General News

“Thank the Lord and come with praise;
Songs of jubilation raise
When the crop is gathered in
Ere the winter storms begin.
God, the Maker, will provide
For our wants to be supplied.
Let his people all confess
His unchanging faithfulness”.

Good morning everyone on this beautiful, fall day as we bring to a close the first week of teaching and learning at John Calvin School for the month of October. At the same time, we look forward to celebrating Thanksgiving weekend; whether at home, camping or at a cottage. As we look back on the past year, we have indeed much for which to be thankful. Hymn 76 glorifies God the Creator as reflected in the beauty of nature. Nature helps us understand something of God’s character. The people of Israel believed that God’s care of nature was a sign of His love and provision for them. Nature shows God’s generosity and His faithfulness – giving us more than we need or deserve. Understanding God’s abundant generosity helps us to be grateful to God and generous to others.

If you are free this afternoon, you are welcome to join us for our annual Thanksgiving Assembly beginning at 1:45. Mrs. deVisser is leading the assembly and is focusing on Thanksgiving Day, All the Time: all signs of God’s love for us, His people. The students all received a card with a poem by Connie VanAmerongen. Special mention will also be made about the non-perishable items that were collected for the West Lincoln Food Bank. They were picked up by Ms. Couture from West Lincoln Community Care when, earlier today, she gave a presentation to the Grade 7 classes about the work they do. Thanks again Mr. Witten and Grade 7A for spearheading the drive. May our Heavenly Father continue to bless the work that is being done to provide for the needy in West Lincoln and surrounding communities.

Our thoughts and prayers continue to be with those in our community who mourn the passing away of a loved one, who are dealing with serious illness, or who experiencing difficult family situations. May the Lord continue to surround them with His love and grace.

A few items for your attention:

*With gratitude, we can report that over $2000.00 was raised for the Grade 8 Gatineau/Ottawa trip at the Soccer Tournament. Thank you students, parents, and Grade 8 teachers for looking after the concessions at the tournament.

*Most of the money from the chocolate bar fundraiser is in; however, there is still some that needs to be returned. Let’s get that in asap so we can wrap things up.

*Fire Prevention Week runs from October 9th – 15th with the theme being, “Don’t wait – check the date”. It is a reminder to replace smoke alarms every ten years. This year our Grade 4 students will be participating in the “Fire Chief for a Day” contest. Participants will be drawing a home escape plan showing two ways out of the home. Paper for the design has been provided by the Fire Department. All the best students! The West Lincoln Fire and Emergency Services conducted a fire drill at the school on Monday of this week and will follow that up with an inspection in approximately two week’s time.

*After a pre-meet run at Felkers Falls on Tuesday of this week, the runners were ready today, to meet the challenges of the cross country course at Dundas Valley Conservation Area. At the time of writing, we don’t know the final results but we do know that the runners gave their best effort and, hopefully, most if not all of them were able to run their personal best for the 3.2 kilometer course. Thanks again Mrs. Heemskerk and Mrs. Groen for training the athletes for this year’s run.

*Fruit of the Vine Theme Week: The entire school is planning to celebrate this event from October 12-14. A bunch of activities are planned for the week: a Colouring Contest; Fruit of the Vine food day on Thursday- students are encouraged to bring in a grape snack/lunch and each class will also receive a small container of grape jam and some crackers to enjoy; Fruit of the Vine dress up day (purple/green) on Friday; as well as a cluster of in-class activities. During the week, students and teachers will have opportunity to finger stamp (in green or purple) a wall display entitled: We Are A Grape School. If you have any Fruit of the Vine farming “stuff” that we can borrow for the week, please drop it off or send it to the school with one or your children. That would be much appreciated. We are looking forward to an exciting three days.

*Bullying Awareness Week: Once again we thank the Lord for the successful week that we had. This week we reminded each other that our awareness does not stop at the week that we set aside for the topic, but it needs to continue 24/365.

*Common Report Card and School Year Structure: This year John Calvin School is switching to a new report card and along with that we will be moving from a three term school year to a two term (semester) school year; term one will end on Friday, January 27 and term two will end on Friday, June 23. The teachers will be reporting to the parents four times- two progress reports (November and April), and two report cards (January and June). There will also be two sets of parent-teacher conferences for all parents (November and January) and one by request (April). The focus of the first set of conferences following the November progress report will be on how your son or daughter is doing at school rather than on the marks that they are achieving.

Going this route puts John Calvin School in line with several other League of Canadian Reformed schools who have already or who are in the process of adopting the new report card. This also reflects the reporting system found in Growing Success, a Ministry of Education Evaluation and Assessment document that the staff of JCS studied as part of their Professional Development in 2014-2015. Kindergarten will, for the first time, send home a progress report but will work with their existing report card, at least for the time being.

You will notice several changes to the progress report and the report card. Changes to the progress report include: 1) a more detailed and informative Learning Skills and Work Habits section; and 2) a better indicator for the student’s progress to date to help facilitate discussion at the Parent-Teacher Conference to follow. Changes to the report card are as follows: 1) a more detailed and informative Learning Skills and Work Habits section; 2) a different breakdown for some subject areas, e.g. Language Arts and Mathematics; 3) a school-initiated subject area for a subject that was not included in the original template, e.g. ICT/Keyboarding, Guidance; and 4) a page for students’ and parents’ comments that would be returned to the school and used for goal-setting and discussion points at the Parent-Teacher Conference.

As staff, we are confident that the new reporting system will not only improve student learning but will also improve reporting communication between home and school. For your information, the progress reports and report cards are attached with today’s Chronicle.

Reminders:

*Thanksgiving Monday and PD Day Tuesday means no school for students. On Tuesday, the staff will be busy with a staff meeting, Student and School Community Safety Plan training, developing a profile of a John Calvin School graduate, and working on Language Arts Curriculum.

*Due date for News and Views material is Tuesday, October 11.

*Friday, October 14 is the first Hep B vaccination for the Grade 7 students.

*The Calvin Chronicle will not publish the week of October 24 because of the short week.

*The CRTA Teachers’ Convention is scheduled to take place at Maranatha Christian School in Fergus on October 27 and 28. The students (and parents) may enjoy another extra long weekend.

*A head’s-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.

Enjoy the long weekend everyone and have a blessed Sunday and Thanksgiving. We’ll touch base again in a week’s time.

G. Hofsink

Classroom News

Kindergarten

Next week will be a short school week, especially for KA! The school theme next week is “Fruit of the Vine”. Feel free to join in by taking grapes as a snack, and by dressing up in grape colours (green, purple) on Thursday/Friday. In Bible, we will learn about Jacob and Esau. In Math, we will finish studying patterns to get ready for counting. We will also learn the letter Pp and maybe even start sounding out short words with the letters we have learned so far! May you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving with the blessings God has given you! MD & FV

Grade 1

We have finished our first reader this week and the students are excited to take their readers home. Please encourage them to read to you and return readers on Friday. The students have also taken home the star of the day stories which they will love to read to you. Next week we will be celebrating the Fruit of the Vine which means the students should wear purple/green clothes on Friday. Thursday is grape snack day. Bible notes will be sent home on Wednesday. We hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend. See you on Wednesday! AB/JvB

Memory Work for Friday, Oct. 14: Ps. 116:1; Gen.17:7

Spelling Words: as, his, I, they, with

Bible Test on Thursday

Grade 2

The students (and teachers) in Grade 2 very much enjoyed the beautiful weather this week. We are looking forward to enjoying the long weekend with our family and friends. Next week is a short week and all of our studies will continue as usual. Due to the length of next week, we will take two weeks to learn our spelling words. We have added all of the +2 facts into our Math fact bags. Please practice this weekend if you have some time! See you next week! HV/JB

Memory Work: Ps 43:3

Spelling: line, really, our, whom, what

Grade 3

Grade three had a wonderful week! We have lots of be thankful for. > We finished a Bible test; ask us about the results. We continued to learn more about pioneer foods and hunting and village life. We would like to remind you of the upcoming trip and to find a pioneer outfit. 🙂 In our math classes we are problem solving. Ask us about finding the question, writing an equation and making pictures or tables to solve it. A reminder to study your words every night, grade three. Thank you to Mrs. DeVisser for leading us in the Thanksgiving assembly on Friday. We have so much to give back to our LORD, who gave to us first. Something to leave you smiling… Two boys are coming home from school and meet their mom. “We didn’t get to school until the afternoon… The bus driver saw a sign that said, ‘BACK TO SCHOOL.’ And he went in reverse all the way! Have a blessed Thanksgiving! J.B./M.P.

Psalm 19:1; > Text: Genesis 3:15

Words: pretty, prettier, prettiest

Grade 4A

The past week was a good week with many activities. After the bullying-awareness week, we are still reminded of the message: the best attitude for working against bullying is Acts of Kindness. At the end of the week the students will probably take home their placemat which they can use at home, reminding themselves that ‘Acts of Kindness’ should be on the daily menu…. In Bible class the students enjoy hearing the stories about Saul and David. It’s interesting for them to see God’s hand is in everything that happens, time and again. Math is fascinating! Just have a look at the work that comes home this afternoon. You will find it in the brown envelope. II expect the empty envelope back next week. Next week: there is an extra Bible verse to memorize and we will do that in class: John 15: 4 …”Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me.” We will develop a beautiful poster about the true vine together as class, adding a new perspective every afternoon.   We wish you a blessed Thanksgiving.

Memory Work: Ps130:2 & 1Sam15:22

Grade 4B

We are coming to the end of our science unit on Investigating Living Things and Their Homes. There will be a test on Thursday October 13th. The review will be given on Wednesday. Also, we have another test in Bible on the material from 1 Samuel 16-31 on Friday, October 14th. The review for that test will also be given on Wednesday. Have a blessed and relaxing weekend! Miss H

Memory Work: Psalm 130:2 (October 14) Psalm 100:1-3 (October 21)

Spelling Words Lesson 6: Review of the harder words from lesson 1-5

their, were, wait, holes, takes, there, autumn, such, hear, watch, cried, apple

Grade 5A

Hello again from Grade 5A. We have had a very productive week, this week. The Bible stories continue as we learn about both Jesus and John the Baptist. In Social Studies we have reached the 1/2 way mark in our Rome unit. The students have written their tests and what a fabulous job they did on those tests! Well done Grade 5A. We will now be focusing more on the Roman army and the Punic Wars. So interesting! In Math we have also written our mid unit test (no results yet) and now we hope to review long division and learn how to divide decimal numbers. Next week is, of course a short week for the students but it will be a much shorter week for me. I will be taking a couple of days off in connection to my youngest daughter’s wedding. Mr. DeBruin will be teaching on both Thursday and Friday. Something the students are very excited about. Next week is also our Agriculture week and our theme this year is Fruits of the Vine, namely Grapes. I am sure there will be some fun and interesting activities associated with this. For now, have a thankful and wonderful long weekend and a blessed Sunday. SO

Memory Work: Psalm 38:1,10

Text: Luke 2:10-14

Devotions: Teacher

Grade 5B

This past week has been very busy and I think that we are all ready for a nice long weekend. We have so much to be thankful for as teachers, parents and grade 5 class. Next week there will be a spelling dictation quiz on Friday. The memory work is Ps 38:1,10 and the text is Luke 2:10-14. Beyond that we do not have anything exciting going on. Have a blessed thanksgiving weekend. KG

Grade 6

We had an enjoyable trip to the Warplane Museum. Our excellent tour guide was very informative and willing to answer our many questions. He commented several times to us, as teachers, how well behaved the students were and how eager they were to continue their learning about flight. Way to go, Grade 6! Thanks to Mrs. Vis for driving us. Next week we will be making our own paper airplanes to compete in 3 categories, namely, accuracy, distance, and acrobatics. Ask the students about the many terms discussed in Church History this week. Let them explain what we talked about concerning Hildebrand’s ideas about celibacy, simony, and investiture. Next week we will be doing some activities with grapes for the ‘Fruit of the Vine’ week. Students from 6B are reminded to not throw out their tests but to first get them signed and shown to the teacher. Enjoy the extra long weekend and have a blessed Sunday. CV/MdB

Devotions: 6A   Th-Luke   F-Tristan   6B W-Lukas Th-Jordan   F-Brody

Church History Quiz, Vocab Quiz- Oct.14

Ps.1:2, Gen.9:12-16- Oct.14

Friday Oct.14- wear green or purple

Grade 7A

We welcomed Ms. Couture from West Lincoln Community Care into our classroom on Friday to tell us about the work she does in our community among the disadvantaged. She also thanked the school for our donations to their food bank. Although loyal David is hunted like a wild animal by his king, we will learn how he increases and Saul decreases. It all culminates next week with the Philistines attacking Israel. In History we’ll move on to the two efforts placed upon the French colonies in North America; the fur trade and missionaries. We’ll learn about supply, demand, monopolies and counter-reformation. Enjoy your weekend. TW

Grade 7B

We have a nice 3 day week coming up! We have wrapped up a couple of chapters in History and Math and will be moving on to Fur Traders and Missionaries and Number Theory. We will also be starting low order cooperative games in Phys. Ed. We continue our study of the decrease of Saul and the increase of David in Bible History. Grade 7 will be receiving their Hep B and Meningitis vaccines on Friday. Please make sure they have their consent forms in by Wednesday. Have a good and safe long weekend! Devotions: Monday – Thanksgiving, Tuesday – P.D. Day, Wednesday – Quinton S., Thursday – Tara S., Friday – Abby S. Current Events: Monday – Thanksgiving, Tuesday – P.D. Day, Wednesday – Reuben B., Thursday – Cameron B., Friday – Kendra T.

Grade 8

As we begin the fall season much is underway in Grade 8. This week we started with tests in Math and History. Students did well overall and that was good to see. We also began a ‘Confederation Investigated’ project in History. In Art we continued with our animal mascots, it will be due next Friday. In other news, we are very thankful to report that the Ottawa Trip made over $2000 from the concession stand at the soccer tournament. A big thanks goes to all who helped out. Have a restful and relaxing Thanksgiving weekend. Cheers, Mr. J