January News

“Kind words can be short

and easy to speak, but

their echoes are truly

endless.” -Mother Teresa (1910-1997)

January Calendar 2

Thank You/Celebrating Success 3

Casa dei Bambini & ELMO 1-3 4/5

December Fun 6

Christmas 2017 7

Registration/Christmas Campaign 8

Inside this issue:

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Volume 2, Issue 5

January 15, 2018

Welcome back! As a school, we

enjoyed many fun activities leading

up to the Christmas break! We

hope you enjoyed a relaxing holi-

day season and were able to

spend time enjoying what you love

to do together as families. As we

head into the second portion of our

school year, we would like to ex-

tend our thanks for your on-going

support of our school. The connec-

tion between the school and our

families is integral to our success.

We have many events to look for-

ward to in January. Thank you to

our parent volunteers who have

organized and are preparing our

first Turkey Dinner! We are excited

to spend time collectively eating

lunch and our student have been

busily preparing buns/biscuits as

part of their Practical Life activities.

We are also looking forward to our

first Book Swap as a lead up to Liter-

acy Week! During Literacy Week

we will come dressed in our best

Figurative Language costumes and

will participate in a number of

events centering on different forms

of Literacy! Check out our Face-

book pictures from last year for ide-

as! We will also have our second

M.A.L.T. Day and our Grade 4-6 stu-

dents will head to Nitehawk for a

day of skiing/snowboarding and

tubing. Coming this month will also

be our first READ IT FORWARD!

A special thank you to our School

Council who has been actively in-

volved in our school again this year!

Thank you to the School Council hot

lunch sub-committee who organizes

Much A Lunch, works with the ven-

dors, and who organize volunteers to

assist in lunch delivery. More news will

be coming this spring about the fund-

raising association that is being estab-

lished to support Parkside Montessori.

Thank you to the parents who have

been putting in time completing the

necessary steps to make this happen.

We appreciate your support of our

school.

-Miss Corrine & Miss Terra

Page 2

On the Calendar...

M ONT ESS ORI NE WS

Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat

1 2 3 4 5 6

7 8 Classes resume

School Council @

6 p.m.

9 10 11 12 13

14 15 16 17 Book

Swap; Mini

Turkey Dinner

M/W pre-

school only.

18 Book

Swap; Turkey

Dinner for T/Th

Casa and

ELMO 1-6

19 NO

SCHOOL for

students

(Professional

Learning Day)

20

21 22 Dress up

for Figurative

Language Day!

23 24 25 Hot Lunch

(Boston Pizza)

26 Family

Reading Ses-

sions

27 Family

Literacy Day

28 29 30 MALT

Morning

31 ELMO 4-6

Skiing @

Nitehawk

January 2018

~ Christmas Holidays, Dec. 22-January 7. Classes resume Monday, Jan. 8, 2018!~

Literacy Week!

V OLU ME 2, ISSU E 5 Page 3

The staff and students of Parkside Montessori

received a significant donation from the

Grande Prairie Public School District Educa-

tion Foundation. The donation of $2500 will

be used to purchase instruments for our Orff

instrument collection! These instruments will significantly impact our students.

We are so very thankful for the generosity of the foundation in supporting the students at

Parkside Montessori and within the Grande Prairie Public School District!

Parkside Montessori received a generous donation from Paquins Photography. We

hope to use this money to purchase an SLR camera for our student yearbook and MALT

days! Thank you to the entire Paquins team!

Thank you to the Karseboom family for donating Tower Garden to our school. We can’t

wait to get our second garden growing!

On Dec. 5, International Volunteer Day, Miss

Michelle was recognized by GP Volunteer Services

Bureau as an “Outstanding Member of the Com-

munity” . We are so thankful for Miss Michelle and

all of the many volunteers that help make Parkside

Montessori such a fantastic place to be! Congratu-

lations Miss Michelle!

Casa dei Bambini, Preschool & Kindergarten

Page 4 M ONT ESS ORI NE WS

The Casa classes were all abuzz during the month

of December. Besides participating in school

wide events such as Christmas caroling, the stu-

dents enjoyed working in the Practical Life room

making salad grown from our very own tower

garden and baking Christmas cookies! At the

start of December, each class received a giant

gingerbread reading house, gifted by the

thoughtful students of Miss Rebecca’s class. The

Casa students were overjoyed to have a special

place in their classroom to dream and read.

We’d like to send a very big THANK- YOU to the

ELMO 4-6 class for spreading love, joy and Christ-

mas cheer!

Miss Trisha’s students were thrilled to discover

what their classroom elf was up to at the start of

each day and were terribly disappointed when

she took an unexpected trip to the North Pole

before Christmas holidays.

Miss Renee’s students enjoyed participating in a

variety of activities such as baking and decorat-

ing cookies, making Christmas crafts, and making

a blanket. We would like to thank all the parent

volunteers who came to assist with our classroom

activities:

Maggie Morrison (Lachlan), Chancy Friesen (Lilly),

Shelley Woodruff (Felix), Bev MacDonnell (Lily &

Gracey), Karyna Parsons (Claire), and Sarah Sor-

cinelli (Brooklynn).

At the start of this New Year we will expand on

the concept I Am Special by adding the compo-

nent I Belong. The child is an important member

of their family, school, and community. We as

teachers will do our best to facilitate this under-

standing in meaningful and practical ways in the

classroom. Thoughtful dialogue at home about

this topic will increase the child’s understanding

and sense of belonging.

-Miss Trisha & Miss Renee

Lower Elementary, Gr. 1-3

V OLU ME 2, ISSU E 5 Page 5

Happy New Year!

After enjoying Christmas and the holidays with family

and friends, it is always great to be back at school!

The students have quickly settled back into their daily

routines. With the frigid temperatures we get in north-

ern Alberta, it is extremely important that students

come well prepared for the cold weather each and

every day. Please ensure that your child has all neces-

sary outside clothing as we will go outside up to -25

degrees Celsius, which is far too cold to be outside

without mittens, toques and snow pants. We greatly

appreciate your help ensuring that your child is well

prepared for the cold weather!

January is always a very productive month with lots of

learning! In Social Studies, we are learning about dif-

ferent communities around Canada and will be com-

paring how these communities are similar and differ-

ent to Grande Prairie. As a class, we have discussed

our community and examined how different occupa-

tions and places are important to us and how they

help contribute to the greater good of our communi-

ty. The three communities we will be studying are Iqal-

uit, Nunavut, Meteghan, Nova Scotia, and Saskatoon,

Saskatchewan.

Our focus in Science is Hot and Cold temperatures.

With the frigid temperatures we have recently experi-

enced, it has made it easy to incorporate new termi-

nology such as glacial. We look forward to the many

fun and exciting Science experiments we have com-

ing up.

There are many exciting events coming up in the

month ahead. We are looking forward to enjoying the

delicious turkey dinner that our Parent Council has

planned and organized. The ELMO 1-3 classes are all

going to contribute by making use of the Practical Life

room and baking delicious biscuits to accompany the

turkey dinner. Please watch for further information that

is to come regarding Literacy Week.

We hope the New Year is filled with much love, laugh-

ter and learning for your children and your family!

-Mr. Josh, Miss Lora Rae, Miss Desiree & Miss Megan

Upper Elementary, Gr. 4-6 Welcome to 2018!

I hope everyone had a peaceful holiday sea-

son and I wish everyone a safe and happy

New Year. I’m looking forward to what we will

accomplish this year. The Upper Elementary

students had a busy December and begin-

ning of 2018 as we frequented the Practical

Life Room making taco salad, lemonade, tree

cookies and rolls in preparation for the Turkey

dinner next week. The students have enjoyed

learning new skills, trying new food and I be-

lieve they made better rolls than I can!! Thank

you to the Parent Council in advance for or-

ganising the Turkey dinner and for Muncha-

lunch. We are a well-fed group!!

We have been focusing on the Evidence and

Investigation Unit in Science. The students are

enjoying learning more about their finger-

prints, analyzing dirt, observing handwriting

and playing interactive crime solving games.

Keep an eye out for a mock crime scene over

the next month where the students will be

able to apply their knowledge in a realistic

setting.

In Math, we are doing a Multiplication

Bootcamp with the hopes of practicing our

times tables and focusing on recall skills. Stu-

dents will practice their multiplication facts

daily in a collaborative setting.

Again, all the best for 2018!!

-Miss Rebecca

December Fun!

Parkside Montessori

Corrine Shmyruk, Principal

Terra Shewchuk, Vice Principal

P ARKSI DE MONTES SORI

Registration 2018-2019

9617 91A avenue

Grande Prairie, AB

T8V 0G7

Phone: 780-532-7429

Email:

Parkside.montessori@gppsd.ab.ca

Facebook:

@ParksideMontessori

Visit our school page:

www.gppsd.ab.ca/school/parksidemontessori

Thank you for supporting our

Christmas Care Campaign!

Our PAX Ambassadors would like to thank everyone who contributed

to making our Christmas Care Campaign a success. We raised over

$500 for local charities! Special thanks to all of the parents who do-

nated cookies for the sale as well as those who helped pop the pop-

corn and prepare for the sale. You are amazing!

Registration for the 2018-2019 school year for our CURRENT Parkside

Montessori families will begin February 26, 2018. This will include reg-

istration for current families with younger siblings who wish to register

for the 2018-2019 school year.

Registration for NEW families begins on Tuesday, March 27.