School Closure Friday, February 10

Please see this important update from our school website regarding school tomorrow.

Please be advised that all schools in the Kimberley Zone will be closed on Friday, February 10 due to the continuation of extreme winter conditions. There will be no buses running and parents are advised to keep their children safely at home.

Thank you and have an excellent long weekend.

Reminders for next week:

Monday:

• Family Day - No School

Tuesday:

• Valentines Day - wear red or pink 
• Trekking

Wednesday:

• Winter Carnival (am) Dress Prepared to spend the morning outside. Spare clothes (socks, at a minimum) are recommended!

Thursday:

• Hot Lunch

Friday

• Spelling Quiz (Words went home this past Wednesday)

February!

It's already here! 

January seemed to whiz by and here we are waiting to see if Mr. Groundhog will see his shadow tomorrow or not. We have a very busy schedule this month so please make sure to read the Newsletter and check our school Calendar frequently. 

Tomorrow: Last Skating Day!

Friday: Food Bank Wrap Up - this will be the last day to bring in donations for our Food Bank. Our class has been incredibly enthusiastic about this project and we have started some amazing data collection and graphing projects with our donations. Thank you so much to the families who have been able to offer donations. 

Monday, Feb 6th: Ski Day #1 :) 

Friday, Feb 10th: Hundred's Day! Dress like you are 100 - please see the notice sent home for various ideas to inspire your imagination. 

Monday, Feb 13: BC Family Day. Enjoy your day with your family :) 

Tuesday, Feb. 14: Valentines Day. I will be sending home a class list with all students names on it if you would like to make Valentines for our class. I ask that if you choose to send Valentines to school that you please include one for everyone. 

Wednesday, Feb 15: Winter Carnival inspired outdoor activities all morning. Dress for the weather. 

Thursday, Feb 16: Hot Lunch

Friday, Feb 17: Pink the Rink after school (Kootenay Ice, Cranbrook)

Valentines List

Mrs. Pasiechnyk

Roxii B

Drake C

Kaleb C

Avafei C

Benjamin E

Nicholas G

Emily G

Koen H

Page H

Narayana H

Tyler K

Leila K

Bodhi K

Connor M

Curtis M

Kate P

Sawyer P

Carson R

Amelia R

Paisley S

Haylee S

Aiva T

Izabella T

Shane W

Week of January 23 - notices

Good afternoon everyone!

Here are some updates and reminders about our upcoming week - it is a busy one!

Restocking the Food Bank - Our school is once again involved in an effort to help the Kimberley Helping Hands Food Bank restock its shelves after an, unfortunately, busy Christmas season. As a class, we have started talking about the importance of the Food Bank and how it helps our community. Today, we had an assembly where a representative from the Food Bank came to kick off this important event. Each classroom will be collecting non-perishable food items, and our class is determined to bring in the most food in the school! We will be doing math activities involving graphing and measuring our contributions, and we will also be using this event to learn more about healthy eating and the food groups. We will be collecting food for the next 2 weeks, and will have a school-wide wrap up on Feb. 3rd where we can see which class has contributed the most food. Any support you can offer for this worthy cause is greatly appreciated.

Scholastic Book Fair - going on this week. If you would like your child to purchase a book they are able to do so during lunch recess and after school this week. The book fair will also be running during POPS night this Thursday at 6pm.

Skating - Thursday 1:00-2:00 @ Marysville Rink - The skating in our class has improved tremendously over the last weeks, if you are at all able to come see your child, please join us! If not, take your child skating on a weekend and try to keep up! It is really great to see :)

POPS night (Parents of Primary Students) - Thursday 6pm
This is a GREAT evening to come and learn with your child. POPS is designed to invite parents into our school communities and to give ideas on ways to support your child's learning and development. Each child will cycle through at least 3 different classrooms and will participate in different learning stations (many of them will have fun educational activities and resources to take home to use). Our focus this year is Math Literacy and Numeracy.  Mrs Pakenham and I will have a Grade 2 set-up in her class with lots of fun math games designed to help reinforce important skills and understandings to learn to play with your child, which you can then take home.

Friends of the Library has generously donated some additional math resources, which children who attend will be allowed to take home! The PAC has also donated a math-related book for every student in the school! We will use these books together as a classroom learning resource before I send them home with the kids to keep!

Recognition Assembly - Friday 11:00 - This is the "Grade 2 Recognition Assembly," meaning our students will be performing. We have started learning a book about seeds and trees and have practiced reading clearly and presenting to the audience. All Grade 2 families are invited to come watch! You can help your child prepare by making sure they can read and remember their line which is glued into to their planner (2 weeks ago).

Happy New Year!

Welcome back to a new year everyone!! I hope that the holiday was full of fun and relaxation for all of our families! We have had a busy week back to school and have jumped right back into the full swing of our learning routines and fun activities.

This week we were busy getting back into our routines and getting used to being back at school. We started our new Math unit on Place Value and students have really enjoyed building numbers using base ten blocks, drawing numbers as groups of tens and ones, and breaking down standard numbers into expanded form. (74=standard form, 70+4=expanded form). We have been practicing our guided reading, done post card writing about our holiday, and worked on Grade 2 No Excuse Words (I apologize but I did not get time to mark our spelling quizzes before the end of the day today so they will not be returned until next week). We have started a new unit in Social Studies about the UN's Declaration of Rights of the Child, and will be learning about Rights, Needs and Wants and the differences between these different ideas. In January in Gym we are doing a Gymnastics Unit and have had fun doing different circuits and playing fun games for strength and flexibility. We also made time to get outside, in spite of the COLD, and had fun practicing snow-shoeing in the deep powder and had a great time skating at the Marysville rink.


Please note that Ski Day forms were sent home today and are DUE JANUARY 13th at the very latest. Please read and complete these forms carefully as there are MANY places that you are required to sign and there have been some changes from previous years.

FYI This Sunday, January 8th is the FREE community ski day at the ski hill. There are free lift tickets available to anyone living in Kimberley. Proof of your local address is required, but this is a great opportunity to get your kids out skiing before our ski days in February, plus it is just a fun family activity!

Next week we will be carrying on with the lessons that we started this week and I am looking forward to continuing to reinforce our school routines and engage in plenty more deep learning!

Monday: new spelling words will be sent home
Tuesday: Trekking
Wednesday: Take Me Outside winter session at Camp Stone (MORNING)
Thursday: Skating 1:00-2:00 Marysville Rink
Friday: Spelling Quiz

Have a great weekend!

Its That Time Again.... Christmas Concert!!

It is hard to believe but our Christmas Concert is right around the corner! This might sound crazy, but because of our early Christmas break, and our very full December schedule, our Christmas Concert is less than 3 weeks away!!  It is scheduled for early December, with the following show times: 
Dec. 7th
Dress Rehearsal (Marysville students come and watch us)
1pm performance for families
Dec. 8th 
1pm performance for families
6pm performance for families
As usual, we will ask families to limit their attendance to one showtime, as our gym is so small and our seating is always limited. 

This year for our concert, our school will be performing our version of the book and movie, Olive, The Other Reindeer. As has been done in past years, the whole school will sing an introduction and finale song, the Grade 3s will have speaking lines, and each class will sing its own unique song as part of the play.

Our class song is "We're Not So Bad," which is sung by the rebel/ misfit/ blue collar residents of the North Pole. We have started learning our song and your child will be asked to start practising at home soon.

Costumes
The costumes for this song are quite open to interpretation. All of the kids should be either reindeer or elves, who are a bit funky/ different/ rebellious. Think elves or reindeer wearing dark sunglasses, leather jackets, jean jackets, an eye patch, a studded collar, blue jeans,"trucker hats" etc. A reindeer could have a funny coloured nose, a bow tie for a nose, or unusual antlers (maybe only 1 antler or even 3). You may be able to recycle some of our Who costumes from last year!

Please let me know if you have any issues helping your child with a costume or if you need additional ideas. Also, please let me know if you have extra costume materials that another student could potentially borrow.

I would like to start compiling our costumes at school ASAP. Please send your child's completed costume to school by December 1st at the latest. 

Here is a copy of the lyrics of our song.

We’re Not So Bad

Mrs. Pasiechnyk’s Class

We’re not so bad

When you’re this far north,

With no sunlight,

Sometimes tempers fray.

Life’s hard enough,

And now Santa’s flight –

Its been an awful day.

Employment in these latitudes,

Depends on Old Saint Nick…

SO FORGIVE US IF WE ALL HAVE ATTITUDES,

WE’RE UP A FROZEN CRICK!

We’re not so bad,

We’re not so bad!

We’re really sweet and funny.

We’re not so bad,

We’re not so bad

We’re not so bad.

When you walked in,

May I be frank?

Of course, we were suspicious.

It seemed you were playing a nasty prank,

That’s why we got malicious.

But we’re not so bad,

We’re not so fearful.

Once you get to know us,

We’re downright cheerful!

We’re not so bad,

We’re not so bad,

We’re not so bad!

Now that we know you,

If you ever come again,

We promise not to throw you….

We’re not so bad,

We’re not so bad!

We’re not so bad!!! 

Happy Halloween!!

We had a blast at school today  running through our stations all morning. There was truly something for everyone. We had crafts, stories, and games like pirates in the gym. There were some really great costumes too!!

Now it is time to plan for Remembrance Day. For our Assembly on Nov. 10th (11:00am) our class will  be singing a song. I will attach the website here so kids can practice at home if they want to. The song is done as a call and response, and we will all keep the beat by clapping our hands to the rhythm of a heartbeat (clapping on time is the trickiest part, so lots of practice at home should help :) We will repeat the song two times. Families are invited to come and watch if you are able. Click on link below to access the website for our song. 

Freedom Song 

A reminder that tomorrow is PJ Day, and we will also still be trekking. Please make sure that PJs are weather appropriate or send your child a change of clothes to spend time outside, as we will be heading down into Louis Creek for writing in the afternoon.

For those of you who need photo retakes, they are on Thursday

Outdoor Art

One of our first outside projects was inspired by the British artist, Andy Goldsworthy, who makes beautiful temporary art out of objects found in nature. Here is some of Goldsworthy's work:

And here we are with our creations: