As the 2010-11 school year draws to a close, we are now accepting applications for casual caretaking summer help. In order to maintain our school building to the highest possible standard, we require casual caretaking help in our school during July and August. If you are interested in working on a casual basis this summer, please contact Mark Anderson, Vice-Principal or Randy Willms, Caretaking Supervisor at 683-2916 as soon as possible for more information. Students, parents and community members are welcome to apply!!
Category Archives: Newsletter
May 2011 From the Office
The end of the year is approaching quickly and activities here at the school are at a fevered pitch! Please watch for the various field trip announcements and permission forms that continue to be sent home at this time of year. Even with all the extra-curricular activity, our primary focus is on academics and we want to stress the importance of our students ending the year on a strong and positive note.
Today our Grade 6 – 12 track team is competing at the Conference meet at Griffith’s Stadium in Saskatoon. We have about 90 students competing and we wish all our competitors good luck as it is sure to be a great day. The district meet is on Friday, May 27th and advancing athletes will then compete at the provincial meet on June 3rd and 4th in Regina. Congratulations to all our competitors and thanks to all staff who are involved coaching and supervising. For our younger students, we will again be hosting the Hanley/Dundurn Kindergarten to Grade 6 Play Day and Track Meet on Friday, June 3rd. We are hoping for great weather and invite the community to come out and cheer on these young athletes.
We have two other big events coming up in June that we are also excited about. First of all we have our annual Graduation ceremonies taking place on Friday, June 10th. The Grade 12’s, their parents and our staff are busy preparing for this wonderful occasion. Secondly, our Grade 1 – 6 students will again be joining Dundurn Elementary to participate in the triathlon on June 17th at Blackstrap Provincial Park. The students are training by taking swimming lessons and taking part in a triathlon clinic. We also hope that the community can join us in our “Dunk a Duck” fundraiser on June 1st. Look for more details in this newsletter.
On a final note, our Kindergarten to Grade 9 report cards will be sent home with the students on the last day of classes, Tuesday, June 28th. Grade 10 to 12 students may come to the school between 9:00 and 10:30 a.m. on Thursday, June 30th to pick up their report
cards.
Have a great Spring season!
Mrs. Janice Key, Principal
Mr. Mark Anderson Vice-Principal
May 2011 Grade 1&2 News
With only a month and a half left of school, we’re starting to gear down to summer holidays! Mr. Woods-Fehr will be teaching the grade one math until the end of the year, while I teach the grade two’s. Mr. Woods-Fehr decided to leave the geometry unit until June and has been focusing on addition and subtraction to twenty. The grade two’s just finished their unit on geometry, identifying 2-D shapes and 3-D objects. We are now starting to add and subtract to one hundred! In ELA, we are finished learning about Fairy Tales and are moving onto Poetry, where we will read and write a variety of poems. We are finishing blends and moving onto digraphs in phonics and continue with story writing in creative writing. I hope to wrap spelling up near the beginning of June, so please keep practicing just a little longer! We are learning about the food groups and making healthy choices in heath class. We also have lot’s going on in science as well. The grade two’s are working on an inquiry based research project on habitats with our teacher librarian, Mrs. Harder. Once they are done this project, they will teach the rest of the class about their habitat. It should be fun! Meanwhile, the grade ones are learning about motion and will soon learn about plants. As a class, we are also beginning a unit on magnets. Thank you for sending the addresses for our Flat Stanley project. We anxiously await the arrival of our flat people after their worldly adventures!
May 2011 Kindergarten News
What an exciting month we’ve had! Thanks to all the moms for attending our Mother’s Day Spa! We hope you feel pampered and refreshed! Thanks to Carissa Haaland for donating tubs and Arbonne products to the event. Our visit to Brightwater Greenhouse was lots of fun! We got to pot plants, look at fish, and see all the beautiful plants and flowers. Thanks to the parent volunteers for coming with us. Our hot dog sale was a success! We’ve raised funds to cover some of the costs of our upcoming field trip. Thanks again to the parent volunteers who came and helped prepare the food. We are just wrapping up the five senses in our discovery center. The students have made solid-state slime, cooked popcorn, had a blind-folded smell test and have listened to beautiful sounds! The students have been focusing on writing lately. Sometimes they try to spell the words by listening to the sounds and other times we brainstorm words on the board together. We’ve also started to build sentences by using words like I, the, a and finishing it off with a period. Please watch for permission forms coming home in your child’s planner for all of our upcoming field trips and events! Have a fantastic long weekend!
April 2011 Grade 1&2 News
Wow, Easter is already here! Thanks to all of the parents who sent egg shells for our spring art project that we will complete after the break. We are sailing along in math. The grade ones have just finished learning about numbers to one hundred, while the grade two’s finished off their unit on measurement. Both grades are now beginning to learn about geometry. Please continue to practice mental math skills at home, as we will soon be continuing to add and subtract with larger numbers. In science, we are learning about magnets, in health we are learning about the food groups, our body, and making healthy choices, and in social studies we are reviewing how to help the environment in preparation for Earth Day. We are completing gymnastics in Phys. Ed. and will be moving on to skipping after the break. In ELA, we are delving deeper into blends and digraphs and are working on story writing, focusing on the beginning, middle, and end of a story. Have a wonderful and safe Easter holiday!
April 2011 Grade 7 News
The Grade 7s have completed their unit on Dust and are looking forward to a Skype visit from the author, Arthur Slade. This Skype is tentatively set for the final week before Easter break. In math, we are wrapping up our unit on “Solving Equations” and will soon be moving onto Geometry and Geometric Properties. Your child will require a geometry set for this unit. In Health, students continue to look at the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens. Science has just wrapped up a unit on Ecosystems and Environmental Cycles.
The Grade 7 field trip has been booked for June 24. We will be travelling to Blue Mountain Outdoor Adventure Park. We will be taking part in challenge courses, zip lining, a high ropes course, and team building initiatives. We will have room for two more adult chaperones. Once I have sent the introductory letter home, please feel free to contact me if you are interested in joining us.
In closing, as always, if you have any questions or concerns, please contact me at the school (544-2511) or via email.
April 2011 Grade 9 News
Well, the grade 9’s have been learning up a storm lately while still managing to let our creative side show. Especially in Art, where we’ve been doing scratch art. In science, we’ve been studying chemistry and the make-up of atoms. Mr. Herman has been promising to take us up to the lab to study chemical reactions, but so far we haven’t been allowed to blow anything up. Well, not officially, anyway… In math we’ve been studying scale factors and symmetry. In ELA we’ve been studying Romeo and Juliet AND the war in Sierra Leone. Home Ec has us sewing like mad. In IA we’ve been repairing small engines and learning how to weld. We’ve been fitness texting, I mean testing, in Phys Ed. The Middle Ages and the Black Death have been the focus of our studies in Social. We’ve been checking out the different educational requirements for jobs in Careers. And, last but not least, we finished up reading Tarzan and are studying the ill effects of gambling in Health class. Have a great Easter Break everyone!
Thanks to Monica for her invaluable assistance in creating this newsletter item.
April 2011 Grade 3&4 News
Here’s what’s happening in the 3/4 room these days…
Science: We had a wonderful field trip to Gardenscape where we planted some beans, learned about composting, insects and the parts of a plant. A very special thank you to Mrs. Leuschen, Mrs. Cory and Mr. Harder for coming along with us. We are just wrapping up our rocks and minerals unit and will be moving on to predicting weather, next.
ELA: We are just finishing the novel How to Eat Fried Worms. Our approach to this book has been a little different than the other novels studies we’ve done. This time around, each student was assigned on chapter (or two, if they’re short) to develop a presentation on for the class. It’s been really fun to hear each person’s interpretation of a chapter and to have them share their questions and connections!
We continue to focus on the writing process and grammar. We are getting quite good at proof reading – try to stump us! Of course we also continue to develop our phonics and spelling skills as well. Our current reading comprehension strategy is making inferences.
Math: The grade 3s are just beginning a unit on fractions. The 4s are also working on fractions as well as decimals.
Social Studies: We will be beginning a unit on Saskatchewan.
Phys-Ed.: We are developing some badminton skills.
We have also started on some triathlon training. Please watch for more information coming soon as the date is quickly approaching!
Sincerely,
Alana Wilson and the 3/4 Class!
April 2011 Kindergarten News
The Kindergarten room has undergone some changes this month! The class had to move upstairs to the art room for three days while our room received a fresh coat of paint. It looks clean and fresh and inspired us to change our room around a bit. We’ve pulled out the dinosaur toys, sorted through our dishes, and brought out more discovery objects. The class has also worked together to create a beautiful Easter bulletin board! The class continues to work on their literacy games (rhyming, recognizing beginning sounds, colour words, month words, reading online stories). During play the students will be asked to write about what they’re doing. This will be very informal and spontaneous. If they create or discover something exciting that day, they will be encouraged to ‘write about it’ in their centre journals. We will be encouraging them to try and spell words on their own and to illustrate the event. In math we are discussing ordinal numbers and when we use them (calendar, competitions). The Kindergarten curriculum encourages student-directed learning. The students were inspired by a skeleton from a Grade 5 Care Partner. We have been discussing what we know about bones and have participated in a bone research session in the library with Ms. Bishop-Moisan. The students came up with their own questions and have done their own research! I am so impressed with the growth and development I have seen in this group of students since the beginning of the year! Thanks to all the Kindergarten families for the work you do at home and the support you give to your child. I am so proud of these children!
March 2011 Grade 11
Welcome Ladies and Gentlemen, speaking on behalf of the grade 11 class, its Tanner.
In art class, with our good teacher Mr. Graham, the boys are making dioramas. Industrial Arts has us busy as bees drawing plans for our sheds. In Home Ec., they are decorating cakes like “Cake Boss” and soon will be starting international foods. With Mr. Kirk in Media Studies, they are looking at the conventions of media. Mrs. Prakash has taught us Physics and we are finished our projects on different types of Physics in the world. Mr. Anderson has the girls in Gym. They have been playing badminton, floor hockey and pumping iron to get jacked! In History, we are working on projects that we picked from anything that has changed the world. We just wrote a text on complex number in Math. It was very complex. Law has us learning the rules of law with Mrs. Prakash.
We would like to welcome the new student Cody to our class.