Visiting a school on the last couple of days of the year is always interesting to say the least.
There are kids in the hall packing their belongings, there are people in the gym stacking chairs and everyone is generally in a good mood. Summer is here … finally.
A class at Meadowview Public School however wanted to share a final project that they have been working on since November before completing their year. The program was called “Who is Nobody” which is sponsored by the Rotary Club and information is available at www.whoisnobody.com.
In a conversation with teacher, Ms Elissa Blake, the 19 students came up with some original ideas on how to have their doll become a somebody. Each child was given the opportunity to take the doll home for a week and they were asked to come up with a way to give their doll a personality.
When we brought ‘Nobody’ home we made more hats to make them our donation— Hannah, grade 1 student
Initially before the doll left the school a penny drive was started to raise awareness of the project as well as give the children an idea of what was expected of them. Some fo the ideas the students and their families came up with were donating to the humane society, giving books to the school, making hats for newborns and premature babies and raising funds for juvenile diabetes.
Others focused on donating to ‘Loaves and Fishes’ and others collected cans and metal tops for the Shriners and Eastern Star respectively.
Megan of Ms Blake’s class said, “I did a report on healthy eating. I donated to ‘Loaves and Fishes’. We then put a mouth on ‘Nobody’.” Megan mentioned she also handed out the Canada Food Guide to her classmates. She had her picture taken when she made her final report to the class as did each of the students participating.
Hannah, of the Grade 1 class was also very proud of her idea for ‘Nobody’. She and her mom were already knitting hats for premature and newborn babies so they kept on knitting. “When we brought ‘Nobody’ home we made more hats to make them our donation.”
‘Nobody’ then sported one of the hats which Hannah had made on a loom which she brought to show the class when she made her presentation.
The class finished the project by making a scrapbook to leave in the classroom as a momento and to inform others about the project and how they made ‘Nobody’ a ‘Somebody’.
Meadowview students in Ms Blake’s class pose with the ‘who is nobody?’ doll and display.
Photo: Wendy Healey
This article was published in The Mural newspaper on July 9th 2008
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