February 10th, 2021

We've taken literacy in a different direction recently by exploring the alphabet in Punjabi. Educator Jasbir hosted this learning experience one morning in the Film Room with our group and we loved every minute of it! 

We asked Jasbir to spell a variety of things like our names and the main colors of the rainbow.
It was really neat to watch the characters flow from the chalk in her hand so effortlessly! And we found that as we tried to copy her lines and curves it was much more difficult than it looked. We struggled to copy them, but really enjoyed trying and kept at it all morning!

Everyone really enjoyed this new way of exploring literacy and we developed an appreciation for just how diverse the alphabet can be outside of the English one we know so well. Jasbir taught us fascinating things about Punjabi, like how the color RED is not only a word that can be spelled, but has it's own character, too. We learned "kayla" is a banana and "apple" is a Seba. And we learned new things about Jasbir that might not have occurred to us before, about her education and her life back home. 

There was no shortage of questions for Jasbir, and that day the kids in Club 4/5 not only got a lesson in Punjabi culture, but they also realized that it takes someone incredibly smart to be able to come to Canada and learn our English alphabet and language, when they come from a place so vastly different than ours. We are very fortunate to have such diverse staff that cultural education can, and will, happen at any time!