As always, summer at Little Mountain flew by with the excitement and intensity of a huge jet plane. And our students had many stories to share about their trips to Alaska, Jasper, New York, and Disneyland (to name a few). Each child’s experiences add to the richness of the Little Mountain environment, and so it was with great pleasure that we were able to provide some “vacation journals” for kids to report on their summer trips! Now we are welcoming everyone back and ready to shift gears for the cool fall days of school work ahead.
With fall around the corner, it’s important to take what we’ve accomplished through the summer and apply it to the new beginnings that come in September! Summer is a special time where children have the opportunity to solidify their learning from the previous school year with hands-on, self-directed work. It’s especially a time to develop more of a connection between play and learning!
This summer had many fun times in the classroom, and one of the highlights was the Literacy Through Art and Science program. Kids love science! They can explore, question, and discuss the world as they see it. The classroom is wherever you learn, and so we used Little Mountain as our home base and went from there to do field studies out on UBC campus. We also used the internet as our learning ‘field’. The program was a raving success, as you can see from the pictures! We had a volunteer join us from Taiwan for a couple of weeks who was an absolute joy to have around. The students loved Nami!
Little Mountain strives to be a place where families can work together to learn and grow, and so we encourage parents to always ask children to teach them what they learn at Little Mountain. Summer teaches us about community learning through work and play. May we all carry the ease and fun of learning through these end days of summer and into the new school year!
By Fiona
The Design Cycle