THE MULGRAVE
ODYSSEY
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THE MULGRAVE |
| A literary journey. . . as written by Mulgrave students for everyone in the Mulgrave family. | |
| Volume II, Fall 1996 | |
MEMORIES OF A FOUNDING STUDENT
by Nicholas Miller
People like my mum started the school in 1993 when I was in Kindergarten at West Vancouver Montessori School. The parents whose kids went to Montessori decided they wanted a Grade One, and then a Grade Two, and so on. They bought an old portable and it was located behind the Unitarian Church on Mathers Avenue in the Montessori playground.
We got Mrs. Hamer for our teacher, Ms Straub for gym, and Mr. Stuart Slind for art. Mr. Workman came in the second year to teach French and Betty Manning was our lunch lady. We all liked Betty - she was nice, kind and she brought us little presents and candy. We usually played soccer at lunch time with Betty and Mr. Workman.
There were 14 students altogether in the first year, 5 from Montessori including me, and 9 from other schools. Five founding students are left: Aaron, Ashley, Azhar, Hannah and myself. Here are some things that we remember the most:
Aaron Bolus - "I remember some things that started which can clearly be remembered by many like: worm digging in the playground, the ghost on occasion, one of the best was the ice, spiders, the gardener who made fires in the place ‘Beyond the Gate,’ and forty push-ups in French class."
Ashley Taunton - "I remember when I discovered my power rocks and we had our forts because I had a team. Aaron had a team and in the second year of the school some of the Grade One’s made a team. In the first year there was cotton, snow, wood, rocks, bricks, slides, trees. I also remember the clubs that we made. Some of them were soccer, ‘Save the River’, ‘Build the Bridge,’ pencil making, and the song club, but there were so many I could not say them all."
Azhar Jaffer - "I remember when the class took sticks and sharpened them and pretended they were pencils, and making mud balls. We played basketball with a diaper with Miss Straub, and we called it "diaperball." Tyler brought one of his baby brother’s diapers."
Hannah Bryant - "I remember all the mud in the Fall and the snow in the Winter. I remember the heater always shut down and the repair man would come and the times when it was so cold that we had to wear our coats. I really liked it there, but it is better here."
As for myself, "I remember mostly how cold it was in the portable when the heating went off and my mum used to have to come over and try to light the furnace again - we had to wear our coats inside. When we played soccer at lunch time we lost our soccer ball on the roof and someone came and put a ladder up to get it. We used to build holes and tunnels in the dirt and make ‘claymaballs’ and we raided each other’s forts and stole each other’s ‘claymaballs’! It was lots of fun and we used to get very dirty! I wonder if Tyler’s spelling journal is still in the ‘quicksand hole’ that I made!"
I remember the portable with fond memories, but it is nice to have a bigger school. Thanks to all the people that made it happen.
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by Elyssia Patterson
Answers in the next issue of the Mulgrave Odyssey. |
MATH IS AS EASY AS 1-2-3, POSITIVELY!
by Nabila Pirani
Math is not only hard work, it is fun. It is fun because you can draw and colour with math. You can draw because shapes are used in geometry, and geometry is a form of math. When you say that math is hard, it will be hard. When you say that math is easy, it will be easy. Never think negatively, think positively, because as you grow older you will have to do harder math.
One thing that will help you in math is "Kumon." It is a math, English, and Japanese program which is very good. Kumon helps you in learning more math tricks, like how to do math more easily.
I hope after reading this you will learn that math is positively easy when you think positively!
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WHAT'S NEW AT MULGRAVE? by Alexandra Chan and Nabila Pirani |
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Back: David Ison, Ashley Peet, Safeeya Pirani, Conor Clarance, Gage Allard, Ty Babych, Olivia Staff, Mrs. Bryant
Middle: Glen Turner, Simone Littledale, Brandon Pao, Harry Brook, James Collister, Alexander Ferguson, Annie Maurer, Lauren Wierenga
Front: Rebecca Staff, Sarah Kassam, Salim Visram, Michael Yoshida
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BOOK REVIEWS | |
The B.F.G. is a hilarious and well written book. It is about a short little girl with big glasses called Sophie. One night Sophie was snatched from her bed by a giant with huge ears and a stride as long as a tennis court. Luckily for Sophie the giant was a lot nicer than the other giants like the bog-thumping, bone-crunching, troggle-humping giants whose favourite thing to do was to eat little children. Sophie was determined to stop this, and she and the B.F.G. made a plan to stop the other giants forever! The B.F.G. is a great book for all ages.
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The Berenstain Bears series are books by Stan and Jan Berenstain. They are about four bears who go on adventures and do plays. I recommend these books because they are funny and easy to read. I recommend the series for Kindergarten and Grade 1.
Protecting Marie is a book by Kevin Henkes. It is a book about a girl who does not like her father because he gave her dog, Nellie, away. When he does not show up for his 60th birthday, she begins to have doubts about if he really likes her and if she will ever get another puppy. I recommend this book, because it shows that a family can learn to like each other. I recommend it for Grades 4 and 5.
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Wayside School is Falling Down was written by Louis Sacher. The main characters are Louis the Yard Teacher, Mrs. Jewls the teacher on the 30th floor and Mrs. Jewls' class. There were more characters like Mrs. Zarves on the 19th storey, Mrs. Walooosh their dance teacher, other people and cows. Wayside School was built by mistake by a crazy person
who thought he was building horizontally rather than
vertically. He ended up with a school 30 stories high and
with only one classroom on each storey. The children did
not mind though, because they got a bigger playground
(maybe our new Mulgrave school should be vertical too!). I found out that Mrs. Jewls' class were probably the fittest students in the school, because they walked up 30 flights of stairs to reach their classroom every day. In the book, the author tells stories about what happens in Wayside School. Weird and wacky things, which would probably never happen in Mulgrave School, occur on a daily basis at Wayside School. If you are wondering how the title connects with the book, well it connects to my favourite part of the story. It is a windy and stormy morning and the classrooms are swaying back and forth, going bumpit-t-bump! It feels like a tornado! To find out more about the exciting ending, read Wayside School is Falling Down. I recommend this book for Grades 3 to 5. |
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by Farah Kassam and Fiona Rayher Here is an idea of what the clubs of Mulgrave are up to!
Choir Odyssey of the
Mind
Quilting
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| INTERVIEWS WITH TEACHERS | |||||||
| by Aliya Bhatia and Azhar Jaffer | |||||||
Azhar and I enjoyed interviewing the teachers at Mulgrave school and hope to do it again in the future. We would also like to thank all the teachers for all their time. |
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We asked Mrs. Bryant what the Kindergartens were learning about in class, and she said, "We have just finished learning about Minibeasts. We will be studying about Fall and how animals prepare for winter." Then we asked her, if she liked being a teacher, and her answer was, "I love being a teacher because I love children and making a difference in their lives."
We asked Mrs. Ferguson what had been going on in her class. She said, "We have been studying about the Romans. The children especially enjoyed learning about the gladiators and watching the chariot race in the movie, "Ben Hur." We then asked her if she liked teaching and why. "I love teaching - it is the best job that I could imagine. The best part for me is when the children become really engrossed in a subject. I also like teaching children to read." Finally, when we asked her what her class was going to study next, she said, "We will soon be learning about under-sea life. In January, we hope to have a sleep-over at the Aquarium. On November 4th, we are going to the Science World Omnimax to see a 3D movie called, "The Living Sea."
We asked Ms. Millerd what her class is learning about, and Ms. Millerd said that her class is learning about Autumn and the changes in nature. In Science, the Grade 2 students are going to be learning about seeds. "Watch carefully because Grade 2 will be turning into a botany laboratory." Ms. Millerd loves teaching. She says that it is very stimulating to work with children. She said, "They are so interested to learn and interesting to teach. There is never a dull moment!" |
Our next interview was with Mrs. Tetiker, and we asked her what her class was learning about. Mrs. Tetiker said, "In Socials, we have just completed a topic on ‘All About Me and My Grandparents.’ In Science, we studied nutrition and concluded with a test." Then we asked her if she liked teaching and why. She said, "Yes! I like the challenge of turning the children on to learning and seeing their faces light up when they suddenly understand something that they thought they could never understand." To end our interview we asked Mrs. Tetiker what her class would be learning about next. "In Socials, we are studying the seven ancient wonders of the world, and in Science, we are studying the major organs of the body and where they are located."
We asked Mr. Fischer if he enjoyed teaching and he said, "I love teaching! It is fun to see students excited about learning and being a part of that process." The Grade 4 class has been studying water in Science and learning about rounding in Math. They have learned about the different parts of a story to write their spooky stories. Our last question was what the class would be learning next. His answer was, "We will be studying digestion, and will soon begin working on our Commonwealth Essays."
We asked Ms. Rees if she liked teaching, and why? "Yes I do," she said, "because every day something new and exciting happens and I enjoy learning with students. We are learning about short stories in English, and division and fractions in Math. We just finished learning about the Middle Ages." When we asked Ms. Rees what her class would be learning next, she said, "all about famous Canadians!" She told us that it is important to learn more about interesting people who have made a difference in Canada. |
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| ABOUT HORSES. . . . | |
| by Kalim Kassam and Jamie Wyse | |
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| THE "ADVENTUR-OUS" TWELVE |
| by Kalim Kassam and Jamie Wyse |
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| LOG TO LOG |
| by Kiki Dimakis |
| Dogs and frogs have fun jumping from log to log bobbing up and down going ‘ribbit, ribbit’ and ‘ruff, ruff’ |
| A STORY OF AN ASSEMBLY |
| by Charsley Anthony and Alyssa Houghton |
| Once upon a time, there was a class, a
Grade 5 class (see picture below). They had to do an
assembly because it was their class’ turn. They were
going to do a play on medieval life as they had been
studying that topic in Social Studies. The first thing they had to do was find out which characters they were going to act. The teacher handed out the script and they were all happy with their parts. Next, the teacher told them that they had to memorize their lines by Monday. It was very hard to memorize all those words in two days. When they got back to school on Monday, they started
to learn where to stand and what to say. They worked
very, very hard all week on the play. One of the boys in
the play had to wear tights, another boy had to wear
pantyhose on his head to look like a monk, and everyone
had trouble convincing them to wear the things they were
supposed to! They did a wonderful job on their play. Everything went as planned and the whole class felt great. |
| STUDENT SPOTLIGHT - ASHLEY TAUNTON |
| by Kiki Dimakis |
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 MOVIE REVIEWS |
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| TWISTER by Alyssa Houghton and Kailey Spooner Twister is an
action-packed and incredible special-effects movie. It is
about mile-wide 300-mile-per-hour tornadoes coming
straight at you and houses getting ripped up piece by
piece. Jo and her friends build a machine called
"Dorothy" that launches electron sensors into
the funnel of the twister. Jo and her crew want to create
an improved warning system, but to do so, they must risk
their lives. Twister is a fantastic movie for Grade 4 and
up. We would give Twister two very enthusiastic thumbs
up!
FLY AWAY HOME
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THE CROSS - COUNTRY RUN by Jamie Wayse For weeks and weeks Ms. Rees and Ms. Straub helped us train and they encouraged us to run. On Monday after school we practised for the cross-country meet by running around the park beside the school 2 or 3 times. We also ran beside Ambleside beach which was a tough workout. The cross-country run took place on Wednesday, October 23rd at Ambleside. The schools that went were York House, Crofton House, Collingwood, St. George’s, St. Michael and Mulgrave. There were over 500 people there - twenty two were from Mulgrave and the grades that came went up to high school. It was pretty wet and miserable as it rained most of the time. We all had to run around the park once for the cross-country meet. A few people tripped when they started the run, but they were not injured. A cyclist told us where to go to finish. At the end of the race we got to have a juice box. We were all tired when we got back to the school. A BIG THANKS to Ms. Rees and Ms. Straub. |
| TEACHER SPOTLIGHT - MS. REES | |
| by Hannah Bryant | |
| Ms. Rees is the new Grade 5 teacher. She likes
teaching Grade 5 because the students are so
enthusiastic. She likes to teach Cross Country running
because she thinks sports are important. In her old
school, she taught English, math, and physical education.
She likes to teach social studies the most because there
are so many things to teach. Another thing she likes to
teach is math because she loves it. Ms. Rees would like
to teach in South America because she would like to meet
foreign students. Ms. Rees started teaching 3 years ago, got married one year after she started teaching and says she wants to have children. She has a new house and it is bigger than her old one and that is why she likes it so much. Ms. Rees has 3 hobbies and they are: visiting her family, playing sports, and reading. Ms. Rees said that she would not like to be a head mistress right now because she likes teaching Grade 5 more. |
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| WAYSIDE |
| by Ashley Taunton |
| Wacky Wayside School Vertical not Horizontal Their Math is Weird And They Love to "Tango" Mrs. Jewls on the 30th Floor Her Class has Three Eric's Smelly Dirty Dead Rats Around Wayside School Look Out Cows! |
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| THE WIND AND THE SNOW |
| by Nabila Pirani |
 The wind in the snow. |
| HALLOWE'EN |
| by Alexandra Chan |
| On Hallowe’en night, you bundle up
tight and out you go with a bag for candy. There are stairs to climb to say "trick or treat" for many time. When you get tired, home you go with your bag more heavy than when you left long ago.
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Chess
Drama
Origami
Volleyball
Soccer
