Learning Through The Arts (Part 1)

***I meant to post this last week. My apologies for the technical glitch. This post will give you an introduction to our work with Mr. Romaine and L.T.T.A.***

We are lucky to once again be taking part in Learning Through The Arts.  This is a program that pairs professional artists with classroom teachers.  We are working with Mr. Romaine who is a professional puppeteer.

Together, we are learning more about our community and community helpers, while learning to make puppets.  The students are enjoying each step of the process.  Yesterday, we began work on our community helper puppets.

It is a unique opportunity for the students, and myself to learn directly from an artist and gain deeper understanding from their expertise.

We will continue adding more detail to our puppets next week, and begin adding tools they might use on the job.  Stay tuned...

Helping the Community

WOW - thank you for your generosity! 

Our class has collected 105 cans for the Downtown Mission. 

Dear Parents:

We will be participating in Dougall’s annual Walk to the Downtown Mission on Wednesday, December 7, 2011.  The entire school will walk to the mission and deliver all the canned goods we’ve collected since Halloween.  Thank you for generously giving to support others in our community.  The walk will begin after morning announcements, and then we will return to the school as soon as we’ve dropped off our cans.  Please check the weather and send your child to school ready for the walk.  We are looking forward to taking part in such a worthwhile community outreach activity. 

Thank you once again for your support!                 

Making a Difference...

Thank you so much for your support of our Halloween For Hunger can drive.  We had a class goal to collect at least 50 cans.  Due to your generosity, we almost doubled that total and collected 93 cans!!  As a school, we surpassed our school goal and collected more than 1000 cans for the Downtown Mission.

Helping others in our community is very important not only to Dougall, but to the students in our class.  Thank you so much for supporting others in the community, and for truly teaching your children the importance of helping others.

Our can drive is not over - if you have any other cans you would like to donate, please keep sending them in.  As a school, we will take part in our annual walk to the Downtown Mission to hand deliver all these cans at the beginning of December.

I can't say it enough - thank you, thank you, thank you for giving!

Edu-Eco Week...

Last week was Edu-Eco week at Dougall.  Combining Education Week with a focus on our community and the environment.  Some of the activities during the week included:  recycle bin audits (to see how well we are recycling), lights- out one afternoon (to save energy) and a neighbourhood clean up.  The entire school was given areas in the community to tidy up - picking up litter and recycling.  We worked together with Mrs. Richardson's class to clean up the entire playground.  Working together, the students left the playground looking neat and clean.  Good work Dragons!!

Growing Gardeners

We are taking part in a community partnership with Ready-Set-Go.  Once a week, for four weeks, volunteers from Ready-Set-Go will be coming in to teach us more about the importance of healthy eating, and to teach us about container gardening.


Wednesday was our first visit, and we had a blast!  Miss Alyssa and Miss Mary Anne led us in a fun lesson of games, songs and activities.  Then, each student planted their very own carrot seeds. These came home on Friday, and we are going to try our best to watch them grow and take care of them. Miss Alyssa and Miss Mary Anne will return on Wednesday for our next gardening session. We can't wait to see what we will be planting next!

Our First Field Trip - Forster High School

On Monday, December 13, 2010 we went on our first field trip.  Our destination was nearby Forster High School.  We spent the morning at Forster with some high school students and teachers who organized a holiday gathering for Grade One classes from Forster feeder schools.  The students had a lot of fun.  The ride on the bus was very exciting...

Thanks for joining us Mrs. Papak!

Our first stop at Forster was to decorate cupcakes and have a tasty snack.  Check out some of the tasty creations...

Next we joined with the students in 1R to work off our cupcakes in a game of balloon Keep It Up. Everyone had a lot of fun!

The students also enjoyed making holiday cards for someone special...

The end of our morning brought a fun sing-along, and - SURPRISE - some gifts from Santa!

We had such a fun day!  Thank you to all the students and staff at Forster High School who hosted us. Thank you to a great group of parents who volunteered on the trip.  

THANK YOU Mr. Woodrow, Mrs. Squire, Ms. Pierce and Mrs. Pardalis -- we couldn't have done it with out you!