rairieview Post - Vulcan Prairieview Elementary School

Prairieview Post
December 2013
Vulcan Prairieview Elementary School
Box 300 Vulcan AB, T0L 2B0
403-485-2074
http://www.vpes.ca
Together we will ensure learning success for all students to develop their unique
potential as caring citizens in a changing world.
In this issue:
 Calendar of Events
 Grade Level News
 Sports News
 Community information
Basket Raffle Items
Please remember to send in your basket
items with your child prior to December
12th. The money raised at the concert
from the ticket sales will go to help offset
the cost of the Grade 5/6 field trip to
Camp Chief Hector.
Just a reminder basket themes are:
Early Learning/Kinder– Winter Fun
Grade 1/2– Snowmen
Grade 3/4– Disney Christmas
Grade 5/6– Movie Night
Thank you for your continued support and
remember to get your tickets at the concert on December 18th!
Raz-Kids Starting!
Online reading will once again be
offered at the school Monday to
Thursday before school (8:00-8:30
am) and after-school (3:30-4:00 pm)
to help students with extra reading
Principal Message
Has your family been proactive and budgeted enough money
for all your Christmas expenses this year? I know in the
Cranston home that it is always difficult trying to stay within
the budget we have laid out for ourselves at this time of year.
The wish list seems to get a little more expensive as our kids
get older. Budgeting and saving money are just a couple
components of financial literacy which are such important
skills to gain. We believe at V.P.E. that it is never too early
to begin teaching these life skills. That is one of the reasons
we have partnered up with our local ATB branch and have
opened the V.P.E. Junior ATB. The grand opening was a
great day and the start of what will be a long term partnership with ATB. Thanks to everyone who made it a success.
The Christmas season is also a time to share……school
goals. Well not exactly, but we certainly did discuss VPE’s
school goals at our school council meeting this week. This
year, our goals continue to focus around Literacy and a Safe
and Caring school. Ultimately, we want every child in our
school to succeed in all aspects of education. This can only
be attained by ensuring every student feels safe and cared for
and that every child progresses in their reading skills. We
have many strategies in place for accomplishing both goals.
To ensure literacy success, for example, we dedicate a
significant amount of our timetable to Language Arts
instruction. Our teachers use the latest, research based reading and writing strategies. Not all children learn to read and
write at the same rate and so we support students who need
extra help with intervention programs that make sure all can
see progress. Our safe and caring strategies are based around
our Leader in Me initiative. We believe all students have
some form of leadership potential and that our students can
utilize the 7 Habits of Effective People to support this within
themselves. When a child believes they are a leader, they
support those in their community and therefore everyone is
safe and cared for. A true leader does not bully, tease or
isolate others; they bring communities together for a
common good. All of our students have this potential.
It’s a busy month ahead of us. Our grade 5/6’s are beginning
their French program, after school curling and RAZ kids is
underway, and of course please mark down our Christmas
events including our Student Feast and concert on December
18th. It’s a wonderful time of year!
Please have a fantastic December.
Mr. Shane Cranston
December Calendar
of Events
MONDAY
TUESDAY
2
PD day (No School
for students)
9
WEDNESDAY
3
Hot lunch
Floor Hockey
Play-offs
10
Hot dog day
Student teachers
last day
16
17
Early Morning
Caroling 8:00-8:30
THURSDAY
4
NO Mentorship
FRIDAY
5
VPE Bank deposit day
6
French starts for
gr 5-6
Mentorship trip to
Theatre Calgary
12
13
11
Formal wear and
dance
18
19
NO Mentorship VPE Bank deposit day
Concert Rehearsal
Christmas Feast
Staff-Student
at the CRC
Hockey Finals
Christmas Concert at
the CRC at 7:00
20
See you back on
Monday, January
6, 2014!
Early Morning Caroling
Come out and show your holiday spirit with caroling in the foyer each morning during the
week of December 16th to December 20th. It will run from 8:00-8:30 each morning.
Monday-Merry Madagascar with McBride
Tuesday-Happy Holidays with Helland and Honess
Wednesday- Bells and Bows with Booker
Thursday– Caroling Excitement with Colborne and Edmonds
Friday-Rocking with Rodney
We’re Open for Business!
Our Vulcan Prairieview Junior ATB opened with a bang last week.
Students worked hard to create our own bank branch, learn their
jobs and create an exciting grand opening complete with speeches, ribbon cutting, prizes and food!
Many students in Grades 3-6 opened their own accounts and
made their first deposits. Students can still sign up for their own
account throughout the year. Bank days will happen approximately every two weeks so watch the Post, our website, Facebook
page and agendas for the upcoming deposit
days. It was also great to see parents and local
media representatives on hand.
Thank you to the ATB employees and in particular in Mr. Shaw for working with us on this
exciting opportunity to improve our math and
leadership skills.
We would also like to thank Mrs. Helland for all
of her work in getting the bank branch off the
ground.
All the employees should be very proud of
their hard work and how successful the day was. It promises to be
an exciting year at the bank!
Kindergarten Happenings
Working on letter formation
can be so much fun. We make
letters with playdough, wikki
sticks (wax sticks) and even
shaving cream.
We made a
class book
about things
we could do
with Bear. We
had some great
ideas and we
are learning to
read and write
some high frequency words.
The bear was busy
jumping , eating,
reading, colouring and
even making snowballs.
We did a fantastic job at
the Remembrance Day
Service. We
recited our
short poem and
presented our
handmade paper poppies at
the wreath laying ceremony.
Grade 1/2
Mrs. Bianchini, Miss Honess, Mrs. Kirk
After all the excitement of Thanksgiving and Halloween in October, we
thought it would be a quiet month in November for the Grade One and
Two classes - it turned out that November was just as busy!
Everyone enjoyed finishing and displaying their “Changes in Me” posters, where they described the differences between themselves as babies and as students now. We put these on the bulletin boards in our hallway, where they are still on
display. Please come by and read them if you haven’t already done so.
We were ready for parent/student/teacher conferences at the beginning of the month. It was a
wonderful opportunity for the grade ones and twos to share their work and set goals with their parents and teacher. Thank you to all who came out for these conferences! If you were unable to come,
please contact your child’s teacher to set up a meeting time so that you can see what your child is
working on in school.
At the Remembrance Day assembly, the Grade 1/2’s recited a poem entitled “Remembrance Day”.
Students did a very nice job with this poem, and were very respectful during the assembly.
Our science work has focused on Colours. Students have had a really great time learning about primary and secondary colours, the difference between transparent and opaque, and how to mix colours to
make new ones. Miss Honess has created some interesting and fun hands-on investigations for the
classes, and they all look forward to science time.
We are currently working with familiar stories such as fairy tales in our Writer’s Workshop. This
study will help students create strong beginnings, well developed middles and definite endings to their
own writing. Everyone is enjoying hearing the different versions of their favourite stories.
Welcome to Miss Nelson, a student teacher from the University of Lethbridge, who is working with
Mrs. Kirk. She will be with us until December 10. So far Miss Nelson has been teaching some social
studies and math lessons, but by the end of her time at VPE, she will have taught all subjects in Grade
1/2, and will have worked with all three Grade 1/2 classes. We are delighted to have her with us!
We are both excited and sad to see December arrive: excited to finally be in the Christmas month,
but sad because it means we say goodbye to one of our students who is moving away. Carter Foote is
in Grade 2 in Mrs. Kirk’s room, and is moving to Airdrie at the end of November. We will all miss his
happy smile, his willingness to help out, and his wicked sense of humour. We wish you all the best at
your new school, Carter!
Here’s to a happy and joyful December!
Grade 3/4
Mrs. Booker, Miss Kubik, Miss McBride
Ms. Spiess is here from the University of Lethbridge as a student teacher. She is working in
Miss Kubik’s room but has had a chance to work with all of the classes. She is currently
teaching students in guided reading and social studies. We look forward to working with her
until the middle of December.
In writing, students have completed a number of descriptive paragraphs and have been working hard on creating detailed settings to start off our stories. It has been great to see students writing compound sentences with intriguing word choices and a variety of sentence
starters. We can hardly wait to get more into story writing!
In reading, we all have learned many strategies to help us all improve our 'Comprehension',
'Accuracy', 'Fluency' and 'Expanding Vocabulary'. Be sure to ask your child to show you what
we are working on when they are reading with you at home. We have also had a large number
of students reach the 300 minute goal for reading and have been able to pick out a book to
donate to those in need. Keep tracking those minutes and we are looking forward to seeing
how many books we will be able to donate by Christmas.
Students are becoming experts at addition and subtraction. In our math groups, students have focused on
learning different strategies to help each of them be
more successful, efficient and accurate at solving problems. Everyone is getting more comfortable explaining
their math thinking and solving problems in more than
one way to double check their work.
Social studies is giving us the opportunity to examine
how people live in the countries of Peru, India, Tunisia
and Ukraine. We worked together to study Ukraine's
environment and how people adapt and change it. Now
students are working to research one of the other
countries and create a project to show what they have
learned to the rest of the class. We are excited to
have some parents come in later in the year to share
their own first-hand knowledge of these countries.
We are looking ahead to December and all the fun
events coming up like floor hockey finals, Christmas
concerts, graphing, gingerbread houses and more!
Writing All About it!
At Vulcan Prairieview Elementary School, the Grade 5/6s have
created many wonderful pieces of writing. They have just finished writing newspaper articles on ‘National Forest Week’ and one on a
Musk Ox that escaped from the zoo. They have now started learning Parts
of Speech which involves learning nouns and verbs. Figures of speech are
another thing they have been learning about. The Grade 5/6s are excited
to learn more about how to become stronger writers.
By Olivia, Ethan and Pratiti
Social Studies
In social, we have been learning about the Atlantic Region. There are different
landforms, climate patterns, jobs and natural resources there. In the Atlantic
Region there were three tribes: Mi’kmaq, Maliseet and Beothuk. The Beothuk died from a disease called scurvy. We
learned all this from our teacher Ms. Colborne.
By Teagan, Logan and Presley
Adventure off into Grade 6 Math
This month we are learning about place value and multiplying with decimals. These units have been very interesting to learn about. Now we’re
learning how to problem solve using the step-by-step method. Grade 6 students have been working in the textbooks to improve our work stamina and
knowledge on multiplying with decimals. Math is used in everyday life so it’s
time to open up our minds and learn!
By Ashley, Hunter and Scott
Grade 5 Math
In math, we just finished our big numbers unit test and now we are learning
to add decimals and fractions! Usually, every morning Ms. Colborne and Ms.
Edmonds give us a daily math problem that’s fun and challenging. If we have
trouble, the teachers will help us without telling us the answer. Math is fun
with just Grade 5, even though it is always difficult!
By Justin, Megan and Nick
Science
Mrs. Kim Booth, teacher of Grade 5/6 students has been teaching about
classroom chemistry from September to mid-November. Students learned
about the three states of matter; homogeneous and heterogeneous mixtures, and much more. “Science is fun and an entertaining subject to do at
school,” said Annika Olson, student at V.P.E. Students can’t
wait to start the next unit on Electricity.
By Izzy, Annika and Brody
Physical Education
Last Friday, all the Grade 5/6 students from Champion,
Vulcan, and Arrowwood came to play in a volleyball tournament at the CRC. It was a blast! All the students got
to practice their volleyball skills in a fun tournament. The tournament wrapped up volleyball and now we
are onto basketball, which is also a lot of fun. Hopefully,
basketball is as exciting and successful at volleyball was.
By Joel, Kenzie and Jakob
Leader in Me!
Grade 5/6 students have gathered every Wednesday to attend leadership. We have been learning about “The Seven Habits” by Sean Covey. We’ve read bits and pieces of each book to increase our leadership
skills. We have already learned how to do the actions for the seven habits. We are glad to have Mrs. Helland and Mrs. Meehan as our teachers and
hope to have them again next year.
By Paige and Nicholas
~Mrs. Helland
The Grade 5 and 6 students have been using the program
Leader in Me as an introduction to personal leadership. This
program allows students to lead in their own lives and make
positive choices. The students have spent the last few months
focusing on Habit 1(Be Proactive), Habit 2 (Begin
with the End in Mind) and Habit 3 (Put First
Things First). We have completed several activities to support each of these habits. One of the
activities suggested that there was a metal beam
suspended across 2 skyscrapers and asked,
“What would YOU cross the beam for...?” There
was a wide range of answers, but some included:
family, friends, a cure for cancer and world
peace. We will continue with the remaining 4 habits into February. In February the school will participate in
a Trickster Theatre residency with a focus on Steven Covey’s, “Leader in Me”.
Floor Hockey Intramurals
We are about halfway through our regular season of floor hockey intramurals. There have been
lots of close games, including a recent game between the USA and Russia that went to a
shootout. There has also been some great displays of sportsmanship. Keep watching for updates
as the play-offs start soon. Each team is hoping to end up first or second to get the bye in the
play-offs where once again the winning team will have a chance to take on the staff as Team Canada in late December.
Farewell
Mrs. Foote (learning assistant at our school) along with Carter (Gr. 2) and Lindy (Gr. 4) are moving to Airdrie as of December 1st. We wish them the best of luck at their new school as they will
be missed here at VPE.
Happy December, everyone!
In this season of giving, I’d like to suggest that the adults in our students’ lives consider
giving the gift of literacy this year. That doesn’t necessarily just mean books.
We’ve had this discussion around the office. One parent said she’d be disappointed to be a
kid receiving a book for Christmas. For a child who comes from a home filled with books,
that may be true. But we know of many children whose homes have sparse reading materials. Some kids may have access to lots of books, but none of them are of interest.
In her first blog post on Palliser’s website at http://www.pallisersd.ab.ca/literacy/literacyblog, Palliser Literacy Coach Bev Smith recently shared a very personal story. Her own
son could read but chose not to. Despite his parents reading to him from the time he was a
baby, despite him having access to a treasure trove of books at home, despite living in a
household full of voracious readers, he just didn’t read for fun.
Bev shares that she thinks one reason is that her son too seldom had a choice about what to
read. Mom bought lots of books for him, not necessarily books he would have chosen for
himself.
Her experience suggests a gift card to a bookstore would be a better choice than choosing a
book for him. Give a gift card and then make an outing to the bookstore. Pour over the
shelves for something that catches the child’s eye. Help the child take the clues from the
book front and back covers and the inside panels and look for books that he/she will be
keen to read. As adults, don’t leap to judgment that the book he/she chooses is too easy.
Don’t pressure a child to read something that might be beyond his/her reading abilities.
Aside from gift cards, consider giving a gift of your time. Read together. Talk about what
the student is reading and what he/she thinks about it.
As a gift, students can create and write holiday messages or write a story about a favourite
memory of time spent with a parent, aunt or uncle or grandparent. That’s a gift that will be
treasured for years to come.
Literacy is truly a gift that keeps on giving.
Happy holidays, everyone.
Kevin Gietz, Superintendent
Palliser Regional Schools