"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.

"One Thing/Fun Thing" for Fri. Feb. 28

It's the end of February. Wow. That was fast.

Here's a pretty amazing video (not all shot in one take) of a boy who has clearly put in his 10 000 hours to become an expert in his field (as per Malcolm Gladwell) of trick bike riding. The fact that he even looks at the possibilities of doing the things he does on a bike is amazing.

And a late addition. A couple of our students were on the CTV news last night for their involvement in RYBL basketball here in Richmond.
Sorry, I was unable to embed this one. It's part of Perry's Prospects.
So CLICK HERE to see a couple of our students

Have a great weekend everyone.

"One Thing" for Thurs. Feb. 27

Last night, Dr. Brandy Wiebe, representing Saleema Noon's organization came to Diefenbaker to speak to our students about sexual health for adolescents.

Today she came to speak with our students in three multi-aged groupings. I attended two of these sessions and found them to be informative. I also was impressed by how much the students already know about what Dr. Wiebe likes to call "Body Science". She included some funny facts and the students giggled a little bit, but overall approached the topic with a level of maturity. Many students also asked thoughtful questions and this led to good discussion about what it is like being an adolescent in the year 2014. Some of them were sent with a bit of "homework" to go home and ask a trusted adult the questions that they may have had lingering after the session today, so we encourage parents to have a conversation with their son or daughter about what they talked about today.

If you are looking for more infomation on this topic, you can go to Saleema Noon's webiste: http://www.saleemanoon.com/

"One Thing" for Wed. Feb. 26

Today was Pink Shirt Day and we had a lot of pink around here:

Pretty in Pink:

Division 2:

Ms. Mathis and Mr. Rollins (turn down that pink!)

This afternoon, we got into our multi-aged Bulldog teams to do some "work" on Standing up for things that we believe in. We wanted to frame things in a positive light and make a statement that we believed there are actions we can take to help "Erase" Bullying, rather than simply talk about an "Anti-Bullying" message.

  "Acceptance"

Two members of a team share a seat

After getting together in our classrooms, the teams then designed and coloured shoes that represented what we "Stood For". 

Here are a few of the examples:

Creativity

Enthusiasm

Empathy

Uniqueness

Happiness

Respect

Thanks to the teachers who helped put this together (Ms. Hinks, Ms. Park and Ms. Matheson). Altogether, we had 32 different words and each group completed one of these posters. Come by the school and check them out. Hopefully our message, and the work we've been doing as a part of "Friendly February" will continue long past today. 

"One Thing" for Tues. Feb. 25

It was Science Jam over at the Aberdeen Centre today and several Richmond schools were involved. I have never been at a school that has participated in the Science Jam but have been to the mall a couple of times to see the experiments on display. 

Janice Novakowski was there today and put together this cool video display using "Animoto" of many of the projects, participants and even the School Trustees who were there. 

http://animoto.com/play/aL3OWESGPI0tvKPYokGkEQ

It looks like there were a lot more inquiry type of projects than there used to be in the past where students would just "reuse" someone else's science experiment "in a can" from years before. Students actually coming up with ideas, hypotheses and then creating an experiment themselves. Good to see.