Special Day at F.A.C.E. Elementary School

F.A.C.E. is one of Montreal's most famous schools. Every student here studies music -- some play several instruments! This year, the school is celebrating its 50th anniversary and my visit today coincided with a parade at F.A.C.E. Elementary School, which recently moved to its new campus on Christophe- Colomb Avenue. 

I was delighted when Ms. Mireille Tehbelian -- the school's vice-principal -- invited me to work with a group of Grade 6's, a group of Grade 5's and a group of Grade 3's. Only my visit with the Grade 3's got postponed on account of the parade. (I'm going to see them on-line tomorrow!)

So here come a few highlights from today's visit.

Students in each grade dressed in a particular colour for the parade. The Grade 6's wore black; the Grade 5's, purple.

I started my day with Miss Jasmine's Grade 6's. Miss Jasmine was wearing black too -- but she said that was pure coincidence. We played the letter game I like to play. We all came up with a list of words that start with P. Ben's favourite P word was precipitation (nice!); Laila had potato (potatoes are my favourite food!); and Miss Jasmine, who did the exercise, too, came up with petunia (one of her favourite flowers). 

When I told the students they'd be doing some writing exercises, a student named Tei nodded enthusiastically. Yay, Tei (that rhymes by the way)! Wow, that makes a triple rhyme!! And Ben made me happy when he said, "We need to practise more writing to get into high school." Excellent! Having a goal helps keep us motivated!

Ivan told us, "I like to read a book, then watch the movie." I asked Ivan whether it's the book or movie that's usually better, and he said THE BOOK!

After class, Freja stayed to chat. She said, "I really want to be a book writer. What's the most important thing I need to focus on?" Beautiful question, Freja! I think the thing you need to focus on most is WRITING (you'll need to write a lot to become a book writer.) Then, of course, there's reading! And all the other tips we did together today, such as including trouble in your story and asking What if?

Oh, I shold explain about today's pic! Because we weren't sure which students were allowed to be in a photo, I settled for a photo of a student's hand as she was about to begin a writing exercise. What I love about the photo is that it captures POTENTIAL! The page is blank, but who knows what she'll write on it?!

After lunch, I went to meet Mr. Sankoff's Grade 5's. Mr. Sankoff was away today, so I met the lovely substitute Miss Senka, who was a super attentive member of the audience! Thanks for that, MIss Senka!

I asked the students to guess what I do every single morning. I loved a student named Lucious's answer: "You start a new book!" Wow, that would be something, wouldn't it? But Lucious is kind of right, because I do write IN A BOOK every morning. I even brought my journal to F.A.C.E. to prove it!

We talked about the importance of practising -- a great subject for musicians. Daniil plays guitar, which he said, "takes a decent amount of practice." Alice (who noticed I was wearing an Alice in Wonderland T-shirt!) does akido. She told us, "before akido, we have to do stretches." That's exactly what I do every morning in my journal -- stretch my writing muscles! And Jahleel, who's into basketball, said, "I practice every day on the court near my house." Because you guys already have a sense of discipline it'll be easier for you to make writing a habit the way we talked about.

I thought I'd end today's blog with a little bit of writing a student named Larkin gave me permission to share here. We had done a memory exercise and when I was taking a quick peek at what the students were writing, I caught this lovely line on Larkin's sheet of paper: "Rough bark on the tree the day of the photo shoot at school in kindergarten." Can't you see and feel the rough bark? And I don't know about you, but I think a kindergarten photo shoot would make a great backdrop for a story. Larkin, I hope you'll develop that memory into a longer piece!

I'm signing off for tonight. But if all goes well, and I'm able to meet with Miss Amanda's Grade 3's tomorrow afternoon, I'll add a paragraph or two about how that goes.

In the mean time, thanks to Ms. Tehbelian for bringing me to F.A.C.E. What a special school you have! Thanks to the teachers for sharing your students with me. And thanks to the students for being fun, creative and full of energy. I look forward to hearing your music AND READING YOUR STORIES!!