News

International Day at Kells Elementary was a great success yet again this year, with 38 cultures represented. Our young students celebrated their heritage, wearing a cultural dress and sampling food from countries as diverse as South Korea, Iraq, Lebanon, Australia, Iran, Mauritania, South Africa, Brazil, Japan, Turkey, Israel, Syria, Italy, France, and Britain. Each participating student prepared displays highlighting the richness of their cultural traditions.

Parents, friends, and relatives of our elementary school children were invited to participate, and we were thrilled to welcome a full house, with everyone enjoying the displays and variety of tasty treats.

Kells parents in attendance best sum up the benefit of this annual activity:

J.K. Rowling, the famous author of the Harry Potter book series, once said,“I don't believe in the kind of magic in my books. But I do believe something very magical can happen when you read a good book.”

Kells believes in the magic of reading; and, therefore, encourages good reading habits from the early years. While reading is one of the foundation blocks of a good education and reading comprehension was seen as the mastery of a student's ability to identify words, ideas and cause/effect relationships in a text, today we have a deeper and more complex understanding of how it benefits our children's brains as they grow.

At Kells Academy, we work hard to provide extraordinary opportunities for students to learn through hands-on activities and field trips. To mark the “sugaring off” season this spring, we visited Sucrerie de la Montagne, located on top of Mont Rigaud. The day was filled with opportunities to learn more about local history and authentic French Canadian culture.

All of our students were able to engage in Quebec traditions, while learning about the process of creating real maple syrup. A delicious “sugaring off” meal, music and dancing, as well as a horse-drawn wagon ride rounded out the day. The sugar shack’s commitment to preserving the customs and history of the property allowed us to explore a time long ago in Canada’s past.

Read on to see what adventures the cabane à sucre had in store for us!

Kells Academy is committed to instilling strong, universal values in its students, teaching them the importance of positive action, community service, empathetic acts of kindness, and global friendships, and students have recently put these values into action by forming their own chapters of the WE Club and giving back to the community.

WE Charity, formerly known as Free the Children, is an organization focused on international development and youth empowerment. Founded by Craig Kielburger in 1995, when he was only twelve years old, the organization has since evolved into one of the top-rated charities in Canada, running development programs in nine countries, as well as programs in the US, UK, and Canada aimed at inspiring children and youth to become socially engaged global citizens. The charity aims to break cycles of poverty around the world by focusing on five key pillars: education, water, health, food, and opportunity.

Here’s how students at Kells Academy have taken up WE Charity’s mission of creating transformative social change by starting their own chapters of the WE Club and learning how to become active citizens in their communities.