General News

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Good Friday morning everyone as we bring the first week of the second term to a close.  Time continues to march on swiftly with more than 50% of the school year now behind us.  We pray that the Lord will continue to bless the learning and teaching that takes place at John Calvin School on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis. Our thoughts and prayers continue to be with those who need the Lord in a special way, whether they are grieving, dealing with serious illness, or coping with difficult family situations.   

                It was good to get together as teachers and parents on Tuesday and Thursday afternoon and evening to discuss the progress of the students to the end of the first term.  It was good to speak about matters that may help us to teach your son or daughter more effectively, and for you, as parents, to support the teachers on the home front.  Please feel free to touch base with your child(ren)’s teacher any time should you have a question or concern about their progress.  Teachers’ emails are published every other month on the back of the front page of the News and Views.  May our Heavenly Father continue to bless this important communication between home and school as together we instruct His covenant children in the fear of His Name.  We thank the Lord for His many blessings during term one and we pray that He will continue to meet the needs of the staff, the students, and the parents during the course of the second term.  

Tomorrow, Mrs. Elgersma’s daughter, Kara, is getting married to Mr. Henry Oosterhof.  May our Heavenly Father grant them a blessed day.

A few items for your attention:

*Thank you very much Ladies Auxiliary for the delicious soup lunch today.  It was very much enjoyed and appreciated by the students, staff, and parents (who did not have to make a lunch).

*This past Thursday, the Grades 7&8 in-class speech and poetry recitation competitions were held.  The top four speakers and top four reciters of poetry from each grade now move on to the in-school contest which is scheduled for Tuesday, February 11.  

     The in-school contest is scheduled to begin at 11:30 and will likely conclude around 2:00.  All the best to Davis T., Abigale S., Beth B., Eli S., Victoria L., Eli D., Kierstin S., and Jazmin P. (speeches); and Danya V., Joshua V., Ethan S., Kathryn H., Jewel B., Susanna H., Julia R., and Kyle D. (reciters of poetry).  Once again, we thank the parents who volunteered to serve as judges for the in-class competition; and the Grades 7&8 teachers who organized the event.  

     John Calvin School is also hosting the Regional competition on Thursday afternoon, February 20 from 12:15-2:30.

*The Guido de Bres high school Grade 9 course selection sheets were due today.  They will be dropped off at Guido on Monday.

*Next week Monday, February 10 the Grade 8 students are planning to travel to Guido De Bres Christian high school to participate in the annual Grade 8 Day.  The students will make their way through a very brief version of the courses they will be taking in September.  This is something that the grade eight students always look forward to.

*The coaches are making preparations for the annual basketball tournament with try-outs scheduled for the week of February 10.  Tryouts for the boys’, girls’, and coed teams will take place on Monday and Thursday afternoon from 2:50-4:00.

*Even though they did not win a game at yesterday’s NDCS tournament, the JCS hockey team put in a great effort and had a fun day of hockey.  Thank you coaches (Mr. J. Tenhage, Mr. R. Tenhage, Mr. D. Nobel, and Mrs. A. Folkerts) for your time and expertise in getting the players ready for and guiding them through the tournament.  Next is the Guido De Bres invitational tournament scheduled for Tuesday, February 18 at the Mohawk Quad Pad in Hamilton; schedule to follow once received.

*On Thursday of next week, we hope to celebrate Heritage/Flag Day.  Parents, grandparents, and other supporters of John Calvin School are invited to join us for the afternoon assembly beginning at 1:30.  Students are encouraged to wear red and white to commemorate Flag Day. We also plan to kick-off Book Week at the assembly.

*Next week Friday, February 14 is a PD Day.  The teachers will be heading to ACRES for their professional development day.  The day is organized by CARE (Curriculum Assistance for Reformed Education) which is a committee of the League of Canadian Reformed Schools.  The topic for the day is Language Arts.  After a brief presentation about the newly developed Language Arts Conceptual Framework, the rest of the day will focus on Media Literacy.  After an introduction about the Media Literacy component of the aforementioned framework, teachers will be spending the remainder of the day working in small groups, by division, designing a media literacy unit.

Reminders:

*News and View materials are due on Monday, February 10 and the magazine is scheduled for distribution on Sunday, February 16. 

*We hope to celebrate 100 Day on Tuesday, February 18.  See the Grade 1 Classroom News for more information.

*Monday, February 17 is Family Day.

*Book Week is planned for the week of February 17-21.  The theme for the special week is Read Canadian.  Some of the activities planned for the week include:  a book reading contest (a two week event beginning on Monday, February 10, celebrating the first ever National I Read Canadian Day on the Wednesday, Red and White Day- Part 2, a display table of Canadian authors, Book Trivia Contest, D.E.A.R. (Drop Everything and Read), buddy reading, Guess the Book or Author contest, and parents or grandparents reading to the class.  Request:  Parents, if you have books by Canadian authors on your shelf could we please borrow them for the week to add to our display, and use them to read to our classes.  That would be much appreciated.  Thanks for your consideration. 

*The “Toonies for Anchor” campaign to raise awareness for the needs of the Anchor Association and to learn more about our Anchor Homes, is scheduled for the weeks of February 24-28 and March 2-6.  Please note that the campaign is being held over a two-week period this year.

Have a good weekend everyone and enjoy your day of rest.  The Lord willing we will touch base again next week Thursday.

G. Hofsink

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Classroom News

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Kindergarten

This week we enjoyed learning all about the letter Ff and our sight words go and to.  The students have started to read with me in the classroom.  Many of the students are well on their way to blending sounds into words.  Keep up the great work, kindergarten!  It was great to be able to speak to many of the parents at parent teacher interviews. Thanks for your support and encouragement in our role as teachers!  Next week is a short week for kindergarten with lots happening.  Please make sure that you are checking SeeSaw for daily updates on what is happening each day!  The students have been asking every day if we can pray for snow.  They stood in complete awe knowing that their heavenly Father listened to their prayer and answered it with lots and lots of snow.  How great is our God!  Have a great weekend everyone.  JB/NV

Grade 1

This week we enjoyed listening to a lot of poems and speeches. Thanks, Grade 7 & 8!  Over the past few weeks we have learned a lot about colours.  We have learned the colours of the rainbow, primary colours, and a few of the secondary colours.  We have some great Art projects on display in the hall.  It was good to speak to most of you this week at the P.T. interviews.  Thank you for your support and encouraging words.  Next week will be a short but busy week.  On Thursday, it will be Heritage/Flag day and the students are asked to dress in red and white clothes.  Students are permitted to bring Valentines to school on that day as well.  We will be participating in a school wide-book reading contest from Feb. 10 -21.  Please enjoy reading with your child, more information to follow.  We plan to celebrate 100 Day, on Tuesday, Feb. 18.  Students may bring in 100 small items for show and tell, and dress up as a 100 year old person.  We will have a fun day doing 100 day activities.  Thank you so much to all the ladies who prepared and served us soup today.  It was great!  Have an enjoyable weekend and a blessed Sunday.

Memory Work for Friday, Feb. 13 – Psalm 42:2; Matt. 7:12  (Feb. 21)

Spelling Words: been, girl, eat, my, than

Grade 2

In Grade 2 Math this week, we have finished learning about clocks and telling time. The students are now familiar with analog clocks, but are encouraged to keep practising at home! We are now currently learning about money. The students are very eager to touch the coins and to practise counting! We plan to have a quiz on these concepts early next week. For the next two weeks we will be having the same spelling words due to two short weeks in a row. Next Thursday, we look forward to celebrating Valentine’s Day and Flag Day! Please wear red and white and if you are planning to bring Valentine cards please remember to have one for every student in the class. We will be sending class lists home to help with this. Have a good weekend and a blessed Sunday! LS/BV

Memory Work: Psalm 110:1 

Spelling Words: caught, writing, slow, upon, again

Grade 3

Thank you all for coming out to parent teacher interviews. It is so good to be able to speak about your child’s progress and how we can be of help to one another. May we all continue to work to the glory of God! Thank you, Ladies’ Auxiliary, for the delicious soup and bun treat on a wintry day. Learning about Thomas Cranmer was very interesting. Did your child tell you about him? A test is slated for this coming week; check your child’s agenda. It will be a busy week as we also finished the unit on force. Ask us about making electric circuits! A spelling test of the words learned is also scheduled for this coming week. Please take the time to read and practise the spelling words and multiplication tables on a regular basis. Next year, the children will be responsible for doing Spelling and Math facts practises on their own. Wishing you a blessed weekend.

Memory work: Hymn 2:1.  Text: Ps. 23:4-6

Spelling list words review: see agenda

Tuesday and Friday, gym clothes, Thursday, library, Friday, mission $

Grade 4

The next two weeks are a bit shorter than normal. Next week in Science, we will begin a new unit on Habitats. There is some ongoing work to be done yet in Social Studies on our Canada projects, but that is cross-curricular and will be completed during writing/reading time in Language Arts. Students can certainly work on research for their province/territory at home. Keep reading and practicing those times tables. Spelling words for this week are from Unit 19 (goose, flew, songs, saved, shoot, grew, bush, chirp, cuckoo, robins, knew, caught, places, nest — 4B extra words — collide, atmosphere). 

Tuesday: 4A John Hus Test

Memory work: Psalm 67: 1, Isaiah 40: 28-29, next week’s memory work is Psalm 9: 4, 5

Grade 5

Good afternoon parents!  It has been a productive week so far. By the time of publication we hope to have completed our math test for chapter 6, as well as a Social Studies quiz on the first 4 topics in the Ancient Egypt unit.  The next chapter in math will be a change of pace for the students as we switch to geometry!  Book Week will be introduced at Thursday’s Flag Day assembly.  We would love to see the students reading many Canadian authors, so if you’re heading to the public library this weekend, keep this in mind!  Moms, Dads, Grandmas and Grandpas, please consider joining our class during Book Week to read to us!  Devotions for next week are as follows: 5A M. Brianna, Tu. Madison, W. Morgan L, Th. Sydney.  And for 5B: M.  Mattheus, Tu. Carson W. Olivia, Th. Nate.  Have an enjoyable weekend! RK/KVL

Grade 6

The Grade 6 classes have been busy working through the immune system in science class. They are learning a lot about different communicable and non-communicable diseases. Soon we will start our Nervous System unit. Some of the boys participated in the hockey tournament this past week, although, it was full of losses, they all had a great time and worked hard! 

Wishing you a blessed weekend! 

Grade 7A

The highlight this past week was the in-class Public Speaking and Poetry Declamation Contest held in Grade 7. 7A and B came together and the top four speeches and poems were selected for the school final. The school final will be held next week Tuesday, Feb. 11 at 1:00 in the gym. The students will wrap up their study of Upper Canada, the new province with a slide presentation on John Graves Simcoe or Thomas Talbot. Our study of the Reformation will continue as we shift our focus from Martin Luther and Germany to the Swiss Confederation and Ulrich Zwingli. Our Math class will change on Monday as several students will join the accelerated Math class while others remain in the regular Math class. Students continue to teach their peers low order co-operative games in P.E. Enjoy your weekend.  

Grade 7B

In Bible History, we have come to the end of our Bible History unit on David. We will be having a test on Tuesday. In Math, we begin our 2 new math classes. Exciting stuff! In Phys. Ed., the students have been enjoying (some of them anyways), teaching a Phys. Ed. lesson to their peers. In History, we are working on researching Thomas Talbot and John Simcoe and their impact on the development of Upper Canada. Basketball tryouts begin Monday. Chess tryouts begin Tuesday.

Morning Devotions – Monday – Kendra VI., Tuesday – Derek VW., Wednesday – Damon R. Memory Work – Ps. 130:2.

Have a good weekend!

Grade 8A

After much practice, the students were able to compete in the ‘in-class’ portion of the public speaking contest. Special congratulations to the finalists who will participate in the school final next Tuesday. It was also helpful to sit down with the parents this week. Thanks for taking the time to come out. Next week Monday we are off to Guido! Have a blessed weekend. Cheers,Mr.J.                                                                 

Grade 8B

Grade 8 students can be very proud of themselves.  I listened to all of their speeches this week and it is clear that all of the students learned from this experience.  The speeches were interesting and well presented.  Some of the students were clearly stretched to perform publicly, but all met the challenge. Congratulations to both Jewel and Jazmin who will continue to the in-school competition being held on Tuesday. If they haven’t already done so, please help your child complete the reflection and goal setting exercise included the report card.  I talked with each one of them about the importance of setting a goal for Term 2. I would like them to hand in their goals so that I can file them with the report card.  Students are excited to be visiting Guido on Monday.  We will be leaving first thing in the morning so that we can be at Guido before 8:45 am.  Students will be given a slice of pizza and a drink before they go home.  They may want to pack a light lunch if it takes more than that to fill them up.