Who is your hero?

I started the class off by asking the intermediates, "Who is your hero?" I told them to think about it for a moment, and to not say a TV star or Blake Sheldon. Many of the students said their parent(s) were their heroes. You might be a hero in someone's life and not know it! After everyone gave me the name of their hero, I told them that my hero is my Mom, but that we also have many heroes throughout our lives.

I showed them the book cover that I was sharing with them that day. It was a biography called "Helen Keller : Courage in Darkness" written by Emma Carlson Berne. I read a couple of quotes from the book and shared with the students some of the special moments in Helen's life. One of the very inspiring moments was when she graduated from Radcliffe College with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1904. Everyone in the audience gave her a huge applause and I'm hoping that Helen felt the vibrations on her glorious day.

This young lady named Helen had insurmountable hardships and with the help of Annie Sullivan (a teacher/angel) and her own strength, humour and faith, Helen lived a very successful life. She helped others, was a political activist and proved to the world that nothing was impossible.

May We Never Forget

History was shared once again with my intermediate grades, when I played a YouTube video called "Poppies at the Tower of London - A Blood Swept Land and Seas of Red."

It is difficult for young people who have only experienced war from afar, and mostly through what is reported by the media, to wrap their heads around the large numbers of losses. When you see a creation of this magnitude, you visually experience the enormous loss of lives.

We Must NEVER FORGET! All of our history is important; we learn so much and must give thanks for the generations before us.

Memorable day in history.

I wanted to share something that the intermediate students would find really interesting, so I chose a memorable day in World History. I decided on a non-fiction book, "The Fall Of The Berlin Wall : 10 November, 1989" by Brian Williams. It is part of a series called Dates With History.

The 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall will soon be here and it is a part of history that shows the importance of freedom and the power of people. All of the students were very curious to find out the length of the wall, why the wall was built, how many lives were lost and many other incredible facts.

After sharing this book with the class, I answered all the questions they had about this time in history using the information contained in the book. I also gave the students the opportunity to watch a YouTube video called, "The Iconic Photo of the Berlin Wall." This video provided photographs and the personal testament of TIME photographer Anthony Suau's coverage of the Berlin Wall.

Under the sea

I spoke to the Grade 8 students about life in the Arctic by sharing both a book and a video-clip with them.  The book was called "Very Last Very First Time" by Jan Andrews and is about a little girl who goes under the sea ice to collect mussels. I'm fortunate to have a smart-board in the library so I was able to share a remarkable video-clip to show the students how brave Inuits do this in real life. WOW!

"The Inuit of Arctic Canada take huge risks to gather mussels in winter. During extreme low tides, they climb beneath the shifting sea ice, but have less than an hour before the water returns." BBC News-- Inuit's risky mussel harvest under the sea 

Sometimes we find that a book is not a folktale but rather a historical harvest that has been passed down from generation to generation. The students had many queries and thoughts to share after learning about this and seeing the how the event unfolds.