The Linden School

The annual Science Olympics is an opportunity for the girls to practice science in a fun, spontaneous, and collaborative setting. It is also a leadership opportunity for our senior students, who plan and run each of the science challenges. It's always a pleasure to see their hard work come together, and to watch our younger students work and laugh together. We were also pleased to welcome the grade 5 class from The Mabin school, our guests for the morning. This year, our event had a "raptor" theme. Our morning began with a visit from James Cowan of the Canadian Raptor Conservancy. He brought a number of his birds of prey, including a Great Horned Owl, a Bald Eagle, and an American Kestrel. Although Ontario is home to many raptors, loss of habitat is threatening many of these species. It was incredible to see what these birds are able to do—and especially fun to watch their free-flight demonstrations. The Kestrel was skilled at gently landing on peoples' heads, which was hilarious. Other highlights of the morning included the primary students' paper airplanes and science mural, the "frozen socks" pit stop, and the boat-building competitions. Congratulations to our winning teams, and a special thank-you to everyone who helped to make our Science Olympics a success.

For the past four years, grades 7-8 have taken part in a Wen-do self defense course as part of their Physical Education programme. Wen-Do Women’s Self Defence is a programme for girls and young women to heighten their sense of self trust and awareness of their environment. The girls talked and discussed things like healthy relationships, healthy body image, safer ways of travelling via public transit or in a private vehicle, house safety, bullying, harassment and sexual and physical assault. In addition, numerous physical techniques were taught and practiced in partner and group work. Deb Chard, the instructor has always been impressed by the focus and confidence in our students, as well as how articulate the girls are when speaking about women’s issues. Some of the students comments: “Wen-do has changed what I do when I go on the bus or just walking on the street. I really enjoyed it!” “Wen-do is a programme that helps girls feel more self-confident.” “Wen-do has always been a great experience for me because after I do it I always feel more confident about myself.” “Wen-do self defense is really helpful to students because it makes you feel strong and able to protect yourself.”

The Linden music classes spent the majority of the first term preparing songs to perform at the Festival of Lights. The grade one class worked hard at learning and memorizing the words and actions to "Douglas Mountain" by Raffi. They had the pleasure of being accompanied on guitar by Raha Mahmoudi in grade 9. The grade ones also learned a lot about rhythms and high and low sounds this term. The grade two/threes also studied rhythmic values this past term, and we put our knowledge and skills to the test by preparing "Little Drummer Boy" for the Festival of Lights. The girls really enjoyed singing and performing this song! Five girls also accompanied the class with various percussion instruments. The grade two/threes will be learning and preparing "On the Back of an Eagle" for the Kiwanis festival in late February for a non-competitive category, as it's their first time participating in the Festival. The grade six/sevens prepared "Hands United in Peace" for the Festival of Lights. This group has a beautiful choir blend, and will be taking this song into a competitive category at the Kiwanis Festival in February. They've been working hard on their diction (enunciating the lyrics) and singing harmonies. As well as preparing for the Kiwanis, the girls will continue to develop their guitar skills and learn to play and sing at the same time. As grade 8A and 8B were studying music in separate classes, the grade eights prepared two songs for the Festival of Lights this year. It was exciting to put the two groups together for the concert and hear the nice full sound of the classes as a choir. The girls prepared and performed "Mangwani Mpulele", an African Zulu song, and "Try to Remember", a song made famous by Tom Jones. The grade eights will also be preparing "Flying Free" for the Kiwanis Festival in a non-competitive category. They will also continue to develop their guitar skills and learn to sing and play.

On November 15th, we hosted our first (hopefully annual) Social Justice Data Fair. Many Linden students took part in the afternoon’s events. After a brief welcome, Sandra McIntyre from Statistics Canada explained some of the reasons for collecting and analyzing statistics, and how StatsCan can be useful for students. Then, Catherine Gribbin of the Canadian Red Cross presented an interesting workshop which explored how the Red Cross uses data to inform its advocacy work and policy development. For example, Catherine told us that the analysis of data from medical records from various conflict-affected countries made the full impact of anti-personnel land mines known, which eventually led to the international ban on land mines. Catherine concluded her workshop with an interesting simulation of constructing a village, which highlighted the indirect effects of land mines on a community’s access to services such as water, health care and education. After the presentations, students shared projects they had created which explored social issues through data analysis. The Grade 1 class presented graphs that they had created together based on data collected from their bake-sale fund raiser for UNICEF. The students were all able to describe the graphs and explain how to interpret them. In addition to developing their knowledge, skills and mathematical vocabulary, students learned to use math as another tool for critical analysis of social issues. Furthermore, making connections between mathematical concepts and real issues has been shown to support the way girls learn math. Overall, I think that the students, parents and teachers who participated in this event learned new ideas about math, and some of the ways that math can help us to understand and address important problems we encounter in our world.