Trial Balloon

I was walking down the upper corridor of the grades 3-5 wing. It was break time and most of the students were out on the playground. As I would often do, I decided to have a look in the boys washroom, just to make sure things were in order. I opened the inner door to…

My Old School – Part IV

When I was in grades 5 and 6, I was a member of the School Safety Patrol, a program sponsored by the Canadian Automobile Association. As patrolmen we would be assigned a crosswalk near the school, and our responsibility was to watch for traffic and indicate when it was safe for students to cross the…

This Little Light of Mine – Part III

……….. continued from last post It was three years later. I was presenting a physics-based lesson to a grade 5 class in another school. I don’t recall why I had an actual candle, perhaps the activity was about light, but at one point I pulled it out of my box of materials. We were sitting…

A Fish Story

My friend Al retired a few years ahead of me. He taught elementary school. He kept fish in his classroom and loved to teach his students about fish aquaculture. He decided he was going to show his grade 5’s a fish dissection. He had two large trout and, before class, dissected one of them. His…