You can now find out what’s for breakfast and lunch at every school on every day of the year. You can even find out nutritional information. Just visit the Dining section on the new DMPS Mobile App. If you don’t yet have the app, click the header to download it for Apple or Android and learn more about its many features.

Eight-year-old Truman rockets past his friends at Union Park during the annual Downtown School picnic. Students and their families gathered to play together, enjoy the beautiful fall temperatures and climb on board the carousel for free rides! Thank you to the Downtown School PTA for sponsoring this fun event.

Kindergarten and first-grade students are visiting the Center Grove Apple Orchard for hands-on experience during their apple unit. In the photo, Sayde Soyer learns how the orchard weighs down the branches of an apple tree so more of the leaves can receive the sun’s healthy rays!

Downtown School students Corinne Hyman and Callahan Stone use insect nets at Gray’s Lake Park to catch butterflies, examine them and identify characteristics that make them similar and different. The 7/8 year old age group is also studying the reason behind the decreased population of Monarch butterflies and the life cycle of the insects.

Des Moines Public Schools social worker Steve Gonzalez is being honored at the Iowa School Social Worker award luncheon at the West Des Moines Marriot on Nov. 7. Gonzalez has worked with young children at the Downtown School and young adults at North High School. To read more about his achievements, click on the image.

Downtown School students took a field trip but they didn’t go to the zoo or the park. They spent their away time making Meals From The Heartland. Each meal package will feed up to six people. To feed a family of six, it costs just $1.20. The meal package contains rice, soy protein, vitamins, minerals and dried vegetables (carrot, onion, tomato, celery, cabbage and bell pepper).