Canada 150 Tulip Planting

Rouge Valley had the privilege of taking part in the Canada 150 Tulip Planting program to celebrate Canada's 150th Birthday. We decided to plant the tulips in our school's front garden.

Walking Wednesday Retrospective - After Six Years

Mr. Daffern sat down with some of Rouge Valley's Grade 8 Graduating Class and discussed what effect Walking Wednesdays has had on them. Six years ago, these students were the first class that to have the opportunity to go Walking!

Walking Wednesday Grade 8 Interview

Pictures from Tree Planting with Friends of the Rouge

Here are some pictures of the Grade 4 and Grade 5 classes on a field trip with Friends of the Rouge:

Hiking the Beare Wetland Conservation Area.

Mulch pile!

Finding a molted snake skin.

Finding a Garter snake in the mulch pile

Reptiles like the heat generated by the composting mulch.

An American toad.

Adding mulch to the base helps retain moisture for the saplings.

Planting wildflowers - Dense Blazing Stars.

Friends of the Rouge Watershed - Rouge Park Presentation

Friends of the Rouge Watershed

One of the ideas that the Eco Club proposed, was to do some tree planting with the Friends of the Rouge Watershed. Rouge Valley students had participated in the tree planting program before, but not in the last few years. In the intervening years, the Canadian government had declared its intention to turn the area into the "Rouge National Park". Rouge Valley students can take pride in the fact that they contributed to building a national park!

The Friends of the Rouge Watershed came to Rouge Valley and made a presentation to the students. They discussed: environmental awareness on a global level as well as what students could do to help the environment at a local level.

Orienteering

We introduced orienteering to the students today. All around the meadow, we had hidden some red poker chips, each with a unique symbol drawn on it with a permanent marker.

 After being reminded of the boundaries and the safe zone, students were asked to explore the meadow with a partner. The red markers were hung with a plastic tie at eye level. Students were asked to record the symbol for each marker that they found.

In future attempts, we plan to give students a map of the area, so that they can plot the location of the markers.

Eco Club

As part of the initiative to get Rouge Valley accredited as a TDSB Eco School, students and staff came together to form the Eco Club. The club meets once a week during lunch, to discuss and plan ways to spread environmental awareness, and encourage best practices with the use of energy and resources.

Aboriginal Peoples Unit - Tipi Diorama

After studying the tipi in Rouge Park, my Grade 5 students were inspired to build their own in the form of dioramas. The tipis looked amazing in the end but were actually quite challenging to build. The bamboo skewers that the students used for poles kept shifting. Eventually we had to tape them down onto the foam board.