What does home mean for you?
The reason we ask this question is that we have not been able to come up with one answer. We each have our own opinion on what a home means to each of us. There are not many of us that stop during the day to think about what our home means.
In our class, we have decided that it might be a good idea to think about our home on a deeper level because ultimately it provides many of our basic needs; food, shelter, water, clothing, warmth and safety. It is also a place that offers us privacy to be who we are and the freedom to make our own choices. Even in the home we can escape to our own space, in our bedrooms.
Even though it changes for everyone, what we do know is that a home can be a place for fun and excitement. We get together to have celebrations and holidays and invite our extended family to come there and celebrate our cultures. Our homes can be filled with games, electronics and toys — all to help us enjoy our time there.
Sometimes the home is a quiet place to go; sometimes it is a loud place to go. It could be a place where we relax and calm down after a bad day or a place where there are lots of things going on! It is a place to wash up — to stay clean and healthy each day.
Homes are made of different materials to make sure that it is secure. Based on our sharing of our own homes we realized that every home looks differently. Some of us live in condos, some in apartments and some in houses. Our homes have different people living in them, grandparents or even animals. Some of us have more than one home depending on how our family is made up.
So, if this is what it means to have a home, what does it mean if you don’t?
We are Grade 3 students at Glenbow Elementary and we are learning about ‘What it means to belong?’ in our classroom. We believe this is important because sometimes people are less fortunate than we are and don’t necessarily belong somewhere. Our project focuses on homelessness and how people without homes can’t meet their basic needs.
