During the month of September all classes created and contributed nature themed images to our school wide mural. The focus of this year’s mural is inspired by The Big Book of Belonging. In the words of the author,

 “The Big Book of Belonging celebrates the wondrous connections between humans and the natural world….Because we all belong to nature and nature belongs to us all” (Yuval Zommer)

In addition to the artistic creations, we also invited students, staff and parents to contribute their voices to our mural using I am From-poetry, inspired by author George Ella Lyon. These poems are written in list form with a repeated refrain. I am From poems encourage writers to think about more than the places they are from and to consider foods, sights, smells, sayings, family members, friends and ancestors in their communities and homes.

Student voice is highlighted on hand shapes and all 360 of our students contributed to the mural, staff voice is highlighted on heart shapes (we modelled this at our first staff meeting and then continued to work with the poem as part of a Pro-D activity) and parent voice is represented on stars (we shared the poem at our first PAC meeting and at our Community Welcome event). The combination of visual art and literacy work will be on display at the front of our school for the rest of the school year to honour and celebrate the diversity of our identities, experiences, histories, interests and backgrounds.

We extend a huge thank you to our mural committee members who contributed endless hours of their time to bring this collective work together. Thank you to all parents who contributed to our mural during our Community Welcome event. Thank you to our students for sharing their incredible creative talents along with their reflective written work.