General News

Celebrate1517: Today, the focus is on Sola Gratia (By Grace Alone), the Only Method. Our justification and salvation are both solely by the sovereign grace of God and not dependent on any action or condition man provides.

Good Friday morning everyone on this first day of autumn. Actually, the autumnal equinox officially begins at 4:02 this afternoon; something to celebrate when the children come home from school☺. We have been blessed with beautiful weather the last couple of weeks and it is supposed to stick around for a few more days yet; at least until the middle of next week according to the meteorologists. Thus far, a lot has happened in and around John Calvin School. We thank the Lord for His blessing and guidance during September as we carried out our daily work of learning and teaching along with participating in various special activities and events.
Mrs. Visser continues to struggle with health issues. She remains on sick leave until the doctors can determine the cause of her health concerns. We pray the Lord will continue to encourage her and her family and grant her much patience during this time.
Mr. Hofsink is planning to attend the National Principals’ Conference on September 25, 26, 27 at Crieff Hills Christian Retreat in Puslinch, Ontario. In his absence, Mrs. Elgersma and Miss Buist will continue to take care of administrative matters.
We thank the Lord that Mrs. Inge DeVisser could be hired to replace Mrs. DeBoer (Grade 6B) when she goes on her maternity leave next month.

A few items for your attention:
*The annual fall food drive for the West Lincoln Community Care Food Bank continues until Friday, October 6 at which time the goods will be delivered to the Food Bank. Currently, the shelves at the bank are quite empty, indicating that there is a need in this community. Baskets have been set up in different locations in the school and are starting to fill up. That is great to see. Thank you very much everyone for your consideration and participation in this act of service for the broader community.
*Thank you everyone for your cooperation with respect to pick-ups and drop-offs. It is much appreciated by students and teachers.
*Excellent selling job so far students! There are only three boxes of chocolate left in the school to be sold. Again, great work by all who participated in this fundraiser.
*Fire Prevention Week runs from October 8th – 15th with the theme being, “Every second counts – plan two ways out”. It is a reminder for families to have a home escape plan that included two different ways to exit your home in the event of a fire. 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. This year our Grade 4 students will once again 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. Contest forms and escape planning sheets will be provided by the Fire Department. All the best students!
*Earlier this week, the boys’ and girls’ soccer teams played an exhibition game against Covenant Christian School. The boys’ game ended in a draw, 2-2, while the girls’ game ended 2-1 in favour of Covenant, although apparently one of their goals was scored from an offside position. The games were good preparation for tomorrow’s tournament.
The annual Canadian Reformed Schools Invitational Soccer Tournament is once again hosted by John Calvin School. As in previous years it will take place at two venues, West Lincoln Leisureplex (boys’ and girls’ divisons) and John Calvin School (co-ed division). We hope to see many of you there to cheer on the school’s teams. All of the tournament games for the JCS boys’ and girls’ teams will take place at Leisureplex. Here are their schedules. Please note the corrections from last week’s schedule. My apologies for the misinformation as I was using a previous year’s schedule.
BOYS GIRLS
8:00 Grace vs John Calvin 9:05 John Calvin vs Timothy
11:15 John Calvin vs Covenant 11:15 Grace vs John Calvin
12:20 Maranatha vs John Calvin 12:20 ACRES vs John Calvin

If either or both of the teams make it that far, the semi-finals take place at 2:30 and the final is scheduled for 3:45.
*Training continues for the annual cross country run next week Wednesday and Friday during lunch recess. Mrs. Groen and Mrs. Heemskerk are training the athletes in preparation for the annual Grades 7&8 Canadian Reformed Elementary Schools Meet scheduled for Friday, October 6 at Dundas Valley Conservation Area. This event is hosted by Guido De Bres Christian High School. In preparation for the main event, the athletes will also be participating in a cross-country meet hosted by NACE (Niagara Association for Christian Education) at Agape Valley Bible Camp on Tuesday, October 3rd. Runners continue to be encouraged to run at home as well.
*We are planning to hold a bus evacuation drill and review of bus expectations with all the students on Wednesday, October 11. This has been changed from the week of October 2 because several grades are going on class trips that week.

Reminders:
*Once again, we are participating in the Scholastic Book Club. The flyers for the different grade levels went home earlier this week. If you decide to purchase books from different flyers, you just need to write one cheque, made payable to John Calvin School, not Scholastic. Thank you. *Grade 2B is planning to visit Anchor Home on Wednesday afternoon, September 27.
*Grade 4B is planning to visit Kilean Lodge on Thursday morning, September 28.
*You are welcome to join us for the Thanksgiving Assembly on Friday, October 6 beginning at 1:45 p.m. in the school gym.
Have a great weekend (perhaps we will see you tomorrow) and a blessed Sunday. We hope to communicate with you again next week.
G. Hofsink
________________________________________
Classroom News
________________________________________
Kindergarten
Next week, we look forward to our first colour day! Red Day will be on Thursday/Friday. One of our class moms will bring a red snack to share with the class, and the students are encouraged to dress in red and bring red items along (to play with or show the class). Our new letter next week will be “Ii”, and our new words will be “it” and “yellow”. Please continue to practise proper pencil hold and printing their own name correctly. In Math, we plan to start our chapter on patterns. Not all of the students know all the shapes and colours, so perhaps you could find some books or games to review them with your child. “I Spy” is a great one! Please continue to check and sign the agenda every school day. Working with the glued-in agenda sheet each week is also greatly beneficial. A few minutes of one-on-one review with your child shows interest in their education and makes a world of difference in boosting their confidence in the classroom. Just keep it fun! In our Bible lessons we will be learning how God chooses to start a new nation with whom to make a special covenant. We will learn about Abraham who had to wait for God’s promises. Library books and Memory Work (red duotang) are both for Thursday/Friday. Song due is Psalm 8:1 and text due is Romans 1:16-17. Have a wonderful weekend in this beautiful weather! FVI & NR

Grade 1
It has been a hot week! We had a great time at the Feenstra orchard on Wednesday. Thank you to the Feenstras for hosting us again. We loved the apples and apple cider and the tours. Thanks to the moms who accompanied us. Your help was very much appreciated. We will be finished the stories from unit two in our Bible program and hope to have a test on Thursday. Please look for the Bible notes in your child’s backpack and read them over together on Wednesday night. We also hope to do a Math test on Wednesday. It will be very interesting for us to see how the students have worked with the first unit working with numbers and numerals. Here is a little advanced notice that we are scheduled to go to the Niagara Safety Village on October 3rd. I’m not sure if we need parent volunteers for that activity. Parts of the facility there is very cramped. Students continue to amaze us with how quickly some of them are able to use the sight words to begin reading independently. Please continue to study these words with your children daily.
Memory work: Psalm 72:5, Gen. 1:1, 31a
Spelling words: are, for, he, on, was
sight words: see, something, sees, I, said, too, jump, can, Candy

Grade 2
This week we finished our first Bible unit. The students did quite well on their test once again, and so this coming week we begin learning about Jesus’ ministry. We also tested the first round of Math facts. Next week the students will be given more facts to add in their bag. Next week we will turn our attention in Science to joints and muscles. The students are loving this unit! Have a great weekend in the beautiful weather! RG & JA
Spelling: rain, school, house, does, people Memory Work: Psalm 86:4

Grade 3
We had another visitor this week in our classroom to show and tell pioneer items. Guess who? Yes, you are right…Mrs. Buikema! Thank you, Mrs. Buikema, for spending time with us and telling stories about those items and answering our questions too! Just a reminder that we have a BIG dictation on Friday reviewing ALL the September words. Please remember to study, grade three! We ended our first Bible unit with a test. The students did a wonderful job and wrote down lots of details. That is how we get our points, grade three. Please check the agenda pouch to see it. Thanks. Picture day was a smiley success! Can’t wait to see the proofs! We thank the Lord that Ryeanne DeBoer is back at school and we hope and pray that her arm heals properly and quickly.Have a blessed weekend. J.B./M.P.
Psalm 50:1; Text: Genesis 3:15 (two weeks)
Words: again, because, could, favourite, have, into, off, people, said, they, until, very, want, who Library books on Tuesday.
Gym on Monday and Thursday.
Mission $ on Friday.

Grade 4
We are finishing off our Bible unit on Samuel. We will have a test on Tuesday, Sept. 26. Our next unit is a Church History unit called Church Life. In Science, we continue to work on Living things and their habitats. We had a really good afternoon at St. John’s last week when we saw ecosystems in action.
Spelling: tea, care, need, ocean, whale, net, clear, watch, deep, feel, hear, chest, sea, free
Memory Work: Hymn 25:1 (Sept. 29) Psalm 32:1-2 (Sept. 29) Hymn 13:1 &2 (October 6)
Grade 4B specific: Math Test on Monday
Mrs. Lemstra and Miss Hoeksema

Grade 5
What a glorious, sunny and warm week we’ve had. We are so enjoying this beautiful weather, though our classrooms tend to be quite warm. Since this weather is supposed to be with us for a bit, we highly recommend that each student brings a water bottle to school to help stay hydrated and to stave off those heat induced headaches. In Bible we continue to study the very early life of our Saviour, while in Social Studies we are learning about how good at engineering and constructing the Romans were. We had our first quiz in French and it was an eye opener to quite a few that paying attention to the gesturing during class is vital to succeeding. There will be another French gesture quiz this Wednesday. In Music we have been studying the life of Mozart. There will be a Music quiz on Mozart this coming Thursday/Friday and then we will be studying The Magic Flute, a piece composed by Mozart. Parents, please make sure your children have their phys. Ed clothes on Wednesdays and Fridays. Have a wonderful weekend and a blessed Sunday. SO/KVL
Memory Work: Psalm 25:2, Books of the Bible
Text: Luke 1:46-50 (3 weeks)
Wednesday: French Gesture Quiz
Thursday: Mozart Quiz (5A)
Friday: Mozart Quiz (5B)
Devotions: 5A: M. Dane, Tu. Josiah, W. Aiden, Th. Damon, Fr. Abigale
5B: M. Jaxon, Tu. Kara, W. Jonas, Th. Ethan, Fr. Davis

Grade 6
Despite very warm temperatures, the students have continued with their work. On Fridays we read a current event story. Last week we read about smart cars and were able to list the pros and cons for this technology. This week we read about robots. Ask the students what they learned. Grade 6A students discovered why the Red Sea was given its name. Make sure to ask them for they are still waiting for you to ask them about the Black Sea. We discussed Charlemagne this week and made note of 3 ways that he strived to defeat the Saxons to preserve the Christians. Have a blessed weekend. MDB/CV
Devotions: 6A T-Titus, W-Karlee, Th-Jazmin, F-John
6B – M-Selena, T-Braedyn, W-Tristan, Th-Mya, F-Jewel
Memory Work: Hy.64:1-Sept.29 Text-Ps.8:5-9
Tests: Vocab-Sept.28(6A) Sept.29(6B) Ch.H.-Sept.29
Visit Warplane Museum- Oct.4 – guided tour – no volunteers needed- no microwave food

Grade 7A
We have another interesting week ahead in Grade 7A. On Tuesday we’ll visit the Central Branch of the St. Catharine’s Public Library. This trip will be in connection with our Independent Study where students are reading a book about a topic of their choice and further researching it. The morning session will have students researching what happened throughout history on the date of their birth. Science will have us determining structural efficiency using a formula, while History will include a Chapter 1 quiz. Our next chapter in Math will be number theory; primes/ factors/multiples/composites. The introduction to article reviews will have come to a close next week and we’ll begin our public speaking unit. Students have created Food Drive flyers; please remember the drive in your plans next week. Enjoy your weekend.

Grade 7B
Another week has come and gone in Grade 7B and we are rolling our way along. In Bible History we are continuing to look at how Saul, an earthly king, does not follow the ways of the LORD and how the LORD chooses a king after His own heart. We have begun our unit on Public Speaking to prepare us for the Public Speaking contest coming in the new year. Our independent research class is well underway as well, with a trip to the St. Catharines Central Library planned for Tuesday. We will be completing a workshop on how to research. Devotions – Tristan B. Have a great weekend!

Grade 8A
A busy and exciting weekend lies ahead of us. Today we finished our week with some packing and preparations for the soccer tournament. All the best for the teams tomorrow! In class we worked on how to write by showing and not just simply telling. In History we watched the ideas of Confederation take hold of the Fathers of Confederation (and their wives by the way!). Here is an interesting test. The bonus question on the History test will have to do with the name of the wife of George Brown. Have a blessed weekend. Cheers, Mr. J

Grade 8B
We are already in fall! Things have been busy in Grade 8. We are busy working on our Independent Research Projects. Your son or daughter had to choose a career and find a book on it to bring to class. Please help them out in finding this information. They have received all the tools necessary to find the books they need but may just need a ride to the library. Next week Tuesday we have a Bible Test on the Intertestmental Period. Have a fabulous weekend, hopefully outdoors. KG