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PRINCIPAL’S MESSAGE
850 Woodvale Street Winnipeg, MB R2K 2G8 Phone 661-2378 Fax 668-9283 Principal C. Qua
“It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas…..” Thank you very much to the families and community members who were able to attend our Christmas concerts on December 14th. The concerts were filled with toe tapping seasonal music and witty dialogue. A good time was had by all! We are very proud of your children as they worked very hard to prepare for both of these performances. Thank you for attending our Student Led Conferences to help celebrate the growth your child has made. We are very proud of our students’ accomplishments’, as they have worked very hard at school. We appreciate your continued support. It is important to your child’s success. Thank you! As always, if you have any questions or concerns as the year unfolds, please do not hesitate to contact the appropriate person (Classroom teacher, Resource teacher, Principal). I believe that open, honest and respectful communication is the best way to ensure that this is the best possible school and that your child has a positive, rewarding year. We appreciate your support! Thank you to the parents who are working hard to keep our patrols and other students safe on the street by parking your car in the appropriate areas. I have noticed less dropping off under the stop sign and parking too close to the patrols. Thank you! Whichever way you may celebrate the coming season, I hope you have time to relax and enjoy family and friends. On behalf of the staff and myself: Happy Holidays Angus McKay Families….. All the very best as we begin the 2018 New Year… Sincerely, Christi Qua Principal
December 2017 Newsletter
Kindergarten November and December seem to have flown by faster than Santa’s sled can fly. Your children and I very much enjoyed reading and discussing concepts such as family, belonging, kindness, respect and more as we read, discussed and responded to books written and illustrated by Todd Parr. He’s a good author to check out if you visit the library. We are now reading different versions of the Gingerbread Man story. We’ll continue our Gingerbread study in January. Our daily survey provides many opportunities for your child to learn concepts such as more, less, and to do some comparisons. The students now have the responsibility for asking each other questions about the sur-vey. Many are subtracting to tell how many more gave one response than the other response! In math we also continued our work with patterns. The students like to identify patterns versus random designs. During our (almost) daily Learning Centre period, your child has had opportunities to use a computer. We have visited the websites Starfall which has many wonderful early literacy and numeracy activities. As well, your child has visited gregtangmath.com. The learning games How Much?How Many? And Ten Frame Ma-nia found under the games tab are excellent sites for your child to develop his/her understanding of math concepts. Also during Learning Centres, your child has the opportunity to write. I’m sure that you have had the pleasure to celebrate some of your child’s early writing when he/she has brought books home! In printing, your child has learned the frog jump (ask your child what this means) letters of F, E, D, P, B, and R with M and N still to come. Along with correct letter formation we have learned the sounds associated with these letters. Of course a highlight of this month was the Christmas Concert. I was so proud of those children of yours!
They are an amazing and a joy to teach!
Grade 1
Happy December! The grade ones have been buzzing with excitement this month as we prepare for Christ-mas fun. Our good friend Popcorn the elf came back to visit after the students learned how to write letters. We wrote a letter to him, asking him to return. That sneaky elf has been causing a lot of mischief around the room! And the students love finding him each morning. We also wrote a letter to Mrs. Clause, and a letter to a person of our choice. We have been reading many Christmas themed stories and one special book was called “How to Catch an Elf.” After reading, the students published their own elf stories about how they would catch an elf. In math we have been continuing to practice counting in a variety of ways, working on addition and the strategy counting on. They have been practicing this with flash cards and games. In science we have been finishing up with our senses unit and the students wrote about the Five Senses of Christmas. We are continuing to learn about our community and the many different types of communities where people live.
Wishing you a very Merry Christmas and all the best this holiday season!
News from Grade 2 & 3
“Paws” for the Cause Woof, Meow, Squeak, Chirp! “Have you ever wanted to be part of organizing a fundraising campaign for a charity?” This was a question we posed to the grade 2 and 3 classes and they responded with an overwhelming “YES!” We teamed up with the Winnipeg Humane Society to help our furry friends through a “Paws for the Cause” fundraiser! It ran for one week from Monday, December 11th to Friday, December 15th. We collected a vari-ety of donations throughout the week: Monday: Toys Tuesday: Food Wednesday: Coins Thursday: Treats Friday: Anything We had specific days for specific items, but children could bring anything they remembered, on any day. We knew that the pets would love everything and appreciate the help. When donations were brought in, children were provided with a ballot for a chance to win a few pet-related prizes. The draws were made on the last day of the fundraiser. We took on this project because we know how important it is to treat ALL animals with dignity, love and re-spect! It relates to active democratic citizenship in our social studies curriculum. Together, the classes wrote a script to present to the rest of the classes in our school explaining our fundrais-ing event. In addition, the grade two class wrote their own messages to read during morning announcements and the grade three class helped write the letter to go home to the community. The classes worked together to make posters for our school. Thanks to the generosity of our Angus McKay families, our fundraiser was a ‘TREE’-MENDOUS SUC-CESS!!! We got together to tally our results as well as count our coin collection. Our school raised the following:
82 treats 93 toys 122 items of food 53 misc. items
We also raised $519.25! There are many ani-mals who will have a warm place to rest, a full tummy of food, and plenty of new toys thanks to your kindness!
Grade 3 IBL
In IBL we read Escape from Mr. Lemoncello’s Library by Chris Grabenstein! The book was: inspiring, awesome, spectacular, funful and cool! (Funful is a Mr. Lemoncello word) We liked the book because it was challenging, puzzling and fun all at the same time! At the end of the book, we solved a rebus puzzle to get the answer to solving another puzzle! We had to solve the last puzzle by taking the first letter of the beginning of each chapter in the book and wrote them all out on chart paper. We found words in the letters. We solved it…can you? THOSEWHOKNEWWHERETOLOOKHAVENOWSOLVEDEVERYPUZZLEINTHE-BOOK Once we solved the puzzle, we emailed Chris Grabenstein (the author) a cool video of us solving the puzzle. Here’s what he replied:
“Hearty and splendiferous congratulations, Grade 3 "Nessies"! You are one of the few extremely clever and unbelievably brilliant readers (less than 1%) to ac-tually find and solve the hidden puzzle. Thank you so much for reading my book so closely! Thanks for that awesome video and for being such enthusiastic readers and puzzle solvers! GO NESSIES! May there always be balloons in your future! Wondermously yours, Chris” Once we finished the book, we got to make our own board games and then we had a games morning playing the games that each of us created! After that we did our own library scavenger hunt for each Dewey Decimal section (10 clues altogether) with Mrs. Morris. We had clues for certain books to find and then the clues were hidden in the books! The scavenger hunt was challenging, exciting and fun! We loved it! By the Grade 3 Wondermous Students (wondermous is a Mr. Lemoncello word too)
Mail can be addressed to the Board of Trustees and sent to the Administration Offices: 589 Roch St., Winnipeg, MB, R2K 2P7
c/o Gay Caithness
WARD 4 SCHOOL TRUSTEES
Eva Prysizney 204-668-3501
Brianne Goertzen 204-955-6782
Grade 4 Wow, we have been super busy these last couple of months! Here are just a few our classroom highlights: Wonder – After reading the novel Wonder by R. J. Palacio, Mrs. Morris organized a wonderful field trip with the grade 4 and 5 students to watch the movie at the movie theatre. It was a fantastic experience, one that most students are still talking about! We also wrote some amazing pieces of writing all around the theme of kindness. Students even created a wonder themed picture of themselves with a personally selected precept that best represented their beliefs.
Science – We’ve been having a lot of fun exploring, testing, learning, and creating artwork and experiments all around light. We’ve recently learned about white light and how it can be separated into colour as well how colours can mix to create secondary colours, how to protect our eyes from lights, as well as all about shad-ows. We even created our own silhouettes and put them on display at the winter concert.
Elf Yourself – We had a ton of fun turning ourselves into elves. Here are some of our creations: French – Using holiday themed vocabulary, we are working on creating our own classroom “I Spy” booklet. Be sure to check out the finished book next time you’re in our classroom and see if you can find all our hid-den pictures. Paws for the Cause – The Winnipeg Humane Society came to our school and taught us a little about what the WHS is all about. They showed us some of the cute and cuddly pets that come into their building each year, and even brought one to our school! We learned that over 8500 pets visit the WHS each year and that half of those animals are lost pets who are reunited with their families. We really enjoyed collecting treats, food, and toys for our furry friends!
Geographical Regions – Students were split up into one of five small groups where they re-searched, typed, printed, created and presented one of the 6 geographical regions of Canada. To-gether, our classroom created one very interactive bulletin board FULL of information all about Cana-da.
Fantastic Fives
This month has been a very busy time in Grade Five. We have been learning to write different styles of letters in response to the novel we are studying. Currently we are learning to express ourselves through persuasive texts. We were pleased to participate in the Hour of Code from December 4 – 8. This is a worldwide event that pro-motes the importance of learning computer coding language. Millions of people aged 3- 100 participated in fun events held all around the world in community centres, schools and offices. We focused on learning to code using block language and JavaScript. We were able to make screen characters move, we animated games and solved many problems. It was so much fun and we learned a lot. Many students continue to code at home. There’s something for everyone so check out code.org if you are interested.
As a way to do something special for our school this month, we created a "Caring, Giving and Sharing" advent calendar to count down the days until Christmas vacation. We researched and collected ways that kids can show kindness and then chose one idea to include on a large tree ornament that we then hid in a numbered envelope suspended on the tree. Each day has a special surprise challenge for all the school's students to try to complete. Guest students get to open up an envelope daily and the kindness suggestion is shared on the morning announcements and in the classroom. The students have the month of December to complete as many as they can. The hope is that all students have fun counting down the days while remembering that it's always a time to care, give, and share. At the halfway point we are pleased to say that we see lots of recorded participation in each classroom. Way to go, Nessies!
Volleyball Tournaments
On Tuesday, November 28th our grade four class was one of four schools that partici-pated in a RETSD volleyball tournament at Polson School. We had a fantastic day us-ing the volleyball skills we had been learning in gym class. We bumped, volleyed, spiked, and served that ball over the net! Everything about that day was super fun, but the best part was seeing friends from other schools and cheering each other on. We even were able to watch the high school referee students from Miles Mac play a pick up volleyball game. We hope one day to be as amazing as they were. A huge thank you to Mrs. Treffner for not only teaching us volleyball skills, but for planning and taking us on this wonderful field trip!
The Fantastic Fours (and Fives!) On Friday, Dec. 1st the grade 4 and 5 students of Angus McKay School decided to hold our own school tour-nament. Mrs. Treffner planned a very fun afternoon where we were able to play with and against each other. We were part of a mixed grade level team which was a fantastic way to practice and teach others our skills.
River East Transcona / Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra Concert Five grade 5 students were selected to participate in a choir of 200 students from schools in River East Transcona School Division. The students hard work culminated in a collaborative performance with the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra at Centennial Concert Hall. The five students from Angus McKay had an excellent time and represented our school very well. Congratulations and job well done!
Winter Concert Throughout November and December, students and staff were busy preparing music, decorations, and a drama for the Angus McKay Winter Concert. All of us were very excited to share our work with family, friends, and the community! Congratulations and thanks to each student for their dedication, creativity, and for performing so well at the concerts. Special thanks to Werner Epp for operating the sound system, and to the par-ents and staff who helped clean up the gym after the evening concert.
Music Notes
Patrols Patrol Xmas Party!
A special thank you Christmas party was held for our hard working patrols on Dec. 21. They spent a morning playing Christmas Pictionary, Christmas Carol Hummzingers, board games, the Saran Wrap Ball game, and a Right/Left Christmas story. In addition, they loaded up on treats, chips, oranges, and special floats in their Christmas mugs and left home with Christmas socks to keep their toes warm and toasty now that winter has finally arrived! Everyone had a blast and many laughs were shared. Thanks patrols for your hard work so far this year. As the cold weather descends upon us after the break, our winter hot chocolate will also start up again – be sure to send your son/daughter with a hot chocolate cup in the new year for the frosty mornings!
Attendance In the last newsletter, we focused on the importance of good school attendance and how it affects the learning and the learning environment. In an effort to encourage good attendance and on time behaviour we issued the following challenge: “For the month of November, we will be collecting attendance data, including absenteeism and tardi-ness from each classroom. Our goal is to have all students come to school each day, on time, and ready to learn. If, as a school, we can be on time every day, 90% of the time, we will celebrate by hav-ing a “No Tardy, Dance Party”! The date will be determined when we meet our school goal.”
We are pleased to say that during the month of November our students came to school on time each day 95% of the time. Great effort everyone. We will be celebrating with the “No Tardy, Dance Party” on Monday, December 18th in the morning so that the Kindergartens can celebrate with us. Please continue to set good attendance goals with your child. Being on time is an important life skill and starting early is a great way to establish good habits.
We wish you a
merry Christmas
and a healthy,
happy new Year!
ANGUS McKAY SCHOOL 2017 - 2018 IMPORTANT DATES
Friday, December 22 Last Day of Classes Before Break - 2:30 p.m. Dismissal Mon., Dec. 25- Fri., Jan. 7 Christmas Break - SCHOOL CLOSED Monday, January 8 First Day of Classes After Christmas Break Wednesday, January 10 CSA Meeting - 6:00 p.m. Wednesday, January 17 Early Dismissal - 2:45 p.m. - Staff Meeting Friday, January 26 Hot Lunch Day Friday, February 2 Co-ordinated Day - NO CLASSES Wednesday, February 7 CSA Meeting - 6:00 p.m. Monday, February 19 Louis Riel Day - SCHOOL CLOSED Wednesday, February 21 Early Dismissal - 2:45 p.m. - Staff Meeting Friday, February 23 Hot Lunch Day Friday, March 2 P.D. Day - NO CLASSES Wednesday, March 7 CSA Meeting (tentative) - 6:00 p.m. Monday, March 12 Report Card Distribution Thursday, March 15 Student Led Conferences - 4:30 p.m. - 7:30 p.m. Friday, March 16 Student Led Conferences - 9:00 a.m. - 11:30 a.m. - NO CLASSES Friday, March 16 P.D. Day - p.m. only - NO CLASSES Mon., March 26 - Fri., March 30 Spring Break - SCHOOL CLOSED Monday, April 2 First Day of Classes After Spring Break Wednesday, April 4 Early Dismissal - 2:45 p.m. - Staff Meeting Wednesday, April 4 CSA Meeting - 6:00 p.m. Wednesday, April 11 Pink Day Friday, April 20 Co-ordinated Day - NO CLASSES Friday, April 27 Hot Lunch Day Wednesday, May 2 CSA Meeting - 6:00 p.m. Wednesday, May 9 Early Dismissal - 2:45 p.m. - Staff Meeting Thursday, May 17 Volunteer Tea - 2:30 p.m. - Library Monday, May 21 Victoria Day - SCHOOL CLOSED Friday, May 25 Rooftop Photo - 9:15 a.m. Friday, May 25 Hot Lunch Day Friday, June 1 2018-2019 Kindergarten Orientation - 1:00 p.m. Wednesday, June 6 CSA Annual General Meeting - 6:00 p.m. Thursday, June 7 Field Day Thursday, June 7 Free Hot Lunch Day Thursday, June 14 CSA Family Fun Night Tuesday, June 19 Field Day Alternate Date Friday, June 22 Hot Lunch Day Tuesday, June 26 Kindergarten Celebration - 10:00 a.m. Wednesday, June 27 Grade 5 Farewell - 9:30 a.m. Friday, June 29 Last Day of School - Report cards sent home no earlier than noon 2:30 p.m. Dismissal Please be aware that as the year progresses, additional events will arise. Parents will be notified via notes and/or email and the event will be added to the calendar on our school website.
