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Materials Needed:

• Paper
• Pen
• Address, envelope and stamp

To learn to use the proper form for writing a friendly letter to set a purpose for writing to present information clearly and logically

To question to obtain further information

To adjust language choice to audience and situation

To generate a list of ideas and choose those that are most effective for a particular purpose and audience to use language to explore and clarify ideas

To read and respond to the expressive writing of others

(From the Language Arts Curriculum Guide)

Activity Description:

After receiving a letter in return, the students might compile a book that will compare their life to that of their grandparent's, or add the information to a book about their family.

FAMILY HERITAGE ACTIVITY

A list of questions brainstormed from the students.

How did you get to school? How far was it to go?

Where did you Live? How big a city was it? How many schools did it have?

What games did you play?

What did you do on holidays? (e.g. Did you go camping?)

What toys did you play with? (Did you have lots of toys?)

Did you get an allowance?

What jobs/chores did you have?

Did you have a library? What was your favorite book?

Where did you play? Who was your best friend?

Did you have field trips?

Did you have class rules?

Were your teachers and parents very strict?

May 25, 1995

Dear Albert,

I started school over seventy years ago from a farm in Alberta. As we were out in the country, I went to a school with only one room and only one teacher. The classroom had about twenty-five students ranging from Grade one to Grade nine. As we lived a little over two miles from the school, my mother took me to school for nine o'clock in the morning and picked me up again a three thirty in the afternoon. She drove a horse and buggy which was how I got to school for the first two months. When I got a little older, I had to walk alone to school.

I saved any money that I got for Christmas or Birthdays plus I earned ten cents a day for sweeping the schoolroom after school. With a little help from my parents, I bought a bicycle' and as I recall, I paid $37.00 for it which was a great deal of money at that time.

The name of the school I attended until I finished Grade 9 was Roros, which is the name of a small place in Norway. Many of the students in my class came from Norway and they had to learn English when they started school. On the Prairies the schools were about eight miles apart so some children had to travel four miles to get to school. Many of the students rode horseback or traveled with horse and buggy.

I don't remember many of the games we played except tag and baseball. In the wintertime there was lots of snow, so we would sleigh ride and slide on pieces of board.

When I got older I had chores to do around the farm. Sometimes my cousin would come to stay. As I had no brothers or sisters, this was a treat for me and we would play with my dolls and toy dishes. On one holiday I went to a small town that was thirty miles away and stayed with my Grandmother for two weeks.

My father told me that if I would milk a cow every morning and every night and feed and look after a calf for a year, I could have the money the sale of the calf would bring. The calf became my pet and I cried when it was sold. On the farm there were always gardens to weed and barns to clean. In the winter there was lots of snow paths that had to be shoveled nearly every day.

There were lots of grassy fields to play on and many trees to climb or build hiding places under.

We did not have field trips and as the nearest small village was thirteen miles from the farm, I did not go there very often and never in the wintertime. If the temperature was more that 40 degrees below zero, I was not allowed to go to school.

As children, we knew we had to obey our parents and the teacher or be given quite sever punishment.

 Esther R. Drenford

General Brock School