Hold on! Are those Seymour Students in that Dragon boat?

Students from Division 2 and Division 6 get ready to head out!

We do many things together as a school at Seymour school. Dragon boating in False Creek? Who could have imagined?

Students from Division 1 and Division 5 paddle together

Seymour students spent Thursday morning in the water.  In Dragon Boats! Every last one of us from our kindergartens to our Grade 7 students had the opportunity to be dragon boat racers thanks to sponsorship from the Canadian International Dragon Boat Festival Society and the guidance from Dragon Boat BC! Look below – that is all of us in the water down by Creekside Community Center.

Our morning learning happened in Dragon Boats!

After a warm up and suiting up in PFDs and grabbing a paddle, it was time to learn exactly how to paddle!

Learning how to grip the paddle

Then each group headed down the dock to climb into the boats and head out into False Creek.

Getting ready to get on the boats

In the boats we learned about the different calls we had to respond to as a team like: “Let it ride!” “Hold the Boat” “Back Paddle” etc

Students from Division 2 and Division 6 listen to paddling instructions

Can you believe we really got to paddle under the Cambie Street Bridge? Ever looked at a bridge from below? Pretty cool!

Should we paddle under the bridge? YES!!!

There were many best things about this day. No rain! A first experience for many – first time in a dragon boat, first time in any boat, first time seeing our beautiful city from a completely different perspective. Amazing school community building! Exposure to a new kind of sport! So many things to celebrate. It was especially meaningful to be out on the water and look into the other boats and see not just students and Seymour staff but also parents and volunteers. We might be a little school but we have a huge group of committed individuals who support us and it was lovely to share the day with so many people that are part of our community!

A special thank you to our wonderful volunteers, parents and practicuum students who joined us for this experience: Hazel, Nicole, Miles, Liz, Lianne, Sue, Stephen, Maryke and Kim.

Division 7 and Division 4 head out with big smiles, amazing volunteers and staff who didn't mind the extra splashing from our littlest paddlers

And then after an exciting hour in the boats full of paddling, racing and bird watching, it was all about HOTDOGS!! We had a delicious lunch together and shared highlights of our boating!

The K/1 class enjoys their lunch just outside of Creekside Community Center

Lunch line up bonding with big and little buddies!

This lunch line up was a lot of fun!

Thanks to generous donations from the Vancouver community and matched funds from Adopt a School we were able to pay for bus transportation to and from the Community Center.

When we returned to school many students did writing and pictures about their morning. Division 5 (Grade 2/3) wrote thank you letters and excerpts from some of these letters are included here: (Because kids say it best . . . )

Dear Dragon Boaters:

I got wet a bit but I had so much fun! Thanks. But why can we not see fish? From Jacky

I never in my whole life Dragon Boated! But now I have. I want to go again and again. From Carmen

It was good nobody fell in the water. I liked going under the bridge. It was hard pushing the water but I tried my best to do it. From Truman

Thank you for letting our whole school come boating. It was so much fun learning and going fast in the water. We loved eating hotdogs and hot chocolate. From Isa

Thank you for such a good time. I was a little scared at first but when I saw the boat, I knew it wasn’t going to tip over so it turned out to be okay. At the end of paddling my arms felt so tired that I had to go to the doctor. Just joking ha ha ha From Shae Lynn

I liked it when we raced. I won every race. I was in row 8. I’m 8 years old and it was my first time (I was scared) I had a blast. Thank you From Purity

Thank you for giving us the opportunity to go! One of my favourite parts was when we saw a black bird that kept dipping its head underwater. I’ve never been in a Dragon boat before and it was AWESOME! From Catriona

Holiday cookies and gingerbread houses! Lots of baking, icing and candy! Tis the season!

Thank you to Quality Moving Management (QMM) who came in on Thursday December 8th to decorate cookies with our primary classes!

A very organized table set up . . .

Turned into busy little decorators.

And everyone walked away with a few beautifully decked out cookies! Thanks for the hot chocolate and so much fun QMM elves!!

On Monday December 12th, our lunchroom turned into a gingerbread house making factory for both our intermediate and primary students. Thanks to our wonder volunteer Sue and all of her helpers from North Vancouver for bringing such an organized and sugar filled event into our day! So much fun!

It all started out like this . . .

Soon with icing and candy it began to look something like  . . .

Everyone was focussed on decorating (and a little bit of focus on licking fingers!)

And then back to the classrooms went rows of gingerbread houses! Wow!

Now what you won’t believe from these pictures is that a lot of candy ended up in little mouths. Seriously, there was that much candy! One on the rooftop, one in my mouth, one on the rooftop . . . Well, who could resist?

Lots of  joy!

Today was a lovely day!  Thanks to generous donors, clothing donations of new and gently used items have been flowing into our school! We have most of our kids outfitted for the current season and have stored some items for needs that arise later this year or into next fall. In the last two days we have had staff from nearby schools come and pick up boxes of clothing and footwear to use at their schools. Thank you to the donors that asked us to pass on donations that we couldn’t use and also to the staff and volunteers who have helped us sort through all of the donated items! We  were able to pass on a variety of items, all boxed and organized to Queen Alexandra, Macdonald (read this lovely story here) , Hastings, Grandview and Britannia. We also have a wonderful selection of rain jackets, rain boots and gently used clothing for the preschool children that will begin attending Strong Start this Spring.

The picture below was taken in the early days of sorting the donations, getting ready to distribute to our Seymour students.

Teacher Carrie Gelson stands in the middle of donated items

The generosity continues for Seymour students!

Today a student that attended Seymour ten years ago for just 3 weeks while waiting for placement at his neighbourhood school came to Seymour with his Mom and younger sister. Alex, Esmeralda and Mom Beatrix dropped off donations collected from friends and from the community of  Holy Cross Elementary in Burnaby for some of our intermediate students. We snapped a picture outside the door of the classroom where Alex was a Grade 3 student of Ms. Gelson’s in 2001. Esmeralda came along each day in a baby carrier with Mom Beatrix. The family remembered Seymour as a very special place and they wanted to help out with items on our Wish List. Beatrix also dropped off some wonderful home baked cookies that Division 5 enjoyed during our play time this afternoon.

Alex, Ms. Gelson, Beatrix and Esmeralda