Melody in Hartland, Wisconsin

Mrs. Nelson's 5th grade class

Swallow School

United States

Hartland, Wisconsin
(Melody #018B0114)

Melody has joined our fifth grade class studying the Revolutionary War. She is joining our patriots during recess, Spanish class, art, phy. ed., music, band, choir and all of the core curriculum. Unfortunately, she had a hard time rollerblading in gym class, but we think she enjoyed being pushed by us in our rollerblades. She loved coming with our students to Family Art night. She experienced seeing a lot of our students' talents. She especially liked our musical performances.

One thing we learned by having Melody at school, is she faces many challenges that most do not. She would have a hard time navigating parts of our building, and we found our classroom would need some modifications. Our class reflected on the every day challenges that Melody faced and had some great discussion about this.

Melody in Surrey, Canada

Mme Keogh div 12

Martha Currie Elementary

Canada

Surrey
(Melody#018B0114)

Today it is February 25th, and it is a snowy day in Surrey. It is our last day with Melody.

We think Melody had a good time with us, but she may have found our class difficult to understand. You see, we’re a French Immersion classroom, which means we speak French almost all day. Aurevoir Melody, bon voyage!

Melody in Surrey, Canada

Mme Keogh, Div 12

Martha Currie Elementary

Canada

Surrey
(Melody #018B0114)

On Thursday, our class took Melody to the Honeybee Centre. This is a place in our community of Cloverdale that studies honeybees in agriculture and makes honey.

The Honeybee Centre makes many flavours of honey; one of them is cinnamon. We think Melody would have really like this flavour. She also tried eating the honeycomb, she might have found this a little waxy compared to honey. At the Honeybee Centre, we also visited a room called the Bug Lab. In this room there were all sorts of different insects and arachnids such as tarantulas, stick bugs, scorpions, beetles, cockroaches, centipedes, and of course bees. We’re not sure how Melody would have felt about all these insects. Maybe she would have found some of them disgusting, and others really interesting. We also got to make beeswax candles. The wax came in different colours. We enjoyed this activity, though Melody would not have been able to make one herself. We’re not sure if she would have enjoyed watching us make candles, or if she would have felt left out of the activity. At the end of the visit, we took a test on bugs. Melody would have rocked it. She has such a great memory that the test would have been easy for her as long as someone would have helped her put the information into her Medi-Talker.

Melody in Surrey, Canada

Mme Keogh, Div 12

Martha Currie Elementary

Canada

Surrey
(Melody #018B0114)

Over the weekend, another student took Melody home with her. Together, they went to the local park, to Choo Choo’s Restaurant, to gymnastics and to the skating rink.

She had a very busy weekend. She brought a friend from class to join them at the skating rink. At the rink, they ran into three other girls from our class! She noticed that the rink is wheelchair accessible, but she’s not sure if regular wheelchairs are allowed on the ice. At Choo Choo’s, there were no stairs, unlike the restaurant she visited in the book, so it was easy for her to enter. Melody would have ordered the macaroni and cheese.

Melody in Surrey, Canada

Mme Keogh, Div 12

Martha Currie Elementary

Canada

Surrey
(Melody #018B0114)

One of our students took Melody swimming to the Surrey Sports and Leisure Centre.

While he went swimming, his mom and brother took Melody in the elevator to get up to the viewing area, since she couldn’t take the stairs. They also took a few pictures outside with Melody with one of the bears from the Winter Olympics in 2010. He noticed that if Melody wanted to go in the water, she would need a special wheelchair, and she would need to use a lift to get her in and out of the water.