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June 12, 2014

Greetings, Sadly, it looks as though our year will be cut short in 2014. It has been a privilege and a joy for me to teach this class, and I want to wish all of you an amazing summer, and the best of luck for the future. I also want to say thank you to all of you parents for your tremendous support throughout the school year. Many hundreds of emails went home about missed work and upcoming quizzes, and I have greatly appreciated all of the support you have given at home to help your child succeed this year.

Today, Thursday, June 12, I will be sending home school supplies and student work. While I hope that this labour dispute will be resolved as quickly as possible, I want to make sure that every student receives his/her things, just in case.

As a parting note, I wanted to include a Top Ten Moments of 2013/2014. This is a list that we voted on together as a class, and I thought it would make a nice memento of our time together. Thank you so much for a terrific year.

Sincerely,

Mr. Slykhuis

YodaOne day, in the middle of Math class, Mr. Slykhuis randomly busted out his Yoda impression. The class immediately burst into laughter, and something about the moment was so memorable, that it made it into the class’ top ten most memorable moments of 2013/2014.

The Music Man Jr.Four of our students were selected to act in this year’s musical, and our entire class participated in the play as part of the choir. This was a memorable experience in which our class had the opportunity to

The HobbitAs we read this book together in term 3, students decorated our walls with art work representing the story. In addition to this, the story has made its way into art classes, and even into music and language arts. One class, Mr. Slykhuis even played the class a song on his

Did you know: Mr. Slykhuis mastered his Yoda voice while acting in a university

0BirthdaysAt Strathcona, birthdays always come with a special song from the class and the principal; however, a number of birthdays have been extra special this year as various parents have brought in special treats to share with the class. These have been so enjoyable that the class voted 0

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ChibisOne of our art projects this year was to create “chibis”—a term used to describe a picture of a character in Japanese anime and manga art forms. Even after the project was completed, many students went on to continue creating their own

0Pixel MeDuring a graphic arts unit, students had the opportunity to create a “video game” pixel version of themselves and then animate that picture so that it could move and interact with its environment. Some students took this concept and ran with it—one student even created a snail

MathpocalypseThis Math review video game tells the story of an unnamed hero, trying to save the world during the mathpocalypse. Throughout the year, students have provided me with ideas and suggestions that I have incorporated into the game as I have been designing it. We have played this in class a couple of times together,

Did you know: There are many secrets hidden within this game, one of which is a

Did you know: The name “chibi” is actually a Japanese slang word meaning “short

BowlingAs a class reward, and as part of our physical education, we paid a visit to Chillibowl bowling lanes this winter. The trip was a great deal of fun—so much so that the class ranked this as their fifth most memorable moment of the

Comic Book ClubCreativity comes in great supply in our class, and we are lucky to have many aspiring comic artists/writers in our midst. With so many students sharing this passion, we decided, this winter, to run a Comic Club once a week at lunch time, where students could work on comic books and share their work with other aspiring artists.

BarkervilleAs we began our study of BC’s history, we took one class, not just to learn about the city of Barkerville, but to actually visit it… well, sort of. During this class, students took on the roles of various historical citizens of Barkerville, and had to make decisions for their own futures as they “lived” through the