Bentwood Boxes by Div. 15

Although June 21 is National Aboriginal Day, we celebrated all week long. Each day we heard traditional Aboriginal songs during the morning announcements.

On Wednesday, Mme. Haller and her Grade 6 students welcomed visitors to the opening of First Nation, First Art, First Step, their art exhibition exploring Truth and Reconciliation. Guests this week included Julie Parker, Brad Baker, John McGowan, Heather Myhre and Mark Pearmain from NVSD and Christie Sacre, our school trustee. Many parents and grandparents were also able to attend. Each student eloquently described their feelings about their artwork and the deep learning about reconciliation. The display will be in the Learning Commons until Monday afternoon.

Art by Evan Yu

Also on Wednesday, students from several classes learned a Cree Metis Friendship Dance.

We ended the week with a Squamish Friendship song played and sung by our some of our students.

Many of these events reminded me of the First Peoples Principles of Learning: “Learning involves patience and time.” I a

Thanks to the North Vancouver School District Grounds Crew, we have another bike rack! This one is in the back of the school and is already being used often. We hope it encourages even more students to bike to school.

If you look closely, you’ll see that our bike rack needs a good coat of paint. Thankfully, we have some parents who’ve volunteered to paint it. Please contact Kathryn Orde kathryn@orde.co if you’d like to help.

It started with cloudy skies. Grade 7s set up the stations they had organized. We gathered our House Teams in the gym. We gave the Traditional Welcome and sang Oh Canada. We started our colorful parade around the field. It rained. We started the stations. It rained some more. We ate popsicles in the rain. We went inside just before lunch and ate yummy pizza and chips and played quiet games until 1:00. Meanwhile, teachers gathered to eat their pizza (thanks, PAC!) and plan for a rainy afternoon. We adjusted our plans, postponing the hula hoop competition for another day and moving the afternoon’s activities inside.

We performed the cheers in the gym. Mr. Haywood announced that the Edgemont Eagles came first overall in the cheer, citizenship and station competitions. The sun came out. And stayed out and it got warm – better late than never, I suppose!

Thanks to the organizing team of teachers and office staff for another great Sports Day! Thanks to the PAC for the generous donation of pizza, chips and popsicles.