So this is Spring eh?

You know I said in my previous post that it looked as though Spring was finally arriving?....WELL I LIED!
We've had two more dumpings of the white stuff on consecutive weekends. Last weekend saw 15cm fall, and this morning we've woken up to another 15cm at least, and it's still coming down hard!
Bloomin' groundhog!
The early morning commute to Calgary tomorrow will be fun.....slippin' and a slidin' on the Deerfoot Trail all the way I think!

Spring is coming!

Well at long last, it seems as though the really REALLY cold weather might be behind us. I don't want to tempt fate, but it has been soooo much warmer and more pleasant here recently. Even when we have a cold day, it doesn't drop down into minus double digits, so it's a big relief.
Today is officially the first day of spring, and we are on target to have our warmest day so far - it's due to get up to about 14 degrees here today. Still plenty of sunshine, as seems to be the norm here. I reckon we have had about 80- 90% of our days here with blue skies and sunshine since we arrived in November. The only time we get cloud is when it snows. We still haven't had any rain, although we did have some sleet a couple of weeks ago which is the nearest we've got! It's all so different to what we are used to in the UK. So many people say 'How do you stand the cold?' but although it can be freezing, it's preferable to us for it to be cold and sunny than endlessly grey and damp.

Whenever the weather warms up so much, it's due to a Chinook, a warm weather front which blows in from British Columbia over the Rockies. You see it coming as it forms a Chinook Arch, like a firm arch shaped front of cloud over the mountains (see the pic here from our dining room window!) Then you know you're in for a pleasantly warm day or two.
The snow is melting away quickly now, but we still have a few piles out the front of our house as the front drive is north-facing. Across the street, everyone has their lawns back and, although the grass looks all brown and dead, I'm assured by the locals that give it a couple of months, and it will be green and pleasant again.

Not that that will be true in our garden until we do some serious landscaping and turf laying. As the weather improves, and the ground thaws, it is time to start thinking about sorting our plot out and changing the brown mud for something nicer to look at and play on! I guess it's par for the course when you buy a new home, but having never owned a brand new house before, it's all new to us!
First things first - a deck! At the moment we have a big 5ft drop from out patio doors at the back to the garden below! We need to get some decking people out to give us quotes, as a high deck like that needs decent footings and stuff - all beyond the simple skills of Mr Stophe! We also need a fence down one side of the property, and then some turf. As we live in a strict eco-friendly community, we have to observe all sorts of bylaws for water conservation too so it gets a little complicated if we want flowerbeds (we need built in irrigation systems as we can't use hosepipes etc). Having a deck will make such a difference now the weather is warming up. I'm dying to get out there and top up my vitamin D! We'll also need the obligatory HUGE grill (barbecue) that is part of any Canadian 'backyard'. They don't call them gardens much here, as a garden is more like a vegetable garden.

We are also busy preparing for Neil's mum to come out in 2 weeks time. We're off to IKEA to buy extra bedding next week, and are busy trying to plan a rough itinerary of places to visit whilst she's here. Lake Louise and Banff are definites, with a possible trip out to Drumheller to see the dinosaurs (!) and down to Head Smashed In Buffalo Jump (shorty catchy name for a place eh?) to see the sights. Calgary Tower will be another definite must-see....will she have the bottle to stand on the glass floor???? Time will tell! It's all very exciting to welcome our first UK visitor, and show them the sights and sounds of our wonderful new home. We're going to let the kids stay up extra late to pick her up from the airport, so they're very excited too!

Birthday boys!

Neil and Jake both celebrated their birthdays this week. Neil on the 1st, and Jake today (7th). Neil had to work on both days unfortunately, but we still managed to give him a lovely evening with a chocolate brownie cake and a lovely meal at the 'Big Rock Inn' Chinese restaurant.
Jake got a plentiful supply of hockey gear for his birthday, including a Flames shirt and a hockey goal so that he can stop slamming the puck into our garage door on a daily basis! He's been out since the crack of dawn practising his skills with his friend Tom. We're off to Boston Pizza tonight for a nice meal, and he has a fantastic birthday cake from Dairy Queen - although he doesn't know it yet - made from Cookie dough ice cream - mmmm!

school projects

The children recently had a week off school (lots of INSET days plus Family Day all lumped together to give them a mid term break) but both had major homework projects to complete. Jaz had a project where she had to show she understood the Water Cycle by creating a presentation about it, and Jake had to create a project which showed his understanding of chemical changes. Both of them really worked hard and created projects to be proud of. They found that taking part in the project really helped them to deepen their understanding, and we didn't really have any tantrums this time! Progress!

Mind your language!

Being Brits in Okotoks doesn't usually cause much comment from the locals, as many locals are also British too, and the others are so used to hearing British accents around town that it has long ceased to be a topic of conversation for most! However, venture into Calgary and it becomes more of a talking point.
Several facebook friends have commented on my growing Canadianisms in my writings, and I guess it's just a natural thing to adjust your words and expressions to fit your surroundings. Mostly you do it to make yourself understood amongst the local folk, as many can look at you quizzically when you say 'fizzy drink' instead of 'pop' or that you will 'ring' someone later rather than give them a 'call'. Although we share a language, there are many subtle differences that cause a little confusion at times, or, in my experiences at work, chuckles and gentle teasing about my 'funny English words'!
The children found out pretty quickly that if you ask your teacher for a 'rubber' rather than an 'eraser' it can have quite a different effect (hee hee!) They already correct us with their newly acquired knowledge of Canadian English, with the 'chips/crisps' debate, and the soccer/football thing too. Jumpers are now 'sweaters' and tops are 'shirts' even if they don't have buttons!
We've learnt to call shopping trolleys 'carts' now after confusing the people at Walmart on more than one occasion, and have mastered the essential coffee ordering lingo. We know our 'double doubles' from our 'regular non fat latte' now and don't feel a cold sweat coming on as we join the 'line up' not the queue, at the Tim Hortons or Starbucks in town.
Working with children with speech and language issues means that I have to be very conscious not just about the words I use, but also my accent and intonation. Little people often just look at me blankly when I pronounce words in a particularly English way and I am learning to Canadianize my accent at work, not just to make myself understood with my little wonders, but also to provide correct models of speech for them. This usually makes me quite Canadian on my return from work each day. I'll still be talking about 'budderflies' and rolling my 'r's like a local! I remember asking Raya to fetch her 'felt tips' back at the beginning of the year, only to be met with a quizzical stare, and a 'pardon me? Apparently they are 'markers' here. Raya is very strict with me and makes me 'say it properly' before we can continue our activities - so funny! The other day I warned her about 'watching the wire' that was trailing across the room from her mum's laptop. Very sternly, she put her hands on her hips and corrected me - 'Sarah it's a CORD not a WIRE!' I was told.

Canadians get very offended when people call them American and tell them their accent is the same. It is subtly different and we can now tell Canadians and Americans apart. It's all in the vowels. Canadians have a vowel shift called 'Canadian Raising' which means that words with a long 'igh' sound like 'right' or 'hike' come out as 'rate' and 'hake'. They also pronounce the long 'ou' sound as an 'oa' so words like 'how' come out as 'hoe' and 'mountains' is more 'moantains'.

There are a couple of things that Canadians seem a little confused or undecided about. They have an interesting mix of metric and imperial measures here. There are no miles, only kilometres on the roads, and litres at the petrol pumps too. Temperatures are in degrees Celsius unlike their neighbours to the south! However, measurements seem to mostly be in inches and there are still a lot of pounds and ounces around.
They also seem undecided about spellings. It seems that here, anything goes really regarding traditional English v American spelling. Although everything you read tells you that Canadians follow the English pattern of things with 'our' endings on words like 'colour' and 're' endings for words like 'centre', the reality is different. I don't think they get too hung up on it to be honest, which would match the laid back attitude to life of most Canadians.

Monster Truckin'!

Yeeha! We took the kids on a 'mystery tour' last night as an early treat for Jake's birthday, and to celebrate the end of the first half term. Jake has long been a fan of monster trucks, and watches them on TV, so when Neil heard that Monster Jam was coming to town, he couldn't resist!
I wasn't sure that Jaz would enjoy it so much but how wrong can you be? She was whooping and cheering on with the rest of the crowd and got really into the spirit of it. It was good family fun, and it was hilarious to see all the dressed up members of the audience in their mullet wigs and dungarees!
It was our first trip to the Pengrowth Saddledome, home of the Calgary Flames NHL team. It is a 20,000 seater indoor stadium which, as well as being a competition hockey rink, is also a concert venue. It was built just over 20 years ago for the 1988 winter olympics and gains it's name from it's unusually shaped roof. Jake is now desperate to go back and watch a Flames match. He's got really into the ice hockey scene here and watches the Flames games nightly on TV. Watch this space...I expect a return visit is imminent!

school stuff!

We've just attended 2 excellent events at the childrens' elementary school here in Okotoks, and it prompted me to write a little about their new school life.
Both Jake and Jasmine have just had 'student-led conference' evenings at school. The events are a little like 'open evening' in the UK, which is a chance to see their work and visit their classrooms, but with a bit of a difference. Here, the children have helped to set an agenda for the evening, which covers a wide variety of different subjects. There are different activities on the agenda, which include a chance to celebrate a small selection of their work, alongside practical activities involving parents too. It is a chance for the children to lead the parents through their learning process, and show them how they understand what they have covered so far. It was a lot of fun and really interesting.
Jake enjoyed sharing his excellent audio compositions on the Macbooks that he uses at school, and also showed us some amazing science skills, talking us through and showing us how to make 'gloop' slime! He shared some brilliant PE warm up games in the gym, which showed Neil and I just how unfit we are, as well as sharing some of his math achievements and written work.
Jas tested our listening skills in a fun game, where we had to guess a place she was describing from a variety of photos. Her descriptive language work in her writing was superb! Her teacher says she is a really talented writer and we have to agree! She also showed us a cool science trick and some of her wonderful art work.
It was wonderful to see them both so proud of their achievements, and they really enjoyed being able to lead the evening, and demonstrate their skills.
We continue to be really impressed with their new school. We always loved Brook Field so it was important to us to find them a school here that matched what we had in the UK. We truly feel that we've done that with DMG, right from the moment we looked around the school back in April last year, we felt the same sort of ethos and atmosphere in this school too.
DMG is a big school in terms of numbers of students (around 700 in all!) but doesn't feel that big when you visit. They have a policy of multi-aging, where most classes are mixed year groups, and classes are arranged in 'pods' or groups of around 4 together. Each pod has a mixture of year groups within it, from Kindergarten up to grade 6, and the children regularly mix together across the ages for special activities, with the older children mentoring the younger students. Classes are small compared with the UK - around 22 children, this is a deliberate thing to keep relationships between students and teachers more intimate and allow more time for personal bonds to develop.
The school has a 'diversity' programme of special needs inclusion, as well as very strong arts and music programmes (music being particularly strong) as well as sports activities.
The curriculum is balanced differently here, with more time devoted to arts and sporting activities. The children have PE every day (they have a HUGE gymnasium which can accommodate 3 classes at a time) and music 3 times a week with a specialist teacher, again in a special room with a large variety of musical instruments, enough for each child to have the same instrument at once.
The terms are arranged slightly differently, with no half term breaks and just a weeks break for Easter, and a really long summer holiday which is 8 weeks long! The children always finish an hour earlier on Fridays though, and only have half days on the last days of term.
The children carry a contact diary between home and school, and they use this to keep parents informed of events on a weekly basis. The children write in their diaries each morning when they start school, and parents can also write in notes for their teacher such as upcoming medical appointments etc. This cuts down on letters home each day, and makes the children responsible for informing parents about what is going on at school. It seems to work really well.
So far, our impression of Canadian schooling is a good one. The teachers are very caring and positive with the children. They seem to know them very well and Jake has even made a buddy of the school principal - Mr Hampshire! Apparently they share a love of motor racing and Jake is enjoying reading Mr Hampshires published children's stories about cars.