In Music class, all grades recently took part in a celebration of Diwali, the Hindu Festival of Lights. Decorating the room with sparkling lights, the students sang and clapped to the Hindu children's song, Aeyaya Balano Sakkad. 
The Grades 3 - 6 Voice Ensemble performed this song and others at our Mabin Book Fair. The ensemble meets weekly for rehearsals in two groups—Grades 3 & 4 first and then 5 & 6. Having a larger group of voices allows the students to incorporate harmony parts. Once a month the two groups combine for a rehearsal of 80 voices strong.
Having mastered the Caribbean children's song, Four White Horses, the primary grades are now learning a Japanese song and rhyme about making fish cakes. This also involves hand movements and rhythms that accompany the melody. "It's great practice for learning two part songs and how rhythm fits together," says Ian. The Kindergarten students are also exploring new percussive instruments and simple two part compositions.
All grades are excited about our in school Holiday Assembly and are busy selecting their holiday favourites as they prepare to sing.
Drama remains an integral part of the Mabin French program. In Kindergarten, our SK's have finished working on the Halloween version of Chez Marco and the JK's are learning to dramatize the song Luc Va Á L'École.
Highlights for the junior grades include:
Grade 4 is working on the play Comment y aller? The students are now at stage where they can comfortably recite the entire story while being led in a gesture review. Working in small groups, they are retelling the story in their own words and have begun written work based on the play. Soon they will chose parts for a production of their own. A special "reader's theatre" involves small groups of students taking up the role of a character as they read along, working on pronunciation and expression. They have also learned a song to accompany the play.
Grade 5 continues to work on Louis La Grenouille. "They are amazing," says Dalia. "They're very comfortable retelling the story in their own words. And not just using the vocabulary learned. They introduce their own words!" The class is rehearsing the play by reading it through and have completed the first written activity. They are taking scripts home and memorizing lines. This class is notorious for changing endings to plays and have done it again this time, substituting a customized ending of their own creation rather than what was written.
Grade 6 is working with Chat Angora. Many of the students have already memorized their parts (they are long!) and are so comfortable with their lines, they've now begun to improvise. "That's the goal," says Dalia. "Using the vocabulary you know to express yourself." The class has completed the first couple of written activities and in groups, retold the story in their own words. They are now at a stage where each of them is retelling or giving a written synopsis of the play in third person narrative. A few have taken it further and are writing their own endings. Reading their summaries to their peers using correct pronunciation and intonation is a focus. The class has learned the "er" verbs and irregular verbs "avoir", "être" and "aller" and use all these verbs correctly in their story writing.
The Kindergarten students are honing their manipulation skills using small equipment in Gym class. The students recently constructed bowling alleys out of pins, buckets, pylons and balls and then shared their creations with their peers while practicing rolling to a target.
The student are also working with rackets and small balls, frisbees, and scoops and balls to develop hand eye coordination and throwing-catching skills. Large group running and tagging games, including Hot Dog Tag and Bean Bag Bucket Blast, encourage cooperation and teamwork. 
Also popular are Octopus Octopus and Cat's In The Cupboard which promote teamwork and spatial awareness.
Student Council began as a nine week club for Grade Five students The council started off with a leadership component, planning and facilitating two Kindergarten clubs. This included organizing outdoor building challenges and play at the end of the day activities such as big blocks, parachutes, frisbees, hula hoops and soccer.
The council members also worked for a week in the Grade 1 and 2 Clubs as teacher assistants, helping with bowling, letter writing, skipping and designing paper people.
The outreach component for the council entails facilitating three holiday drives—collecting food, warm winter clothing and sports equipment. The group created posters and an article for the school newsletter. They wrote and performed an assembly skit for the whole school and arranged for special stickers to be handed out to students who made donations. The council also has a Fun Day in the works, planning a variety of games in the gym to say thank you to all the students who participated in the drives.
Building onto their science interest in pipes, the JK artists have constructed their own pipe sculptures in Art class. Using paper tubes, each student worked to create their own innovative art pipes! Getting the pipes to stand up, lean and attach took quite a bit of problem solving and experimentation. Written comments on the purpose of the pipes were documented and attached to each sculpture.
Letters are the focus in SK. This class has been working with a variety of materials for extra practice in Art. Plasticine letters were shaped using some of the same techniques the artists use for clay and then decorated with beads and vibrant pastels. 
Next up was learning the process of making paper pulp. The squooshy material was used to form upper and lower case letters. Once dry, it was discovered that the paper pulp was a very strong and hard sculpture material. The sculptures were painted and smaller letters were added using gold and silver markers, pencil crayons and thin tipped markers. A good dose of sparkle paint finished up the job!
With the Grade 1 class studying aquatic life (with a special focus on turtles, fish, and snails), the students are in the preliminary planning stages for an independent study. The artists will come to Art in small groups to work on developing and then pursuing their own project of choice (clay, sculpture, painting, drawing, collage or printmaking) within their chosen aquatic topic.
Grade 2 is busy planning their Line Gallery Show to showcase their line work. The class made invitations inviting all the other classes to come and check out their projects. Processes explored include painting with india ink, working with paper collage and using hammers and nails to create a colourful yarn weaving.
Grade 3 is working on combining their science knowledge of magnetics to create an artistic magnetic sculpture. This project entails lots of problem solving and testing out of ideas.
Grade 4 just completed illustrating poems written in class. 
Through this process, the students learned about surrealism and the work of Salvador Dali. They explored the concepts of juxtaposition, dislocation and transformation to create dreamlike compositions that also demonstrated their knowledge of background, middleground and foreground. As an extension of their surrealism study, some of the students tried playing The Exquisite Corpse, a parlour game invented and played by surrealist artists. This game involves creating surprising figures as each member adds on to a drawing that has been started, without knowing what they are adding on to.
The Grade 5's have begun to transform their classroom into a student parliament. The collaborative and student led process started with a mural of the interior of the legislative assembly. This process involved research, planning sketches and group decision making. Once the image was chosen, the room was measured and the students created large panels to paint the background on. Next they will decide what props are needed and the materials required to create their ideas.
Grade 6 recently visited the Gardiner Museum to see an exhibit by Gertraud Mohwald featuring uniquely sculptured clay heads and busts. In the Gardiner studio, the students created abstracted masks using similar techniques and materials.
