Volume 1, Issue 5 AK WIGG PUBLIC SCHOOL 9337 Haist St, Fonthill, ON May 6, 2015 NEWSLETTER IMPORTANT DATES TO REMEMBER:  May 8th Kinder- garten trip to St. John’s  May 11th Group 6 Track & Field Meet  May 12th DSBN Support Staff Day  May 13th Fun Fair  May 13-14th Book Fair  May 15th PA Day  May 18th Victoria Day Public Holiday  EQAO Testing period May 27June 5  May 27th Spirit Day  May 25-June 5 EQAO testing period  May 29th West- ern Day Spirit Day  June 12th PA Day  June 22nd Talent Show Contact us at: Phone: 905-892-2605 Fax: 905-892-0660 E-mail: [email protected] M. Zwolak - Principal A MESSAGE FROM THE PRINCIPAL GRADE 3 & 6 ASSESSMENTS I would like to take this opportunity to say how fabulous the school grounds look! A great big thank-you is extended to our volunteers, Julie Pardo, April, Tim, Brooke and Paige Stillson, Indra Hardeen and Robin Skinner, Shannon Moore, Mara Bray, and Rachel Holmes for cleaning up our Butterfly Garden. Thanks also go out to Mrs. Bedard and our student “Eco Squad” for doing a clean up in our school yard. The Town of Pelham was also pleased to your support in doing a clean up in front of the school along Haist Street as part of Community Clean Up day. School will be very busy this month. Both our Grade 3's and 6's have planned to write the EQAO assessments between May 27th and June 4th. Families have received letters outlining the specific dates that the students will be writing the assessments. Also this month, teachers will be meeting with parents for Special Education IPRC’s, and many of our students will be involved in Track & Field events. We also are gearing up for the upcoming Fun Fair on May 13th! Have a wonderful month! 3 and 6 (EQAO) are planned to be held Sincerely, his/her own to foster independence and Ms. M. Zwolak The Provincial Standards testing for grades between May 27th and June 5th. Please plan to make sure that your child is in attendance. Since education is a partnership of parents, students and teachers, we stress to parents to better prepare their children for the E.Q.A.O. assessments and the Ontario Curriculum that reading with your children from a greater variety of texts (poetry, magazines, computer manuals, newspaper, plays, etc.) would be very valuable. Reviewing and solidifying number facts and mathematical concepts would also be helpful. Visit the EQAO website at http:// www.eqao.com/ and navigate to the Parents Tab for further information about these assessments. As you view your children’s creative writing or any form of writing, challenge them to use more interesting vocabulary, a variety of sentence structures, and stress the use of imagery (similes, metaphors, alliteration) or vivid verbs and adjectives. Finally, try to stress independence in your child. Certainly some parental guidance of homework is fine, but try having your child re-read, and rethink instructions and attempt solutions on stamina. AK WIGG PUBLIC SCHOOL — May Newsletter Page 2 Doing Mathematics with Your Child, Kindergarten to Grade 6 A Parent Guide to The Ontario Mathematics Curriculum emphasizes seven processes that are essential for learning mathematics: Problem solving, Reasoning and proving, Reflecting, Connecting, Selecting Tools & Computational Strategies, Representing, and Communicating. In each grade, a set of “mathematical process expectations” describes how children actively learn and apply mathematical understanding. Visit www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/curriculum/elementary/math18curr.pdf or http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/ literacynumeracy/parentGuideNumEn.pdf RANKIN CANCER RUN… Save the date! Rankin Cancer Run will be held on May 23rd, 2015 at 10 a.m PLANNING TODAY TO ENERGIZE EDUCATION FOR TOMORROW DSBN Trustees are supporting student success by revitalizing our public schools. An important part of this process is the role of Accommodation Reviews. On March 26, 2015 the Ministry of Education released revised Pupil Accommodation Review Guidelines (PARG) and the DSBN has revised the Accommodation Review Policy to align with the new Ministry Guidelines. You are invited to provide your comments on this new policy. From May 6 to June 3, 2015 please go to www.dsbn.org and click on the “Accommodation Review Policy Feedback” button. You may also provide comments via mail. Please send to Lora Courtois, Superintendent of Planning, District School Board of Niagara, 191 Carlton St. St. Catharines, ON, L2R 7P4. SCHOOL VANDALISM We ask your cooperation in reducing vandalism. Should you observe unusual activity at the school please call in confidence either of following emergency numbers: 905-682-8065 or 905-563-1293 SAC MEETING Our next scheduled School Advisory Council meeting is set for Tuesday May 26 at 6:00 p.m. in the school library. All welcome. AK WIGG PUBLIC SCHOOL — May Newsletter Page 3 Dress Code Reminders As the warm weather approaches we wanted to remind everyone that there is a dress code here at AK Wigg. All students need to follow the dress code which includes: no spaghetti straps, no bare backs or midriffs, no short shorts (length of your fingertips when arms placed at your sides), messages on T-shirts have to be appropriate for school. Thank you for your co-operation with this. Summer HEAT 2015 We are pleased to offer SUMMER HEAT, a primary Summer Learning Program, again this year. The program will run from Monday, July 13th to Friday, July 31st for students entering JK to grade 4 in the fall of 2015. Kindergarten Kick Start is for students entering junior and senior kindergarten in the fall, while Funshine Kids is for students entering grades 1, 2, 3 and 4. This three week program is entirely FREE, but space is limited so please be sure to register early. Registration can be done online starting Friday, May 1st. The program will begin at 8:15 a.m. with breakfast provided, and it will end at 12:15 p.m. Students will be involved in a variety of learning opportunities throughout the morning, with a focus on literacy, numeracy and active living. We are excited about being able to offer this amazing program to our families. Check it out on the DSBN website at www.dsbn.org/summerheat Summer HEAT will be offered at the following sites: St. Catharines - Edith Cavell (literacy and mathematics site), Connaught (literacy and mathematics site), Lincoln Centennial (literacy and mathematics site), Grapeview (Aboriginal site with literacy) Welland - Diamond Trial (literacy and mathematics site) Niagara Falls - Simcoe Street (literacy and mathematics site), Valley Way (Aboriginal site with literacy) Port Colborne - De Witt Carter (literacy and mathematics site) Fort Erie Area - Crystal Beach (literacy and mathematics site), Peace Bridge (Aboriginal site with literacy) NEW sites: Beamsville - Senator Gibson (literacy and mathematics site) Welland - Princess Elizabeth (Aboriginal site with literacy) We are very fortunate to have so many parent and community volunteers who do such an outstanding job with our students! Our volunteers help out at school in so many ways: School Council members, driving to sports events or helping on field trips, yard cleanup and school beautification, yearbook design, event photography, graduation committee, classroom volunteers and helping with Hot Lunches. Our students are so fortunate to have you, and so are we! To express our appreciation, we are inviting school volunteers to join us for a Volunteer Recognition Afternoon Tea on June 17 at 2:00 p.m. Please mark this date in your calendars. INTERNET SAFETY - MONITOR YOUR CHILD’S USE!  Keep the computer in an area of the house that is busy and wellmonitored, allowing you to “check” on activity from time-to-time.  Teach children and young people never to share personal details with anyone they have met on the Internet, including when they register for free e-mail addresses or when they visit chat rooms, bulletin boards, and web sites. Per-sonal information includes name, address, school, photos, year of birth, credit card information, or passwords.  Sit with your children when they register for instant messaging or e-mail accounts to ensure that no per-sonal information is given out.  Set clear rules about the kinds of sites your children are allowed to visit. Bookmark your favourite sites so that they can be accessed quickly and easily without needing to “surf the web” to find them again.  Talk to children about predators and potential online dangers. Young children should not participate in chat rooms. As they get older, steer them towards well-monitored and age-appropriate chat rooms. If teens participate, find out what chat rooms they are visiting and who they talk to.  Encourage your children to tell you if anyone says or does anything online (such as posting pictures) that makes them feel uncomfortable or threatened.  Remind your children never to post anything on the Internet that they wouldn’t want the whole world to read.  Report any incident of online harassment, physical threats, or ongoing solicitation of personal information to the local police or your Internet Service Provider  Teach your children to only open emails from people they know and never to open attachments unless they have specifically requested them. Viruses most often enter your computer system through an email at-tachment.  Use kid-friendly search engines or adult search engines that offer filtering.  Disable Java and Java Script in your browser preferences. This will prevent your children from getting caught in a cycle of pop-up inappropriate windows.  Use email filters. Most email programs offer some filtering options and there are many software products on the market that can be used to control spam (unwanted and continuous email)