Dear Grade Five at the Okanagan Waldorf School,
Thank you for telling us about your school. We are currently studying Ancient Greece. Next week we are going to have a potluck lunch with Greek food. Then we will host an Olympiad for five of the closest Waldorf schools in Ontario.
Our school is located in a beautiful neighborhood. We have a big forest with swings, slides, monkey bars, long jump pit, maypole, a stage and a lot of little houses. We also have a big field with a bread oven, baseball diamond, volleyball court and garden. Connected to our forest there is a ravine that stretches to a lot of our houses. We have a lot of really good climbing trees. If we climb high enough, we can see the CN Tower, which is located in downtown Toronto.
The architecture of our school is unique. The whole school is built around our auditorium where we celebrate festivals and do plays with the whole school. There is a dome at the very top of the school adding to the incredible architecture. We have a library, science labs and rooms for handwork, woodwork, music, art, eurythmy and French.
The wildlife at our school mostly consists of rabbits, foxes, coyotes, squirrels, beaver, otter, mink, deer and many beautiful birds (listed below). This spring we had four baby bunnies who were born in the playhouse that our class built in grade three. Unfortunately, a couple of the adorable fluff balls were eaten.
The birds we have seen at school include: great blue heron, turkey vulture, cardinal, wild turkey, blue jay, red tailed hawk, chickadee, downy woodpecker, pileated woodpecker, Starling, duck, geese, crow, cormorant, peregrine falcon, and robin.
The festivals that we celebrate include the Community Festival. We have about 35 different languages in our school. We gather as a school to share a verse that we speak in each of these languages. Then we usually plant a tree on the campus.
We celebrate Mayfair at the end of May. Each year the grade four class dance around the maypole with ribbons in hand, flowers in hair, braiding our own maypole.
At the end of each year, the grade seven class creates a day of games on the field for the whole rest of the school. These are refreshing as usually everyone gets soaked.
Towards the end of the fall semester, the whole school gathers around a pine and cedar spiral. A student from each grade walks the spiral and in the centre they light a candle that is then taken to each classroom. From this we light more candles. There is always beautiful music and nice smells.
In the summer we play soccer. In the winter we do not really play any sports. We just play in the snow and have snowball fights.
We wish you a good ending to your year and a fun summer.
Grade Five Class,
Toronto Waldorf School