"One Thing" for Wed. Mar. 12

Guess the teacher's baby picture? Who knew this would be so exciting? The Me to We club set this up as a fundraiser for the victims of the hurricane in the Philippines 

and it has been a huge hit at the school so far. So much so, that I couldn't even move in the hallway at recess today there were so many people crowding around the board and table...


Here's the crowd:

And here is a close up (sort of) of some of our beautiful staff. Look at all those smiling photos. 

I'm in this one. Somewhere... 

So, please keep the donations and entries coming. It's for a good cause. 

"One Thing" for Tues. Mar. 11

Today at Diefenbaker, we had the Dufflebag theatre join us. Their website is http://www.dufflebag.com/ and they are an acting troupe based in Ontario that has been going for 22 years, with one of today's performers (named Marcus) having been with them since the start. Today's performance of "CINDERELLA/CENDRILLON" was done with a lot of the lines "en français," which was great for our French students. Students were called up to act as some of the roles and then the whole thing is what I would call "scripted improv" so it was pretty funny. Lots of laughter. At the end, some of our students got to ask questions and a couple of them even asked theirs in French which was "fantastique!"

Students, if you would like to ask a question of today's performers, but did not get a chance to do so, just send them a message by clicking HERE

"One Thing/Fun Thing" for Fri. Mar.7

I had the privilege to attend a fundraiser for KidSport last night and it was fantastic. All sorts of Richmond athletes were there including Angus Reid and Bobby Singh (BC Lions), former BC Lion Geroy Simon, Olympic rower Darcy Marquardt (who visited Diefenbaker earlier this year as part of the ESTEEM Team), Pasha Bains (Canadian basketball player) and others. The purpose of the night was to raise money for kids to be able to participate in sports when they are young. There were also several young athletes there and this was good to see. The purpose of the organization is not to develop elite athletes (like those mentioned above) but several of them got their starts when they were young.

They showed a couple of videos/ads about sport skills being "Life Skills" and I couldn't agree more. Kids need these skills and there are so many great life lessons that one gets by being part of a team or doing an individual sport, even if it's just at a recreational level. I have loved playing sports since I was young and many of my friends today are those that I have met through playing on teams together. After just finishing coaching basketball at the Hugh Boyd tournament with a group of grade 7 boys that made a lot of progress this season(many couldn't make a lay-up at the beginning) I feel that sport continues to be an important part of our lives and one that should be available to all kids growing up.

This one is my favourite: 

 

Way to go, buddy!

also pretty good:

"One Thing" for Wed. Mar. 5

Today was the start of the Hugh Boyd Feeder Basketball tournament for both our grade 7 boys' and grade 6/7 girls' teams.

Playing against Gilmore, the boys lost 32-16 in a physical game. Both teams played hard and Diefenbaker scored the first and last (as the buzzer sounded) baskets of the game. 

The girls team, playing against Dixon School had a lead until the late shifts and ended up losing their first game by just 4 points. They play later in the night cap at 7pm. 

The idea of this tournament is for the students to get a bit of an introduction to their high school and we will all be heading to do the same thing at McMath next week.  

"One Thing" for Tues. Mar. 4

Today was World Down's Syndrome Day. In Richmond, anyway.

The real day is on March 21st. Richmond School District got a bit of a jump on this by holding a special day at our school A couple of years ago, I wouldn't have known this. For the past two years, however, I have had a girl named Jodi in my class who has Down's, so now I do. Today, for what I believe was the 4th time, Diefenbaker was privileged to host Richmond School District's Down's Day. This is a day where all the students in the District that have Down's get invited. They played games, sang karaoke, danced, played BINGO, did lots of stuff in the gym (including the always exciting parachute) and got to hang out and not have to go to "school" for the day. Pretty neat stuff. There were quite a few people from the district there as well and this was good to see.

Today they also had a "Crazy Socks" theme. Unfortunately, I didn't get that message ahead of time.

Tamara Taggert, from CTV has a son named Beckett who has Down's. He goes to school in Vancouver, but she came to the event today and talked to all of the parents who came about her experiences with her growing son. She said her biggest fear was about him going to school. However, when he got there and she met the principal and saw that everything was about inclusion, she wasn't worried any more. She was very candid about everything including Beckett's birth and how it was trying to get him to eat solid food. Even though she apologized afterwards for "blabbing," her talk was amazing, inspirational and fantastic to hear as a parent. I'm glad I was there to hear it.

Sorry about the blurry pic, Tamara.