Day 27: Heather Dettling, Teacher (Jarvis Elementary)

 

What better way to learn about other parts of Canada than from kids who live there!

The grade 2s in my class are participating in a postcard exchange with 50 other schools across Canada. Each participating class is assigned a week to mail their postcards to each of the other participating classes. By the end of June, we will have received cards from each of the 50 classes. The postcards range from commercially produced postcards from the region to home-made photo postcards; we have even receive some hand drawn ones!

We mailed our postcards two weeks ago! We printed our own postcards of a picture collage of our favourite images of North Delta: our school, Burns Bog, Sungod Pool and a small map of where Delta is in relation to Vancouver.

It is very exciting to get mail every week! Each postcard that we receive is read and reread many times. We put a photocopy of the postcards in a binder so that each day the special helper can read our collection. The original postcards are put up on a bulletin board in the hallway with a map of Canada in the middle. A string runs between the postcard and where it was sent from. We have a bar graph on our door with each province and territory on it; we graph the quantity of cards from each province. We hope to receive at least one postcard from each province and territory this year!

From the postcards we are receiving, we are learning about the differences between urban and rural life, different industries and sports, and how weather and climate vary across Canada. We’ve also learned that some of the students get to school on a school bus, some by snowmobile, and some even by boat! The students in grade 2 at Jarvis Traditional Elementary are realizing that even though we live in different places across the country, eat different foods, and get to school in different ways, we are all proud to live in Canada!

Heather Dettling is a grade two teacher and the Coordinator of Inquiry at Jarvis Traditional School in North Delta.