Hopefully a beautiful spring day will unfold out at 10-mile for
our annual Kite Day! (another good excuse for a BBQ!)
Victoria Day
Community members are invited to all of our
Spring Events.
It’s set to be a great season.
Volunteer to help out or just come down and join in
the fun! See you there...
(No School)
May 20
(No School)
From Ms. Caljouw’s Room
Spring has finally arrived. Our class has completed the penguin unit
they worked hard on for the past couple of months. We just planted
some flower seeds and some herb plants. The students are learning
the life cycle of a plant starting with an experiment. Ask your kids
which would sprout quicker: a seed laid on peat moss or a seed on a
cotton ball. We will begin learning about the life cycle of a frog next
month and hopefully the life cycle of a butterfly if we do not run out of time.
In the middle of March our classroom began learning
our Tahltan language for math in our classroom.
They are counting up to 40, they conclude what the
weather is for the day, Yesterday was…, Today is …,
and Tomorrow will be…, and we are learning the
months of the year. This is all spoken in Tahltan.
We hope to take a few little field trips this Spring out
to Glenora, the garden, and possibly out to 6 mile.
From Tahltan Language and Culture Class
It brings me great joy when I think of the wonderful things
the kids have been doing in Tahltan this year. We have
done a lot of research on days in Telegraph Creek long ago.
The kids are very interested in learning where they came
from. We have finished two big projects this year. One is
all the kids in Ms. Rees’ class have emailed Wade Davis
about joining our fight to save the Sacred Headwaters. I think it’s important for
the kids to learn about land rights and environmental issues we face as a Nation.
The other project we have been working on
is writing a book about Tahltan Bear Dogs.
The kids have been right into working on
the book. I have done the writing part and
the students have done all the illustrations. The Tahltan Bear Dog books will be
going on sale as soon as we get them made
up. This year has gone by way too fast, but
you know what they say: “Time flies when
you’re having fun”.
Page 2
Tahltan School News
From Leadership Club
Leadership club has been a huge success! Our first theme
day, Celebrity Day, was a ton of fun and even led to an full-scale
concert featuring The Spice Girls, Elvis Presley, and Celina Quock
as an Aboriginal celebrity singer! The school slumber party was
also a fun-filled evening of movies, games, and socializing. Students slept in the gym and woke up nice and early for pancakes
and bacon. Thanks again to all the staff,
students, and parents that have helped out
with leadership club activities. Our next event is a spring
dance on Friday, May 3: 7-9 pm. The theme is The Royal
Ball, so be sure to get out your gowns and crowns! See you
all there!
From Ms Sharp’s Room
Spring is in the air and our class has been busy
digging in the dirt! We have been focusing on gardening,
plants, and caring for the Earth. In an effort to get
students involved in community projects we have planted crates full of veggies for the community garden.
Students have been caring for these young seedlings, and
will be making observations and measurements to track
the plants’ changes. We have been weaving this theme into our academics, using
perimeter and area to create maps of our own imaginary gardens. Students created some beautiful poetry to describe their gardens, using poetic devices like imagery, similes, personification, and onomatopoeia! We also read the inspirational story of a family in Honduras, who overcame their poverty and became self-reliant
after learning how to improve their gardens. Students wrote in role as a character
from The Good Garden book, creating some of their most
detailed and thoughtful writing yet! Self-esteem and positive thinking are also important goals for our class. We
have been reading books, teaching us how to transform
negative thoughts into positive ones.
Students also
made their own lists of positive affirmations reminding
them to think positively!
From Mr. Chandler’s Desk
Verna Vance has been doing excellent work in our Tahltan room. She has been
teaching the Tahltan language for animals, colours, weather, months, numbers
and basic phrases to the primary class. Ms. Caljouw has been integrating this
language into her classroom daily to help reinforce concepts learned. Verna’s
been getting great engagement from students by teaching traditional stories to
the 4, 5, 6 class. As part of Verna’s lessons on land stewardship, our older students have written letters to Wade Davis, an internationally renowned speaker,
author and environmentalist. Wade Davis has offered to communicate with our
students and give them all a copy of his book, “The Sacred Headwaters”. Additionally, he’s offered to speak to our students and advocate for post secondary
funding for them. Verna and the older students have also been working on a book
about the Tahltan Bear Dog. This book includes local images as well as individual student artwork and text based on the traditional history of this famous dog.
This book is being edited, compiled and professional printed and will be available
to any person or school for purchase. A copy will remain in our library and Tahltan room for future students to learn from.
From Ms. Rees’ Room
In Ms. Rees’ class April has come and gone in a flash. We
finished up our novel study on War Brothers by Sharon E.
Mackay. ALL of the students did an amazing job on their
final projects. Each student was given freedom to demonstrate their understanding of the novel in their own way.
The students picked from a wide range of activities: some
created mock-interview questions and then performed on film in role as characters from the book, while others created dioramas to model the setting. Many
students decided to create Wanted posters advertising the crimes of certain
characters, and some opted to write. We had students write alternate endings
to the novel, and even a new version of the ending from a different character’s
point of view. All of the projects allowed students a chance to show off their
unique talents and way of learning, while exploring this novel in-depth. Students took pride in their work and demonstrated increased maturity and social
responsibility as they tackled complex and difficult topics throughout this unit.
April is Poetry Month! We have begun a unit on writing,
analyzing, and appreciating poetry in all of its forms,
including music. So far students have been studying many
poetic devices and learning to use them in their own personal writing. We have some very talented poets in our class
and I cannot wait to show off some of their poetic chops!
Writer’s Corner
Maria Luz and her Family
Hi my name is Maria Luz. Sometimes my dad calls me mi carino. That
means dear or sweet. But my life is tough because I am in debt. Me and
my family have a garden in the back of my house. Me and my dad plant
the garden but it is hard work to plant a garden when you have to plant
a garden all by yourself. My dad went to work. It’s been 3 months since
he left. I miss him so much but we have to harvest for the winter. I have
to work on the garden. Me and my brother start gardening together.
Sometimes I worry about papa and when I go to bed I have dreams
about me and him planting marigolds. My friend got into debt and he
had to move and I am scared to move to where I grow up. Don Pedro is
my teacher. Pepito is my little brother. My mom loves me with all her
heart my dad love me so much. That’s why he left it to me to plant the
garden. I want to show him I could be responsible enough to plant a garden all by myself. But soon my dad would be back and all of the harvesting would be gone and so my dad would be happy about the garden. I
love my dad so much but we are in debt. We need money so we don’t
starve and die. When my dad comes back we will have money and we
will have food on the table. I love my family so much.
Faith’s poetry
The clippers open like a big mouth
Drip drip goes the water
Chirp chirp goes the blue birds
The bees eat the nectar to get honey
The marigold are protecting the trees
Dandelions sprout in the day
The grass hugs my feet while I walk
The blue bird sings to me
The tree is round and cute
The lily pads wiggle and push me of
The flowers are falling to sleep in the
breeze
Whistle goes the wind
Buzzzzzz goes the bees
Our students think their lives are awesome! Here are some of the reasons why:

Family, they always want to go hunting

Visiting friends and family, hanging out, not talking much

Fishing with my mom and dad, going to Tahltan and staying there for a long time.

Sneaking up on people and scaring them so they scream

Check net and see the first king salmon of the year

Sisters because they are cool and fun to play with and they attack me like dogs

When someone’s hugging you and you try to pull away, but they hug you even tighter

I got a good family that feeds my soul everyday

Camping for days until I smell

When you do something and you can’t believe it
Crunch crunch I’m eating my lunch
The grass is talking to me
I hear a bird chirping
It sounds like lullabies
The flowers are dancing
The flowers feel like a soft blanket
Ruff goes the dog
The flowers have a family and there are two kids
A girl and a boy
Buzz buzz goes the bee
Drip drip goes the water out of the watering can
Corban’s ending to War Brothers
Jacob and his friends were planning for weeks to run away from the LRA.
One night Jacob said “now is the time to run away.” It took them a long time just
to walk through the bushes and they walked in each other’s footsteps. While they
were walking they saw a lot of footsteps. They saw the river they thought they
were on the right side but they weren’t. They went to the river and just sat on the
ground thinking.
Hannah said that Kony and his army were thinking about trading Jacob and
his friends for guns so they had to have a way across the river. There had to be a
boat somewhere.
Jacob and his friends heard a roar then the boys saw a old gray lion. They
said “get to the trees.” Jacob grabbed a vine for Hannah she pulled herself up on
to the tree. Lizard ran out of nowhere he screamed “don’t shoot!” Jacob is thinking
that he is going to hurt them, and next thing you know the lion jumped out to bite
them. They ran to the trees they got on the trees. The lion jumped on Lizard and
pulled him away but when he got out of sight Lizard pulled his panga out and he
stabbed the lion.
Lizard stayed alive. Jacob and his friends did not know that he is alive.
They went to go look for the boat that Kony was going to use to get across the river. There are old gray hippo’s. Jacob and his friends found the boat so they took it
across. When they got to the other side there was an ape sitting right on the path
no one wanted to get out here. Hannah jumped out and walked over to it and she
turned back and told the boys “your not scared of the LRA but your scared of a silly little monkey.” She said “get out of the boat, come on.”
Jacob got out. They were walking home and Lizard jumped out and killed Oteka
and he killed Tony, he killed Paul, just Norman, Jacob, and Hannah got away.
They walked in to government soldiers. Jacob said “I am Jacob.” They took
him to see his dad. He was crying. But he had to go to rehab so Jacob went and
got to be a real person again. But he still misses his friends who died by Lizard
that day. Hannah and Jacob are married. Norman lives with them. Norman’s dad
came to see. Him he was so happy to see his dad. His dad loved him so much.
Hannah’s dad and mom came to see Hannah and to take her home.
Jacob went home to see his dad and Ethel. When he got home they were not there.
Jacob saw bullet holes in the wall. They weren’t home, Jacob thinks the LRA took
them. Hannah came to the house and she asked if she can move in. Jacob said
“okay.” Now Jacob and Hannah live together but Jacob hates the LRA. He misses
his dad and vows to go find him some day.