General News

We continue with our study of the final cluster of the Fruit of the Spirit- faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. This week, a few words on gentleness. In Philippians 4:5 we read, “Let your gentleness be evident to all.” We are to be gentle, i.e. reasonable, fair-minded (one of the seven intellectual virtues), and charitable to those outside of our church and school community, not just to fellow believers. This also means that we are not to seek revenge against those who treat us unfairly, nor are we to be overly vocal about our personal rights. In our daily walk and talk, we are to show gentleness and humility to each other and to our neighbour.

Good day everyone as we bring to an end the first few days of learning and teaching in June. We thank the Lord for the many blessings we could receive during the course of this week and pray for His continued blessing through the remaining three weeks of the 2015-2016 school year.

We congratulate Trevor and Corinne Schulenberg with the birth of their son, Owen. He is a brother to Evan in Grade KB. All is well with mom and son, and the rest of the boys too.☺ (“Our children all are gifts of God, sons and daughters his reward– each one a blessing from the LORD, as heritage on us bestowed. Psalm 127:3, BoP). May our Heavenly Father provide the parents with all that they need as they raise Owen, along with the rest of their boys, in the fear of His Name.

Our thoughts and prayers continue to be with the family of Mrs. Jane Hordyk, who passed away this past Sunday. She was the grandmother to Chloe Ravensbergen in KA, and the aunt to Bailey (Grade 8) and Brody Hordyk (Grade 5). May the God of all Comfort continue to surround the Ravensbergen and Hordyk families with His love and grace.

We continue to pray for the Lord’s blessing on Miss Buist’s road to recovery.   As it stands right now, her return to the classroom is scheduled for Monday, June 20.

Construction update:   It was good to see a large number of people tour the addition at the Open House last week Saturday. This week, the painters have been in, work continues on installing the utilities, and preparations were made for installing the drop ceilings. We are again thankful for all the work that could be done this week.

A few items for your attention:

*Staffing Update: With thankfulness to the Lord, the board would like to inform the Smithville and District School Society that Mrs. Marian Visser and Mrs. Stephanie Lovato have been hired to teach the Special Needs program at John Calvin School. This means that we will need to hire a Kindergarten teacher for next school year. Thankfully, we already have one expression of interest in the position.

*Congratulations John Calvin School girls’ baseball team on winning the championship trophy at the tournament last week Saturday. The boys’ team fared almost as well but lost in the final to Timothy. Thank you coaches, and parents who came out to watch the games for all or a good part of the day.

*Grade 4 had a great Medieval Feast Day on Thursday of this week. For more details see their Classroom News.

*This past Wednesday was Kindergarten Day. Part of the routine of Kindergarten Day is for the new classes to make a tour through the school, including the office area. It was good to meet and greet the new kindergarten students, whether it was in the K classroom, in the hall, or in the office. This year, once again, we have quite a large number of oldest children attending kindergarten; altogether nine. Welcome girls and boys!

*Library News: Grade 8 students have one more week to return all library books. Today was the last library day for Grades 1-7. No more books can be taken out and the librarians and teachers will now be concentrating on getting back all non-returned books. Students have two weeks to return all library books so please check your shelves, children’s bedrooms, and any other places a stray library book may be found. We would like our year end inventory to be complete. Thank you for your cooperation.

*Year End Trips: One of the exciting events for the month of June is the annual year-end class trips. This year, Grades K-6 are planning to visit Marineland on Tuesday, June 21. Once again, we will be following the same procedure as last year for parents who wish to accompany the classes on the trips. The ratio for free admission into Marineland is 1:10. This will cover the teachers only. Therefore, class moms and classroom volunteers will also have to pay the $15.00 group rate. If more parents would like to come along, they are welcome to join but they will need to pay the full rate as we have reached our maximum (45) for the group rate of $15.00. The full price for the outing is $44.00. As there will be no room on the buses, parents will have to car pool to Marineland. Parents who wish to join the trips may not take along their pre-school children. All parents who come along will be assigned a group of students to chaperon for the grade that they wish to accompany. Parents are also reminded not to use their cellphones during the trip unless it is an emergency. Please keep them in your purse, pocket or backpack. Please also keep in mind the protocol for class trip volunteers. Thank you in advance for your cooperation.

For the trip, departure and arrival time are as follows: leave John Calvin School at 8:30 a.m. and return to the school at approximately 5:30 p.m. Parents will need to pick up their children from the school. As per usual, the Student Fund kicks in a portion of the cost of the trip but cannot carry it all. Thus we ask that each child contribute $10.00 to a maximum of $30.00 per family. This is the first time this amount has increased in many years, but because costs of all our class trips as well as our year end school trips have increased, we have had to increase this cost as well. This contribution should be brought to the school as soon as possible. Beyond that there is no need for students to bring any spending money. This year we would again ask that all students wear gym t-shirts while on the trip.

Reminders:

*Due to construction, please do not park in the parking lot by the kitchen during the day.   Thank you for your cooperation.

*Please continue to be wary of ticks and mosquitoes.

*News and Views material is due on Monday, June 13.

*Regional Track and Field meet in Hamilton (Mohawk Sports Park) on Friday, June 10. A bus will be bringing the athletes to the venue but parents will need to make arrangements to pick up their children from there as the final event, the relays, wraps up around 3:30 p.m.

*Friday, June 17 is a Guido pre-exam study day so Guido buses will not be running. This means that our buses will be running the afternoon routes in reverse with all that means for timing at the morning stops.

*Local field day on Friday, June 17.

*Grades K-6 year end trip to Marineland on Tuesday, June 21.

*Grade 8 Ottawa Trip is from June 20-24.

*Graduation on Monday, June 27.

Have a good weekend and enjoy your day of worship. We hope to touch base again next week Friday.            G. Hofsink

Classroom News

Kindergarten

3 weeks to go! Wow the time has flown. We have been wrapping up lessons, doing assessments and enjoying the beautiful sunshine! We are learning about the life of Jesus when he was on the earth, and all the amazing miracles he performed. Next week Mon/Tues please return all school library books as we are wrapping up Library for the school year.

Memory Work Due Thurs/Friday Hymn 56:1

Thurs/Friday is Rainbow Day for Kindergarten.

Grade 1

We have had a good week in grade one. Today we heard about the destruction of Jerusalem when the Babylonians invaded the land and deported most of the inhabitants. We will review this unit on Monday and have a test on Tuesday. On Wednesday we plan to begin the unit about Daniel. We will also begin with our last spelling unit. In math we have been learning about graphing and will be doing some mapping-which should be quite easy because we have already done a mapping unit in Social Studies. We are learning about the sun, moon and stars and how they each have a purpose in God’s creation. With the last month of school here we are also busy practising for the many events of field day. Have a blessed weekend.

HB/JV

Memory Work: 84:1 Rev.7:17

Grade 2

The students are enjoying learning about Paul’s missionary journeys. It is a wonderful thing to see the Lord’s hand at work in his life. Just like we learned in Church History, God uses weak and sinful people to do his work. With three weeks of school remaining, the students are working diligently on learning their subtraction facts. Keep practising! Have a great weekend!

HV/RG

Memory Work: Hymn 75:1

Spelling words: find, don’t, great, always, also

Friday: Bible test

Grade 3

Wow, June is here! Only a few more weeks! The children have worked hard in spite of the warm temperatures; well done boys and girls! In Bible we may stand in awe of the fact that our covenant God continued to bless His people Israel. He brought them into the promised land and blessed them by showing His mighty power when conquering Jericho. In LA we are paying attention to parts of speech, eg. nouns, verbs, adverb, adjectives, etc. The children have written neat newspaper articles about Stone Fox and the dog sled race. Our Spelling words are review. Children tend to spell the words correctly (see list below), but do not understand when to use the correct word. When practising at home, please talk with your child about how and when to use the words correctly. Thank you parents, for helping your child practise spelling as well as timetable facts. This will benefit your child for years to come! We wish you a lovely weekend. MP/JB

Memory work: Hymn 82:1; Text: Ps 24:4-6

Spelling words: their, there, they’re, too, to, two, because, went, want

Grade 4A

Another busy week has come and gone for our class. The students (and teachers), together with our parent volunteers, could spend a fun-filled day learning about the Medieval times through a feast. We are thankful for all the help that we received, so that such a day could be celebrated. We also could finish off our novel study – From Anna, with the book buffet. The students had fun checking out each other’s work, as well as writing words of encouragement for each other. We look forward to starting to read Charlotte’s Web next week. We also will be shifting our learning in Social Studies from the Medieval times, to learning about Rocks & Minerals. We see God’s work in everything. A lot of the students showed interest in learning and reading more about the Wycliffe Bible Translators; I encourage them to look more of it up on their website.

M: PhysEd clothes W: library T: PhysEd clothes   F:Mission Money, Memory Work, Hy68:1&8 Rev.21:1&2   Devotions: T-Selena F-Ava

Grade 4B

What a wonderful day we had yesterday. The Medieval Feast was, once again, a smashing success. Thank you to all you parents for spending the time helping your child make such wonderful costumes and a huge thank you to the parent volunteers who worked behind the scenes to help this day run so smoothly. Lady NOx (aka my daughter in law) took many, many pictures yesterday and I hope to get some printed off soon. In Church History we have begun a new unit and the first person we will be studying is William Carey- Expect great things from God; attempt great things for God. In Math we will be turning our attention to fractions and decimals and how they are related. We have also begun our last novel study which is Charlotte’s Web. The students and I are very excited to discover, together, all the wonders this novel holds. Have a wonderful weekend and a blessed Sunday. SO

Memory Work: Hymn 68:1,8; Text: Revelation 21:1,2

Devotions: M. Leah, Tu. Julia, W. Avery, Th. Levi, Fr. Tristan

Grade 5

The first chapter in our new book “Mystery at Cranberry Farm” finds the character Tritch disappointed at not having been allowed to take the class pet home for the summer. Our discussion following this has us inspired in the ‘class pet’ department 🙂 We’ve enjoyed the company of both kittens and guinea pigs so far! We are looking forward to our trip to Queen’s Park today, and are ready to take on the roles of Speaker of the House & MPPs, as we anticipate debating some important provincial topics with each other. We are preparing for Field Day during our PE classes – come and see us on June 17 when we compete! Our memory jars are coming along nicely in art class. If you still have small items at home that you’d like to glue on it yet, you may bring them in by Wednesday. Have a wonderful weekend!

Spelling words: again, where, disappear, Wednesday, their, there, countries, decision, business, layer, excitement, thought, until, brought, middle, writing

Devotions: M- Jeremy T- Leah W- Luke T- Avery F- Tristan

Memory work: Hymn 47:1, 2 Peter 1:20-21

Grade 6A

We had an enjoyable trip to Crawford Lake seeing and hearing many things about the Natives that we have discussed during this unit. Some highlights were seeing the inside of the longhouse and being able to touch the various items in there, watching a fire being made, playing native games, and the nature walk. Thanks to Mrs. VanLuik for driving us. On Wednesday we could visit Anchor Home. We sang some songs and played some board games. We hope that the residents enjoyed our visit. We did have a brief discussion afterwards about how we should act in the presence of someone who has physical or mental challenges. Hopefully this was a learning experience for the students also in preparation for the fall when we look forward to some special students coming to our school. Next week we will start our last 3 units on Joshua, Island of the Blue Dolphins, and explorers. Have a blessed weekend. CV

Devotions: T- Reuben, W-Caleb, Th-Jenna, F-Elora

Ps.125:1- June 10

Ch.H. Quiz-Tyndale-June 8

Grade 6B

We had another busy week here in 6B! On Monday we went to Crawford Lake where we were able to walk through a longhouse, play a few games, and learn even more about the aboriginals. When we were done with our tour we went on a hike through the surrounding forest and after getting quite lost we ran around the lake on the boardwalk! On Wednesday we were able to go visit Anchor home where we spent some time singing songs and playing games together. It was wonderful to get out of the classroom for a while and to spend some time with our brothers and sisters in the Lord. We have come to the end of our Church History unit, the students are currently busy making a poster about a forerunner of the Reformation. Next week we will begin our last Bible unit looking at the book of Joshua. We will also begin our last novel, Island of Blue Dolphins, and our last Social Studies unit, The Explorers! We only have a few weeks left of school, but there is still a lot to learn! Please remind your children to wear appropriate clothing for warm weather and to bring a water bottle to school! Have a lovely weekend! MDB

Memory Work Song: Psalm 105: 15

Devotions: M. Emmalyne, T. Gabriel, W. Norah, T. Marissa, F. David

Year End Trip: Tuesday June 21

Grade 7A

The past week was an unusual one in the sense that we learned much outside of the classroom. It was enjoyable spending time together as a grade and learning more about our nation’s heritage as well as our natural heritage. Thank you to all the volunteers who joined us. We’ll continue with radio plays in Language Arts; ask your child what their dramatization is about. In Physical Geography we’ll learn about subsistence, commercial and specialized agriculture. Math has us working with triangles and radius, pi and area. Another class outing of sorts is planned for next Friday, the track and field tournament; more details to follow. Enjoy your weekend.

Grade 8

The weather certainly rose together with the anticipation that this is JUNE! The end is in site but there is still a lot of work to do. We were able to write several quizzes this week and look forward to our field trip and field day on next Wednesday and Friday respectively. If you would like to be a chaperone on the field trip please let me know asap. Here is how next week is shaping up:

Tuesday: Math Quiz; Wednesday: Field Trip; Friday: Track and Field Meet. Have a blessed weekend! Cheers, Mr. J