Hobby club
At Summerhill Elementary, the students’ interests are fostered, encouraged
At Summerhill Elementary School, hobbies are serious business.
Not only do students have a whole lot of fun doing them, they also get to share their favourite pastimes with their classmates through school projects and clubs.
Grade 4 students Keely Clowater, Victoria Forbes and Brittany Legacy are part of the District 17 skipping club.
The 10-year-olds are among a number of students who will be travelling to other schools to share their passion.
The girls enjoy skipping because it's active, says Brittany.
"I like that we get to do little groups with our friends and have skip-offs," says Keely.
"I think it's just pretty cool that everybody gets to participate and everybody is having fun and helping with the jump rope part," says Victoria.
The girls got involved with skipping because students came to their school to demonstrate, says Keely. They're looking forward to doing the same thing for other schools now.
Ten-year-olds Miranda Hill and Megan McKeever agree that art is their hobby of choice.
The Grade 4 students demonstrated their ability in this area when they each created islands for a school project.
Miranda's was music island and Megan's was athletic island, with creative homes, foods and jobs for the residents.
The art, evident in both projects, helps bring out their creativity.
Noemie Landry, 11, enjoys designing in her free time.
"What I like about designing is you can express yourself by drawing clothes," she says.
She's been doing it for about five years and hopes to some day turn this hobby into a career, either as a fashion designer or top model.
"My favourite thing to design is dresses," she says, such as ballgowns.
Noemie is a Grade 5 student in a Grade 4-5 split. She's not the only one in her class with a unique hobby, though. Classmate Alistair Lentz, 11, collects rubber bugs.
He got started, he says, "really, just typical, like bugs."
The usual boy stuff, he says.
"I thought they were really cool," he says.
Though Alistair says he has had second thoughts about becoming an entomologist, he adds, "I still have this drawer full of rubber bugs."
Grade 4 students Abby Sinnett, 10, Riley McCrea, 9, and Emma Paget, 9, have each created posters about their hobbies.
Abby is interested in photography.
"You can do it anywhere you feel like it," she says.
Her favourite things to take photos of are her family, friends and nature.
Riley, on the other hand, is interested in maple syrup - making it, that is.
"I like eating the syrup," he says.
Collecting Webkinz is Emma's favourite thing to do.
"Everybody has them, but I probably have the most," she says.
Currently she has 46 of the popular stuffed toys. Emma likes the fact that you can play with them online, yet still have this fun toy to play with anytime you wish.
Her favourite out of all the Webkinz she has is an adorable duck named Puddles.
Grade 3 student Aidan McKenzie, 8, is a big fan of chess.
"It started a couple years ago with my brother, he started playing chess, and I told him I wanted to learn," he says.
His brother, Alex McKenzie, told him he couldn't teach him, says Aidan, "but luckily we have a chess set that shows how the pieces move on the back of it."
That's how he learned how to play. As far as he is concerned, there is plenty to enjoy about this game.
"I love the strategies that you have to know," he says. "I like everything about it."
He likes that you really have to think about what you're doing, he even likes how the chess pieces look and the way they move.
It's definitely a mental game.
"You have to really think and you have to look all over the board to see if there is any way you can get a piece destroyed if you move there," says Aidan. He enjoys the game so much that he's told a lot of his friends that they should give it a try.
Summerhill Elementary School is holding a showcase on Thursday, May 15, at 6:30 p.m., which will offer a great opportunity to check out all the great things the students are up to. The public is welcome to attend.
More Balance
Search Articles
More CE Network Sites & Partners:
