Month: October 2017

Grandparents & Special Friends Day

By: Meridian 1st & 4th Grade Buddies

Grandparents and Special Friends Day is a day when you celebrate your grandparents and special friends! It’s a chance for them to visit and discover the types of things you get to do at school. It’s extra special because your parents aren’t there that day so you get to spend your time with your grandparent/special friend who doesn’t know as much about Meridian as your parents do. During the day we participate in lots of activities and get to rotate and see different parts of the school with our guests and do some things that show what we learn, like publishing parties, but a lot of it is extra fun that does not happen every school day. We think it’s a great way to make our guests feel special while also learning together!

The interesting thing about special friends day is that it changes year- to-year. The themes of classroom activities change, and every grade level teams up with a specialist. It is just another thing that makes it exciting and fun to look forward to–you never quite know what to expect! If you bring the same special friend each year, they get to try something new as well, which is important especially since they may be traveling a long distance to spend the day with us. Some of us asked our grandparents to visit over 3 months in advance!

Grandparents and Special Friends Day is a time to share our learning, and reminds us that the Meridian community isn’t just the people in our school..it’s made up of all the people that we interact with every day and and throughout our lives. We can’t wait for the next Grandparents and Special Friends Day!

Being Buddies

By: Meridian Second & Fifth Grade Buddies

Having buddies at Meridian is awesome! It gives younger students a role model to spend their first years at school with, and gives older students a chance to practice setting a good example. Particularly with fifth and second grade buddies, because the fifth graders get to spend their last year at Meridian teaching and helping the second graders during their last year as a younger buddy. Next year, they will get to be role models to Kindergarteners!  It’s really nice to have someone outside of the classroom you can become close with. We love that we have a different buddy each year because it builds new relationships and we can have time to bond with multiple friends across grade levels.

When we interact with the Tilth garden or Washington Green Schools we usually get to do it as buddy pairs, which makes the projects seem even better. When we are in the Tilth gardens we get to engage with the environment in a positive way, which we do a lot at Meridian. It helps to be involved in the environment to actually see what we are learning about in class. It makes it much more personal, and participating with our buddies helps everyone understand how to help others and get involved in improving where you live. We start partnering with Tilth in Kindergarten, and that teaches us responsibility. During Community Service Day, we went off-campus with our buddies to pick up garbage and waste around the neighborhood. It’s important to help your community, and we appreciate those projects a lot, especially since we get to share those experiences with our buddies!