General News

The monthly theme for the month of October is Intellectual Carefulness. “it is more from carelessness about truth than from intentionally lying that there is so much falsehood in the world.” (Samuel Johnson)

Hello again everyone on this blustery, fall day and weekend according to the forecast. It is hard to believe that we have already come to the end of September. We have certainly gotten into the swing of the school schedule by now. It is good to be back after an excellent National Principals’ Conference in Sumas, Washington where we learned more about The School Principal in the Reformed Context and the six P’s that define the principal’s work in the school: Preparation, Planning, Professionalism, Personnel, Performance, and Promotion. I will be reporting more about the conference in the October News and Views. May the Lord continue to provide parents and teachers with all they need as, together, they instruct His covenant children about His Word and His creation.

By the way, we still have a number of 50th anniversary commemorative photo books available for purchase at a cost of $10.00. If you don’t have one or would like another one, please drop by the school and pick one up.

A few items for your attention:

• By Friday afternoon, the smell of chopped onions, and other greens will have permeated the school because of the work of the grade eights and a group of dedicated parent helpers who prepared many bags of soup greens. Hopefully you will have received the bags you ordered by day’s end.
• The annual food drive for the West Lincoln Community Card Food Bank continues until the middle of October when the food will be delivered by the students in Grade 7 to the Food Bank. Currently, the shelves at the depot are quite empty indicating that. once again, there is a real need in the community. Grade 7 students have been diligent in reminding us of the venture. Baskets have been set up in different locations in the school and some of them are close to being filled. That is great to see. Thank you very much everyone for your continuing participation in this act of service for the broader community.
• Most of the money from the chocolate bar fundraiser is in; however, there is still a fair bit that needs to be returned. Let’s get that in by the middle of next week so that we can wrap up the fundraiser before the Thanksgiving Weekend. Reminder: please do not return unsold bars.
• Fire prevention week runs from Oct. 4-10 with the theme being, Hear the Beep Where You Sleep. This year’s message is a reminder that having a working smoke alarm is your only chance to escape a fire in your home at night. The West Lincoln Fire and Emergency Services will be conducting a fire drill and inspection of all schools, including John Calvin. No notice of the date and time of the inspection will be provided in advance.
• We congratulate the JCS boys’ soccer team with their victory at the annual Canadian Reformed elementary school soccer tournament. They defeated Timothy Christian School, 2-0, in the final. We also congratulate the JCS girls’ on their fine performance at the tournament. They finished the day with three wins and one loss, their only defeat coming at the feet of the eventual champions, Timothy. Well done boys and girls and thank you coaches for the time and effort you put in getting the teams ready for tournament day.
• Training continues next week for the cross country team. We are planning to take the athletes to Kinsmen Park on Tuesday, October 5 during the lunch hour. Once again, we will be taking a bus to the park. Runners continue to be encouraged to train at home. The cross country meet is scheduled for Friday, October 9 at the Dundas Valley Conservation Area (same venue as last year). All the best runners! Thanks again Mrs. Heemskerk for training the athletes for this year’s run.
• Dental Screening: A public health registered dental hygienist is scheduled to visit John Calvin on October 20 & 21to provide dental screening to students in Grades K, 2, 4, 6, and 8 and other children as required under the Health Protection and Promotion Act. During this time, the registered dental hygienist will perform a visual inspection of each child to determine his/her dental needs. Parents will be contacted if their child requires immediate dental care. Public Health dental programs may financially assist children who do not have access to required dental care.   Please contact the Public Health dental program for any of the following:1) If you do not wish to have your child participate in the dental screening; 2) If you child is not in one of the targeted grades and you would like him/her to participate. Call Dental Health Information at 905-688-8248 or 1-888-505-6074 ext. 7399 or email dental@niagararegion.ca

 Reminders:

• Thursday, October 8 is the first Hep B vaccination for the Grade 7 students.
• You are invited to join the students and staff at the Thanksgiving Assembly next week Friday,October 9 at 2:15 p.m.in the gym.
• Thanksgiving Monday and PD Day Tuesday means no school for students.
• Due date for the News and Views contributions is Tuesday, October 13.
• Poultry Party theme week from October 14-16. Details to follow in next week’s Chronicle.
• A heads-up to the students in Grades 7&8: The annual ANCHOR WORK DAY is coming up at the end of the month. The usual information about the event will be sent home next week. Perhaps the students and parents can begin to think about the odd jobs in which students can be involved.

Have a great weekend everyone and a blessed Sunday. Until next week Friday, D.V.

A. Buist and G.Hofsink

Classroom News

Kindergarten

Last week we had fun with Red day (I believe in error it was posted in the chronicle as this Friday). The Kindergarten calendar is correct it was last week Friday, my apologies for any confusion. The Thanksgiving assembly will be on Friday, October 9th at 2:15, as always guests welcome.   A reminder that Kindergarten participates in Mission Money on Fridays. We have a little Mission Money Bunny who loves to eat the children’s coins so we can help someone who needs it. The students can bring in a little change any day for the bunny but on Friday is the day it is collected. Our new memory work is Psalm 75:6, due on the 15/16th, please remember to send the memory work book in on these days so we can put in marks and post new memory works. Thank You to Bert Vis for the new kindergarten mat. We appreciate the new circle time carpet 🙂 Have a blessed weekend. S.L. and M.DBS.

Grade 1

Memory work: Psalm 131:3   Gen.17:7

We have had a very busy week in grade one. On Tuesday afternoon we visited Anchor Home- we sang some songs for the residents and they even joined in with the songs they knew. We were allowed to see how Connie’s hoist worked to help her get out of bed and into her wheelchair every day. Carson was lifted up when he held on tight- it was very exciting! On Tuesday we had a wonderful visit to the Feenstra’s orchard. We saw how apples are picked and carefully lowered into a big bin ( we even met a picker named Ronald MacDonald) • a tractor pulling all the bins to the barn. apples being carefully unloaded, washed, waxed and dried, graded and packed. There are a lot of people working very hard to get the apples to the market. We even got to go inside the big coolers-brrrrrrr. After picking our own apples we went for a long hike through the woods. We had to scramble over fallen trees and up and down steep hills. It was a lot of fun. We also saw a huge puff ball (mushroom) which had been nibbled on by an animal. We also managed to get a lot of work done. Please remember to practice the reading and spelling words at home. We need a lot of extra practice for the first few months and there is just not enough time in a day to do enough of it. We are almost finished with the first chapter of our math and will be sending a letter home next week we to introduce chapter 2.Have a blessed weekend. HB & JvB

Grade 2

Memory Work:Hymn 15:1,The 12 Apostles
Words:family, came. why, have.saw

Another week has come and gone! We have completed half of the second Bible unit and will therefore be administering a test on Wednesday. Students seem to be learning their spelling words with very little difficulty. Keep it up! In Language Arts we read about colourful leaves. The students enjoyed learning new words such as photosynthesis and chlorophyll. Please keep practicing your Math facts! Have a wonderful weekend!HV/RG

Grade 3

Memory work: Hymn 53:2, Text: The 10 Plagues(2 weeks)
Spelling words: city, community, country, exciting
Thursday: Bible quiz Unit 1

October is here, time is flying by. We have been busy making patterns in math, this in preparation for the upcoming times tables. We will say good bye to Laura, Mary and their family, as we are nearing the end of ‘little House in the Big Woods”. The children just loved the book. Please continue to practice the spelling words, sing memory work, and learning texts. Please make sure your child is prepared for reading to the class. In our Pioneer unit we are enjoying the life of a pioneer. For our Pioneer day there are restrictions for how many extra parents may come along, something we do not have control over. We can’t wait to see the children all dressed up!! Have a blessed Sunday. JB/MP

Grade 4A

It is interesting to see how our students grow in the ability to take notes while they are listening. That is much harder than “fill-in-the-blanks”. We are happy to see they are acquiring new learning skills! We have finished our first unit in Bible History, and once all the students have finished writing the test you will see the results. it looks like they did great! In science we are busy working with the information we collected during our trip to the pond. By now we know what habitats and ecosystems are and how populations are interacting to make sure the living organisms can continue to grow and develop. On Thursday we started on our posters. In groups of 3 we will show the habitats of animals and how they live together in different ecosystems. We will try to show how predators also are always looking for food. The posters will be marked and we will pay attention to neatness and also to the information they collect. Next week Tuesday we will have a Math test -measuring, addition and subtraction with regrouping are on the menu and also some times tables. By next week we expect all the students to know the 3 timetables and possibly the 4 timetables. The students are really working hard to master them!

Monday & Thursday: Phys Ed
Tuesday:Math Test
Wednesday:Library
Friday: Memory Work: Hymn 13:1&2, Text 1Sam15:22(2weeks) – Spelling Lesson 5

Grade 4B

How quickly time flies. It seems like yesterday that school had just begun and here we are in October already. The students have been hard at work: Math has us learning the very difficult concept of long division. While the idea has been introduced and we will be working with it for a couple of days, it is a concept we come back to time and time again throughout the year. The students are being courageous in admitting their struggles and this is to be commended. But they are also trying their best and the confused looks are diminishing. 🙂 In Bible we will be wrapping up our unit on Saul and Samuel and having our end of the unit test on Friday. Duotangs will be going home on Wednesday already for study purposes. In Science we are continuing our studies of habitats, niches and communities. These discussions become more real to us all when we link them to our pond visit. We will continue our studies looking at predators, prey, omnivores and the like. Have a blessed and restful weekend.SO

Memory Work:Hymn 13:1,2;  Text: (two weeks) 1Samuel15:22
Mon. & Thur.: Phys. Ed.
***Tuesday*** : Library NOTE THE CHANGE FOR THIS WEEK
Friday: Bible Test. Spelling Dictation, Memory Work, Mission Money

Grade 5

Memory Work: Psalm 38:1,10
Spelling Words: dumb, skull, luck. huge, include, rules, continue, reduce, knew, crew, drew, glue, argue, thumb,jewels, blue
Math Quiz- Tuesday
Spelling Quiz – Thursday

This week the Bible quiz was marked and returned.  Please ask your child to show it to you.  Many of the children did very well.  Not all of them remembered to take their books home to study.  That becomes more and more important in the higher grades. Not only do we test factual recall in grade 5. we also ask questions that require thinking and application of what was learned. Students are expected to communicate what they know in a clear manner as well. By Friday we will have completed our first P.E. unit as well. Please remember that P.E. is on Wednesdays and Fridays. Students need to have their P.E. clothes on those days.

Grade 6A

Every Friday we as a class have been reading a current event story. So far we have read about the Google Science Fair (which encourages young people to invent new things). smart cars (discussing the pros and cons), drones (looking at uses. safety and privacy concerns). and the solar­ powered jet (comparing it to the conventional jet). The students and teacher enjoy the discussion and learning these stories stimulate. On Tuesday we plan to go to the Warplane Museum. No volunteers are needed for this guided tour. Please remember to bring foods that don’t require microwaving. We have discussed the 4 forces involved with flight, made some flying things, and watched some experiments during Science this week. We hope to complete our various units next week and start with new topics after the break. The students have completed their animal outline filled with a variety of lines for art and will be working on a Thanksgiving poster. We have been introduced to a new way to do long division and are very excited about our successful results! Have a blessed weekend. CV

Devotions: W-Abby Th-Jayden F-Kendra
Hy.74:1 – Oct.7, Hy.74:4 – Oct. 9; Gen.9:12-16 – Oct.8
Science Quiz-Fri.Oct.9

Grade 7A

We continue with our study of Job in Bible History. We’ve seen how the three friends have been “miserable comforters” and how Job’s confidence rests in the coming Messiah; that confidence will be our memory work text. We’ll be running pass patterns and throwing spirals in Phys. Ed. as we move on to our next unit, flag football. As covenant children who are members of a chosen race and royal priesthood we discussed the importance of “nosce te ipsum”; this idea also comes up in Guidance as our decisions must be in line with our principles. Please ask your child how they did on the recent Math test. our next unit will address number theory.Enjoy your weekend.

Grade 7B

The first month is already gone. and what a great month it has been. We have completed our study of the Psalms and are now working our way through the book of Job, considering how the struggle between God and Satan is played out on earth in the life of Job. In L.A. students continue to develop their writing skills. 10 out of the 15 students in 7B are looking forward to competing in the cross country run at Dundas Valley next Friday. Come on out and cheer them on together with the rest of the JCS team. KB

Devotions week of October 5 – Emma
Devotions week of October 12 – Juanita
Thursday- MW- Psalm 85:4 & Job 19:23-27

Grade 8

As we wrap up September. we have also wrapped up our first Math and Science Units. After a successful Soccer Tournament. Gr. 8 held its next fundraiser on this past Friday as we continue to ‘chop’ our way towards our goal! Great work and a big thanks to all who helped us out! Here are some things for next week: Tues: Math Test; Wed: Science Test; Spelling Q; Fri: Vocab Q. Devotions:JT; MW:Ps. ; John 1:1-7. Cheers, Mr. J