Drawing Dragons

Farmer Smith has been teaching the students about the Three L's: Look, Listen and Learn. His dragon drawing activity reinforces this concept. The students look and listen and then learn how to draw beautiful pictures of dragons. Their wonderful artwork is featured in the scrapblog above.

Farmer Smith

The Eel Ground School is lucky to be involved in a District 16 project called CARE. Farmer Smith will be at the school for a total 5 weeks with his mobile chicken hatchery. With it he teaches children, that like chicks, dogs and cats, moms and dads, we all have 5 parts: thinking, caring, excited, bossy and impulsive. Children will learn lots about chickens but even more about themselves.

Keynote Presentations

The grade 5 and 6 students presented their Keynote presentations last Wednesday in the upstairs boardroom of the bandhall. The students did a fantastic job researching and presenting their information. I was particularly impressed with the technical quality of their Keynotes. Thanks to the parents who attended this activity.

Eel Ground Artists

Artist Heather Johnston has been visiting the grade 3 and 4 class each Friday for the past several weeks. She has been leading the students through art activities that explore various styles and techniques. Heather has been particularly impressed with the work of Lynzie and Riley. Some of their work is featured in the slideshow above.

"Canada Is"... A Success at DramaFest

The Eel Ground Drama Club had another successful run at the NB DramaFest. See the press release below:

The Eel Ground First Nation School Drama Club came away from the 2008 New Brunswick Provincial Drama Festival in Fredericton, NB with kudos from both of their adjudicators and seven certificates of recognition. The mentions included outstanding work in: Direction, Original Script, Actress (Felicia Dedam), Actor (Braden Simon), Use of Costume, Use of Set and Overall Production.

Their original production of " Canada Is...." was an original script written by drama teacher, Johannes Bosma, based on the research of the grade 7 and 8 class on the different ethnic and cultural groups in Canada. It tried to show how different groups contributed to making Canada what it is today. It ended with a healing circle that included many of Canada’s diverse cultural groups who acknowledged some of the wrongs in the past with a plea to work together to build a better future for all. As the final healing voice summed it up: “Creator, allow us to age together in love as we learn to share this great land and our unique experiences. Help us to forgive as we are forgiven; help us to show respect not prejudice; help us to be open to understanding not closed by ignorance. Help us to be better Canadians.”

The eager Eel Ground thespians are enjoying their latest successful production and all those not moving on to the high school are looking forward to the 2008-2009 Eel Ground First Nation drama season.

Awards won by Eel Ground First Nation for
“ Canada is…..”
1- Outstanding Production
2- Outstanding Actress- Felicia Dedam
3- Outstanding Actor - Braden Simon
4- Outstanding Teacher-Director-Johannes Bosma
5- Outstanding use of Costume
6- Outstanding use of Set
7- Special Mention for Originality

Canada Is

The Eel Ground Drama Club will be presenting their play, 'Canada Is', this afternoon at the Eel Ground Band Hall. They will also be performing the play at a dinner theater tonight at the band hall. The dinner theater starts at 6:00 and the cost is $10.
The students will perform the play tomorrow afternoon at the MVHS theater for a group of middle school students from around School District 16. The Drama Club heads to Fredericton for Drama Fest on Monday.
The Miramichi Leader did a story on the new play yesterday. You can read it online here:
miramichileader.canadaeast.com

Logo Designed by Randy Patles

Eel Ground Hot Lunch Program

Ethan reports on the Eel Ground School's new hot lunch program.

Fish Friends

The students in Mr. McKay's class are involved in the Miramichi Salmon Association's Fish Friends education program. Student reporter Quai provides this story. Watch the video above.

This news story will be featured in the next broadcast of the District 16 Report, a monthly news broadcast being produced by School District 16 High School Students.

2008 National Awards for Excellence

On April 24th, the Kaiser Foundation Recognize it's 2008 National Awards for Excellence Winners. The awards ceremony, held at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Calgary, recognized the outstanding work undertaken by organizations, communities and individuals from across Canada in reducing the physical and mental harms associated with substance use and mental health issues.
Eel Ground was honoured to receive the Award for Excellence in Aboriginal Programming. Mr. Mac and Felicia were at the event to accept the award on behalf of the school. The following text is from the awards program:

The Eel Ground First Nation School drama club program uses an innovative approach to the arts to teach students life and coping skills through drama, music and other forms of media. The program helps students connect to their culture and has inspired students to deal directly with issues common to first nation communities, such as Fetal Alcohol Syndrome Disorder (FASD) and teen stress and suicide. Movie versions of the students' plays have been shown across Canada, inspiring students from other communities to follow the lead of Eel Ground School.

Short Film Score

The grade 7 and 8 students have been working on a Garageband activity. Each student was given a copy of a short film that was created by Braden, Sacha, and Jade. Their assignment was to score the video. Students used music and sound effects to help tell the story. All the students did a fantastic job. Here are a couple of the scores that stood out:

The Milk Man, Shot and Edited by Braden, Sacha and Jade, Music Scored by Aaron

The Milk Man, Shot and Edited by Braden, Sacha and Jade, Music Scored by Dilan

Sounds Like Canada

The Eel Ground School was recently featured on the CBC Radio program Sounds Like Canada. Host Shelagh Rogers interviewed Felicia, Mr. Mac, Mr. Bosma and former student Dylan. You can listen to the program by clicking here and scrolling down to the March 25th story.

Winter Stories

Mrs. Duplessie's Grade 2 and 3 class and illustrated wrote winter stories. Watch the video above to listen to them.

Happy New Year

The staff of the Eel Ground School hopes everyone had a great holiday and would like to wish the community a Happy New Year!
Everyone is excited to get back to work and have a fun, learning filled 2008.

Merry Christmas

From the staff and students of the Eel Ground School, Merry Christmas. As we wish the best to you and your families during the holidays, please enjoy the grade 5 and 6 version of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.

The 2007 CUTE Award for Best School Web Site Goes to...

Congratulations to the staff and students of Eel Ground School for winning the School District 16 CUTE Award for Best School Web Site. The Eel Ground School site has been visited over 6000 times since the beginning of last year with visitors coming from all over the world.

It Sorta Sticks To Ya!

The Eel Ground School has been featured as the cover story for the latest edition of the Bread 'n Molassess magazine. To find out where you can pick up a copy, visit the Bread 'n Molassess website.

Volcanoes

Ms. Larry's grade 5 and 6 class recently completed a unit on volcanoes. As a culminating unit project, each student constructed their own volcano. When the students finished their volcanoes, they 'erupted' them by mixing vinegar (an acid) and baking soda (a base).

Students also remixed video of the 'eruptions' using iMovie and added a soundtrack that they created with Garageband. Check out Hunter's video above.

Is a Black Marker Just a Black Marker?

Last week, students in Mrs. Duplessie's Grade 2 and 3 class conducted an experiment to test what different colors of ink are combined in making colored markers.