Day In The Life Of A Touchstone Student
The Touchstone school day is never boring! Each day offers a series of engaging activities for our students, designed to provide a healthy mix of structured classroom learning, outdoor free play and physical activity.
Our school day starts at 8:30am and finishes at 3:00pm. Classroom activities include whole class lessons, small group work and dedicated one on one time with the teacher. Art, music, French, and physical activities occur frequently.
Art
Art lessons are incorporated into our school days on a regular basis.
Keeping with our approach to academics, we do not create cookie-cutter crafts. Instead, our students learn about real artists, their lives, techniques, and styles and then create art inspired by the artist being studied.
Music
Every Touchstone class has a weekly music lesson with our specialist teacher. Similar to art, our students enjoy an expanded music curriculum.
They learn about composers, styles, periods, basic theory, music around the world, and music appreciation. They enjoy the opportunity to perform at annual student productions.
Physical Activity Time
Recess: 1 hour per day minimum
- Optional 25 minute early morning recess if students arrive at 8:00
- Rain or Shine Recess - we go outside and enjoy all kinds of weather. Puddles are fun!
Phys Ed: 30 mins per day
Outdoor Pursuits: Weekly lesson as a minimum, often more frequent.
French Language Focus
In our bilingual province, the development of French language skills is important! Our students have a 30 minute French class every day in all grades from JK - grade 5.
Phys Ed class, “Energized French,” is also taught in French providing another 30 minutes of daily French instruction and practice!
How the Touchstone Day Compares
In Kindergarten, our students are in school for more than an hour longer each day than in other local schools. Even with all this extra time to learn and play with friends, our Kindergarteners usually don’t want to go home at 3pm!
In Grades 1-5, Touchstone students are in school for approximately one more hour each day than they would be in our neighboring schools. They also enjoy monthly field trips, extended recess and daily Phys Ed.
Touchstone students are known to complain when we have a snow day - they’d rather be having fun at school!
