Blue Sky School

I have been at Blue Sky School for a little over a year, and it has recently come to my attention that the core skills of Tae Kwon-Do and Blue Sky overlap in many ways. In Tae Kwon-Do, there are the five values, or as we call them, Tenets. The Tenets of Tae Kwon-Do are; Courtesy, Integrity, Perseverance, Self-Control, Indomitable Spirit At Blue Sky School, we also have values, or Ideals. We believe that the ultimate Learner will show all of these. The ideals of Blue Sky School are; Kindness, Curiosity, Responsibility  At first, you might not think that these overlap, but once we get into dissecting them, they all work together to create the best learner there can be. First, let’s tackle Courtesy . This one was the easiest to dissect for me. First of all, it’s a direct synonym for Kindness, as seen on Thesaurus.com. Courtesy and Kindness can also be shown in very similar ways. In Tae Kwon-Do, courtesy is shown by saying ‘Yes Sir/Ma’am’, and standing straight with hand...

How long does it usually take you to do your groceries? This past Sunday, it took us five hours and four different stops to get our groceries done! In this blog post I will share about starting phase two of my waste-free journey, purchasing zero-waste grocery products, and some big struggles we faced so far. This weekend when we were planning our meals for the week, we realized that while we are going waste-free we could simultaneously be supporting small local businesses. We started looking online for some kind of farmers market and we realized that there are quite a few in the Ottawa area. The one that ended up being most convenient for us was the Lansdowne farmers’ market, so we decided to try it! Then came Sunday, the day we tend to go shopping, and it was pouring rain but we went shopping regardless. We drove to the farmers’ market and when we got there we realized it was an outdoor market. It took a lot of will power but we got out of the car and did our groceries in the pour...

Top Ten Best Moments(Part 1) “Grace and Will at the thing” https://tedxottawa.ca/speakers-2019/ Intro I think I can speak for both Grace and I when I say that we had an amazing time at TEDx Ottawa. But before we get into that we should talk about how we were invited. We were invited because of our participation in a program at our school called Eloquent Ottawa which was created by the, you guessed it Canadian Institute of Mass Communications(Or CIMC). The CIMC just so happened to be a sponsor of TEDx Ottawa. With that out of the way time for the story of getting there. After school on the big day we jumped into Karen’s car and went straight to Pita Pit  to fuel up. Then we hit the open road and drove to the Tunney’s Pasture LRT station. We rode to Rideau and then set off on an adventure to find the NAC. We walked in the direction we thought it was for a few minutes until we were on some bridge. That’s when we admitted that we had no idea where it was. So we broke out...

On Monday the student vote was revealed after the Canadian election. In the Canadian election the Liberals won 157 seats. Conservatives were the official opposition with 121 seats. Bloq Québecois has 32 seats, 22 more than in the last election and the NDP lost over 20 seats, down to 24. The PPC did not win a single seat. In the student vote, a Liberal minority was also “elected” at 110 seats, with the NDP as the official opposition, with 99 seats. The Conservatives had 94 seats. “I felt that a lot of students were influenced by their parents, and that the NDP is more liked by the students,'' commented William, after being asked about the student vote. I personally feel that the student vote is a good show to hear the next generation of voters are going to stand. NATE

Goal posts! Now you’re probably wondering, what the heck are those? Let me explain.  As you may or may not know, each of the learners here at Blue Sky School have their own individual goals. They have all chosen these goals to work on during their free time, and we have had many systems to track these goals over our time in operation. But our newest way of tracking our goals are Goals Posts. Each goal post is different, and they are very customizable. We have already done around 3-4 iterations of them, each time adding something new. Today we added checking emails, and 20 minutes of numeracy every day.  As you can see from the photo below, each goal post is like a mini whiteboard with a permanent portion inside the whiteboard that allows us to check off our goals each day and then reuse it each week by simply erasing the dry erase. Will, a Blue Sky Learner says, “I think they’re very helpful to keep people on track while working and to be mindful of our goals” in reg...

“Sketch-noting is a fun and productive way for me to express myself artistically” -Alicia, Blue Sky Learner Lately at Blue Sky, we have been watching some intriguing documentaries on topics such as dreams, K-pop and anxiety. During this educational period, us learners are encouraged to sketchnote about the key points/information that stuck with us. Sketchnoting doesn't just have to be writing in fact, it can be fun to push ourselves to try doodle out some ideas for another perspective on how our brains generate ideas. 

During the Discovery Weeks at Blue Sky, we had the experience of doing a Design Sprint that would allow us to create our own theme park. The inspiration came from Shauna's love for Disney design. To pique our interest, she told us about the history of Walt Disney and all his projects. After Shauna had clicked the creative switch inside all of our brains, we couldn't wait to get started. We learned about the audiences we were targeting, brainstormed and constructed ideas. Finally, we made our way to the final steps, prototyping and testing. Each of us students took our ideas and started forming them into a visible creation. Some designs were 3D others were blueprints, some learners did brochures and others did drawings. It was as if our school had turned into a creative warehouse of amazing ideas and imagination. Once everyone was done prototyping, it was time to see if others liked our theme parks, the final stage had begun. Each learner had the chance to pitch their th...

Theme Park Design Sprint by Bella Day One Crazy 8s Crazy 8s is a quick way to come up with and plan ideas. “How does it work?”, you might ask. It works like this; first, you fold a piece of paper into eight sections. Then, set a timer for 40 seconds, and focus only on one section for the entire time. Repeat for all sections. Most of the learners have done Crazy 8s before, although the newer learners hadn’t, and it went surprisingly well. After we completed all the sections, we shared what we came up with. Day Two Disney stuff: On the second day of planning, we learned more about the Disney parks around the world to help inspire us. We learned about some of the behind the scenes, and secret things around the parks. Written plans: After we learned about the Disney stuff, we began to plan out our parks. We wrote, and drew ideas, and got our creative minds going! Feedback: After planning our parks, we taped them to the walls, and went around looking at everyone e...

During the first few weeks of school, if you check your social media feed, it is sure to be filled with the smiling faces of learners as they return to school. Many families have an annual tradition of getting dressed, putting on backpacks and holding signs of the grade a child is entering. Tracking these photos over the years is an incredible way to watch children grow up. On the first days of Blue Sky, we wanted to capture photos of our learners starting their new learning journeys. However, all of our learners are in multi-age groups and we don't focus on calendar age or grade level, we had to come up with a Blue Sky way to share OUR first days. As a result, we are proud to present our first ever "The First Day Of..." series where our learners capture what is important to them as they embark on this year's learning journey! This September, what firsts did you celebrate?