Kirkcaldy Heights School

10 Knowlton Drive

Brandon Manitoba

R7A 6N7

Telephone 729-3290

January 2016

Dates to Remember:

January 4, 2016 Classes Resume

January 13, 2016 Free Breakfast at school for Students.

January 29, 2016 PD Day –No School

How to Access the School Newsletter on the Kirkcaldy Heights Website

1.) Go to Kirkcaldy Heights web page at: https://www.bsd.ca/schools/

kirkcaldyheights/Pages/default.aspx

2.) On the left side of the screen under the Kodiak bear logo, there’s a

menu to choose from.

3.) To access the newsletter go to the ‘news tab’.

4.) Once there, select the month that you wish to view the newsletter

from. A link to the newsletters will pop up starting January 15, 2016.

5.) Enjoy!

Please dress your children for the

weather.

Our students do not go outside if the

temperature is colder than or equal to –26

degrees Celsius.

Patrols The hard-work and

dedication of our grade 5/6 patrols at Kirkcaldy Heights School

does not go unnoticed!

Christmas Concert Our 2015 Christmas Concert was a great success. We would like to thank

Mrs. Placatka, Mrs. Jebb, Keiran Placatka and all the staff who made this

concert possible. We would also like to give a big Thank You to all the stu-

dents who did such a wonderful performance.

Thank You also to all the parents and friends and relatives who came to

support your children. They are always glad to have an audience.

Pizza Days:

We will be having Pizza Days on Thursday. Pizza orders

have to be in by 9: 20 a.m. so please have your order

and money ready when you get to school. Late orders

will not be accepted.

Our Pizzas come from Pizza Hot Line. $2.00/Slice

LUNCH PROGRAM NEWS Just a reminder for all lunch program families, please remind your

children to put their warm ups in the bins provided outside the office first thing in the morning.

Please try and send only items that take 3 minutes or less to warm up. Thank you for your cooperation!

Welcome back to all of our families and welcome to any new members

of the Kirkcaldy Heights community. As some of you may be looking

forward to next year we would like to take a moment to remind you

about the decision that we have made in regards to classroom

requests. As noted in a post that was made in the fall of 2015, there

have been increasing challenges in taking parent requests for

classroom placements. The school team spends a great deal of time

determining class lists in order to meet all students' needs. Due to the

numerous factors that need to be taken into consideration we can no

longer manage teacher or friend requests. Again, thank you for your

cooperation, understanding, and trust as we soon begin to engage in

this challenging task

2016-2017 Classroom Placement Reminder

Enrichment Clusters 2015 Kirkcaldy Heights Middle Years students ended the month of December with a round of En-

richment Clusters. Below are blurbs describing some of the clusters that the students partici-

pated in.

The Community Volunteering Cluster had a very busy week exploring Brandon. On Monday,

we visited Rotary Villas where we baked and decorated some delicious sugar cookies. We ate a

few, but did share most of them with the residents! On Wednesday, we helped provide hot

meals at Helping Hands and then assisted with cleaning up afterwards. We then went to the

Samaritan House where we sorted food donations so that they could be more easily distribut-

ed. On Thursday, we had tours of The Brandon Friendship Centre and Elspeth Reid Family Re-

source Centre to find out what kind of supports families can access in Brandon. The students

represented Kirkcaldy Heights in a terrific manner and really made a difference with their sup-

port!

The Winter Break Wellness Warm-up Cluster enjoyed three full afternoons! Our small

group of ten made beautiful Christmas cards the first afternoon, centered our minds and bodies

with mindful stretching on the second afternoon, and nourished ourselves with healthy holiday-

themed snacks on the third afternoon. The three afternoons pushed some out of their comfort

zone, but were still enjoyable.

Students in the Movie Making Cluster were very into it and made some decent short little vide-

os. Students experimented with iPads and a green screen to create their projects.

Design a Restaurant – The level of engagement was unbelievable! We had three community

restaurant owners – Phillip Dorn, Chad Wallin, and Ben Hernandez – share their expertise in

terms of the restaurant industry. The students learned a lot from each of the guest speakers and

applied their understanding in their group restaurant design. Thank you to the Mr. Dorn, Mr.

Wallin, and Mr. Hernandez for coming and sharing your expertise in the restaurant industry!

Students in the Next Top Baker Cluster enjoyed decorating sugar cookies and creating their

own cookbooks. They were given the opportunity to share some of their favorite recipes, and

discuss healthy substitutions for a variety of ingredients. In the end, each student packaged up

their sugar cookies and took them home to share with their families!

In the Aboriginal Traditions Cluster we all got to know one another. In the beginning the stu-

dents were quiet, however, by the end of our time together we had a lot of laughs and conversa-

tion. We enjoyed learning about traditional Aboriginal practices and the reasons behind those

traditions.

On Monday we learned about The Seven Sacred Teachings (Love, Courage, Respect, Wisdom,

Humility, Truth, and Honesty) and how these teachings apply to our lives to make our lives full.

We learned about and crafted the Medicine Wheel, and found out that four is a sacred number

to the Aboriginal people. On our final day we had a guest speaker, our division Elder, Mr. Kev-

in Tacan, come and share some storytelling with the class. During his visit he demonstrated that

storytelling by the Aboriginal people was not written, but was passed along by oral communica-

tion with others. He was quoted saying "It was not learnt unless it came out of your mouth." He

showed an example of this by getting students to learn different animals' names in Lakota.

Over the past few days the Crafting for Charity Cluster students spent time making a variety of

no sew tie blankets that will be donated to charity. For many of the group members this was a

completely new experience. The students also researched local charities and decided upon do-

nating one batch of blankets to the Humane Society and the other batch to Child and Family

Services. Well done to all of our crafters, your blankets will be enjoyed by many.

Maria O’Greysik

Early Years Resource Teacher and Teacher Librarian

Kirkcaldy Heights School Pictures on Following Page

Crafting for Charity Cluster

Aboriginal Traditions Cluster

Next Top Baker Cluster

Movie Making Cluster

Designing a Restaurant

And Eating From the Restaurant

Some of our Cluster Groups

Le tout good canteen

Hot Items

Monday—Hotdog $1.25 Wednesday—Monthly hot item choice.

(January)–Assorted Cold Cuts Sub Sandwich $4.00

Canteen will be open Monday—Friday 11:35am-12pm

Snacks/Collations

Rice Crispy Squares $1

Chips/Crispers $1

Mini Chips Ahoy $1

Granola bars $0.50

Drinks/Boissons

Chocolate Milk $1

Juice Box $0.50

(apple or orange)

School Science Fair "

The date for our school wide Science and

Interest Fair will be held on Feb. 29, 2016.

If you would be interested in

Judging our school fair please

call

204-729-3291 or

Contact Mrs. Natasha Lloyd or

e-mail her at

Lloyd.natasha@bsd.ca.

Bus Passes

Note to Parents of Grade 7 and 8 students.

Our Shop and Home Ec. Students have their

bus passes stuck to their student cards. If they

lose the student cards we have no way of

replacing them. The student will then have to

buy his/her own bus fare or buy a city bus pass.

PAC UPDATE

Happy New Year! We hope everyone had a safe and happy holiday season and were

able to enjoy time with family. After two weeks away from school, it was great to see

kids excited about returning. We would like to thank the school community for all the

support in 2015.

Booster Juice is January 4, 2016 and orders were in. Watch for the order forms for

February coming home. Popcorn orders should be here for January 13, 2016 for pick

up after school. More information will be out as it gets closer to the date. (Checking

our Facebook page for updates is a great way to stay informed – Kirkcaldy Heights

Parent Council Page).

We have several positions opening up on the executive for the 2016-2017 school year.

If you are interested please attend a meeting and/or contact the current executive

on Facebook or email khpac@outlook.com PAC contributes to what’s happening in your

school, hosts events, run fundraisers to provide for various areas of the school, and

run the Lunch Program. We do not want to lose these benefits for our school, so if

you have any spare time to volunteer, please consider joining. For those that aren’t

able to commit we would love to see you out at a meeting to show support and have a

say in what goes on at school.

MADE IN MANITOBA BREAKFAST

Kirkcaldy Heights School will be enjoying a Made in

Manitoba Breakfast for all students and staff on

Wednesday, January 13th, 2016 from 9:00-10:00 am.

The breakfast is sponsored by Agriculture in the

Classroom. The students and staff will receive a

brief presentation in the gymnasium, then go eat

their breakfast in their classrooms.

SUN MON TUE WED THU FRI SAT

1 2

3 4 Day 3

Classes

Resume

5 Day 4 6 Day 5 7 Day 6 8 Day 1 9

10 11 Day 2 12 Day 3 13 Day 4

School

Breakfast

14 Day 5 15 Day 6 16

17 18 Day 1 19 Day 2 20 Day 3 21 Day 4 22 Day 5 23

24 25 Day 6 26 Day 1 27 Day 2 28 Day 3 29 PD

Day No

School

30

31

January 2016