Somehow, the teachers and students at Theresetta have already successfully finished term one! Many cannot believe that enough time has passed since the beginning of the school year to require a report card, but it truly is that time of year already.
Along with one term finishing, the first big sport season has also come to a close as both teams participated in the CWAJHAA volleyball tournaments on the weekend of Nov. 17.
The older girls team travelled to Caroline where they battled hard all day and came away with a win in the bronze medal match. After taking on the eventual champions, Lacombe Christian, in the semi-final where they lost the second set by two points, they moved on to play Koinonia School in the third place final. Taking home some more hardware to cap off quite the successful season for the Grade 8-9 squad was a great way for the team to finish. The girls’ team overall won six tournaments and many other games throughout the season. The Knights are going to be saying goodbye to eight players from Grade 9 this year, and they will surely be missed.
The boys travelled to Lacombe for their championship tournament. They played hard and came out third in their round-robin pool, just narrowly missing out on any semi-final games. The team had a surprisingly successful season as the average grade level of the team at any given time was about Grade 7.5.
We appreciate the parents that drove, cheered and fuelled, both teams the entire season. Also, the coaches who put in numerous hours and weekends to make such successful seasons happen for all three of the Knights teams this year.
The junior high Art class travelled to Edmonton on Nov. 14 for a very exciting and engaging field trip. The first stop was the Art Gallery of Alberta were students participated in a program demonstrating how to look at and discuss different elements of art. The students asked many great questions and by the end of the 90-minute session were feeling comfortable conversing about the art and its different aspects. After some free time to peruse the gallery, it was back to the bus and on to stop number two at Viva Clayworks pottery studio. Students enjoyed the opportunity to make two projects while at the studio. They all participated in a hand-built project that had them handcrafting their own clay cup.
The students shaped their handles and etched their own personal designs to make their cups unique. The second project was throwing clay on a pottery wheel. The students had so much fun learning the proper technique and trying their hand at throwing some pottery. They quickly found out that it only takes the littlest of movements to both completely destroy a pot or sculpt it into a beautifully smooth shape. All the students and teachers cannot wait to see the finished projects when they are finished being glazed and fired. It was a long day with many new experiences and techniques to learn, but the students enjoyed the trip and commented how great it was to get to attempt a variety of art forms.
The Theresetta Student Executive picked Career Day for the first Spirit Day of the year and the Theresetta students did really well dressing to impress in their future possible career choices. One of the fun things about being a teacher is thinking about where students will be 20 years from now, and Career Day helps bring that idea a little closer.
With the holidays around the corner, Theresetta gathered their annual donations of Operation Christmas Child shoe boxes. We collected a generous 42 boxes to send off to brighten the Christmas morning of many children. Thank you Theresetta community for your generous donations.
The Grade 3-4 class has been hard at work in math covering so many topics that they had a challenging day where Miss Loonen set up an addition and subtraction themed “Escape Room” for the student to break their way out. All the groups worked well together and refused to back down from the challenge until they broke out!
The kindergarten class attended class for their first Monday of the year on Nov. 19. They are now coming to school three full days a week. To celebrate their first three day week, they spent their Monday learning all about cookies. They read about cookies, painted cookies, and even made some delicious chocolate chip cookies with a little help from two of their moms. Dena Boxma and Sara Felzien helped with the baking.
Junior ATB was hosted at the school again on Nov. 22. There were 29 deposits made during the lunch hour and the Grade 4 workers did a great job accommodating all of the customers. Boston Slemp was the winner of the monthly gift card draw. While Jadyn Lefebvre and Jillian Heidecker took home some smaller prizes.
Also on Nov. 22, the Grade 3-6 classes enjoyed some sessions of sculpting pottery instructed by the Medicine Hat artist Annette ten Cate, of the current show from the Alberta Foundation for the Arts Travelling Exhibition Program, on display right now until Dec. 5 at Theresetta. The students got to ask lots of questions about the show, how the pieces were made, and about Annette’s life as an artist. After some explanation and instructions the students got their hands dirty sculpting their clay into the animal of their choosing. In line with the theme of the show on display, the students picked an animal, and a human activity for the animal to participate in, to create a whole story that goes alongside with their piece. The students did a fabulous job sculpting their animals and are excited to work more with their pieces in Language Arts classes to come.
Looking ahead, the basketballs were pulled out of their storage locker as soon as the volleyballs stopped bouncing this past week. Both Knights basketball teams are looking to get a few practices and some possible exhibition games before the holidays arrive.
Leading up to the holidays, Christmas musical preparations are well underway, there can be choruses and Christmas-themed lyrics heard throughout the hallways already after any music classes are dismissed. It is a joyous time around Theresetta!
All the children that helped donate to the 42 shoe boxes collected at Theresetta.
-By Kirsten Smawley
