General News
Greetings everyone on this snowy, Thursday morning as we bring to an end a short but very busy week of instruction at JCS. May our Heavenly Father continue to bless the efforts of parents and teachers as together we instruct His children in the fear of His Name. 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.
We congratulate William and Hannele DeJong with the birth of their daughter, Kate Danielle. She is a sister to Mikenna (Grade 4A) and Lauryn (Grade 1B). All is well with mom and baby, and dad and the rest of the girls as well. (Our children all are gifts of God, our sons and daughters his reward—each one a blessing from the LORD, as heritage on us bestowed. Psalm 127:3, BoP). May the Lord provide William and Hannele with all they need as they raise their children in the fear of His Name.
The News and Views is scheduled for distribution on Sunday.
A few items for your attention:
*It was great to see a sea of red and white this morning as we celebrated the 55th birthday of Canada’s flag along with Heritage Day. If you have an opportunity, please join us for the afternoon assembly beginning at 1:30. To help celebrate the event, we learned a new, old song (The Maple Leaf Forever, written in 1867 by Alexander Muir) that was the unofficial anthem for Canada in its early years. The assembly will also serve as a kick-off for Read Canadian!, which is the theme for next week’s Book Week. Some of the activities planned for the week include: a book reading contest (a two week event which began on Monday, February 10, celebrating the first ever National I Read Canadian Day on 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.
*This past Tuesday, the Grades 7&8 in-school speech and poetry recitation competition was held. The 16 students (8 speakers and 8 reciters) who participated did a great job, making it a difficult task for the judges to determine the top two speakers and top two reciters of poetry who would move on to the Regional Contest. This event is planned for next week Thursday, February 20 and will be hosted by John Calvin School in the Smithville Canadian Reformed Church. The contest is scheduled to begin at 12:15.
Results for the speech contest are as follows:
1st Eli D.(Should Handkerchiefs Be Banned)
2nd Abigale S. (Candy)
H. M. Jazmin P. (Boys Gossip Just As Much As Girls)
Results for the poetry recitation are as follows:
1st Susanna H. (Attention Please! Attention Please! by Roald Dahl)
2nd Jewel B. (Too Many Daves by Dr. Seuss)
H.M. Kathryn H. (Marvin K. Mooney-will you please go now by Dr. Seuss)
Congratulations and a job well done by all the participants. Eli and Abigale will represent JCS in the speech component at the Regional Contest, and Susanna and Jewel will represent JCS in the reciters of poetry component of the contest. All the best and God’s blessing for next week. Once again, we thank the parents and other members of our community who volunteered to serve as judges for the in-school competition; and the Grades 7&8 teachers who organized the event.
*Basketball practices for all three teams continue next week Thursday afternoon from 2:50-4:00.
*Next for the JCS hockey team is the Guido De Bres invitational tournament scheduled for Tuesday, February 18 at Lawfield Arena (please note the change in venue) in Hamilton. The schedule is as follows:
9:00 John Calvin vs Slingshots, Barrie (at Lawfield)
10:00 John Calvin vs Trinity, Burlington (at Lawfield)
1:00 John Calvin vs Providence, Dundas (at Mohawk)
We wish the players and their coaches a good day of fun, sportsmanship, and competition at the tournament.
*As you know, tomorrow 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.
*We hope to celebrate 100 Day on Tuesday, February 18. See the Grade 1 Classroom News for more information.
Reminders:
*Just a reminder that the school is still collecting can tabs for wheelchairs.
*Grade 7B is scheduled to visit Beacon Home on Monday, February 24
*Grade 4A is scheduled to visit Anchor Home on Wednesday, February 26
*Grade 5B is scheduled to visit Kilean Lodge on Thursday, February 27
*Grade KB is scheduled to visit Shalom Manor on Friday, February 28
*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.
Enjoy the long, Family Day weekend everyone and may our Heavenly Father grant you a blessed Sunday. We’ll touch base again next week Friday, D.V.
G. Hofsink
Classroom News
Kindergarten
It was a short but very busy week in kindergarten! Wednesday and Thursday, kindergarten celebrated Valentine’s Day. The students were quick to remember that we show love to our friends and family because God first showed love to us with the sacrifice of His Son on the cross. The childlike faith in kindergarten never ceases to amaze me. KB were also very excited to have library this week! Next week KA will be able to enjoy the library once again! Thanks so much to the librarians who are willing to come in every week to read to us and help us in the library! A quick look at next week:
Monday: Family Day
Tuesday: gr K-4 Bookmark activity
Wednesday: National I Read Canada Day and Red/White Day Part 2
Thursday: Buddy Reading
Friday: Bookmark activity
We would love to have parents or grandparents come to read to us any day next week. If you would like to volunteer to do this, please let me know the day and time that would work best for you. Enjoy the extra-long weekend with friends and family. JB/NV
Grade 1
A short week in Grade 1 has come to an end. We have read a lot of books and are excited that you are reading so many at home. Keep on reading and filling in your tracking sheets. We will be having a Bible test on Thursday. Notes will be coming home on Wednesday so you may review with your child. We will also be having a Science test about living and nonliving things on Wednesday. We hope to have 100 day on Tuesday, February 18. We look forward to seeing a lot of little 100 year old people with 100 small items for show and tell. Please keep an extra pair of dry socks in your child’s bag, as feet are getting wet at school. We would really appreciate any extra plastic bags you have at home. Have a great long weekend and enjoy your Family Day.
Memory Work for Friday, Feb. 21 – Hy. 11:1; Matt. &:12
Spelling Words: call, car, find, now, who
Grade 2
In Social Studies this week we learned about the types of food they eat in Zimbabwe. We tried some of the recipes from our books as well! The students loved trying the mango and sweet potato cookies, but they did not care for mealie pudding. We were impressed by their willingness to try new things! We have ended our Bible unit this week with Jesus’ ascension into heaven. We are looking forward to starting another Church History unit on Tuesday. We will begin with John Chrysostom and his work. This coming week is also book week! Students have already been eagerly reading for the contest! Please encourage them to keep reading at home and to have them show you what books they have read. Remember if the book is written by a Canadian author it’s an extra 25 pages! Happy reading and have a great long weekend with your families! LS/BV
Memory Work: Psalm 110:4 and Luke 1:68-69
Spelling Words: caught, writing, slow, upon, again
Grade 3
A short and sweet week has passed! We are all busy reading! Ask us all about the contest. If you have books by Canadian authors at home, please bring them in! Thanks. We finished our Church History unit with a test on Thomas Cranmer and started a new unit dealing with the stories in the first chapters of Exodus. Our Science test is done too, and we hope to investigate heat and temperature next week! Please check your child’s agenda for the test results. It was good to see so many red and white students on Thursday. May God continue to keep our land, Canada, glorious and free. J.B./M.P.
Psalm 84:1;Text: Psalm 23:4-6
Words: by, buy, didn’t, doesn’t, general
Gym clothes on Tuesday and Friday.
Mission $$ on Friday.
Library books on Thursday.
Grade 4
We look forward to an exciting week with Book Week just around the corner! Many students have made a good start to the reading challenge, and we encourage them to continue reading! Here are a few things to note about the coming week: Wednesday: The students are encouraged to wear red and white in connection to the first ever “I Read Canadian Day”. We will be focusing on reading books by Canadian authors on that day.
Wednesday: 4B Final Quiz on the Canada map and capital cities
Friday: Grade 4A – Final Quiz on the Canada Map and capital cities, 4B Bible Test Kings of Israel Part 1
Friday: Memory Work: Ps. 9: 4&5/Isaiah 40:28-29
Friday: Spelling Test: buttons, roses, mothers, houses, star, people, tanks, bushes, cherries, steps, wishes, colours, brothers, ponies.
Upcoming Memory Work: Psalm 30:1/Isaiah 40:30-31
Grade 5
There has been a lot of reading happening this week, and the thermometers are filling up in the lobby! We hope to see a lot more of this next week during Book Week as well! Parents and grandparents, we would love to have you come out to read to the class sometime during the week. On Thursday, we will be wrapping up Unit 4 in Bible with a test. After that, we will move on to our last unit in Bible, where we will study Jesus’ death, resurrection, and ascension. On Friday, we will be having our second quest for Social Studies, this time on Lessons 5-7 in our duotang. We will also be starting dioramas for The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe soon. We have some shoeboxes here already, but if anyone has some that they would be willing to part with and send to school, we would really appreciate it. Thanks in advance! Have a wonderful long weekend. RK/KV
Devotions: 5A – Tu. Aaron, W. Morgan S., Th. Meghan, F. Madden
5B – Tu. Russell, W. Logan, Th. Taiya, F. Jenna
Grade 6
The students in grade 6 have been working hard this week reading as many pages as possible to win the Book Week reading competition! Keep on reading everyone, you’re doing great! Today was Flag Day, and the students sported their Canadian flag red and white outfits. Next week the official Book Week begins and the students are encouraged to keep reading, particularly to read books written by Canadian authors.
Wishing everyone a LOVEly Valentine’s Day and a fun filled family day! AF/CV
Grade 7A
Well done to those students from our JCS Public Speaking and Poetry Declamation Contest School Final who are moving on to the Regional Final. There will be more challenges and contests next week with basketball practices, chess team tryouts, a hockey tournament and a great Canadian Geography Challenge. Next week we also start our new Church History unit covering the Reformation in the Swiss Confederation; Ulrich Zwingli will be our focus. The new Math class format is transitioning well with students working to the best of their abilities. In LA we’ll move on to the “father of fantasy”, J.R.R. Tolkien’s “There and Back Again”. After the peer to peer instruction of low order co-operative games in PE, we start our basketball unit. Annotated bibliographies have our attention in Independent Study; ask you child what their journal article is about.
Grade 7B
We begin our new unit in Church History on the Reformation in Switzerland next week, looking at Ulrich Zwingli. In LA, we have also started our novel study, “The Hobbit”. Next week, we have a number of things going on. The Regional Public Speaking Contest is on Thursday, and the Great Canadian Geography Challenge is on Friday. We also look forward to celebrating Book Week over the course of the week. We have switched back to Lunch devotions after a couple weeks of student led morning devotions. Have a great long weekend!
Memory Work: Ps. 88:1 and Is. 53:1-4.
Grade 8A
This past Tuesday, 8A was excited to see two of our peers advance to the Regional Public Speaking Contest. Congratulations Eli and Susanna! Congratulations go to all the participants who performed admirably. Well done all! Naturally, this contest has disrupted much of our regular classroom routines and we are also excited to return to some sense of normalcy next week. This week also marked the beginning of our new math pilot project. So far things are off to a great start! Basketball practices and Chess team practices also began this week. Indeed there is much on the go in the upper end here at JCS. On that note, have a restful long weekend and a Blessed Sunday. Cheers, Mr. J
Grade 8B
Congratulations to Jewel. She will be representing our school at the Regional Poetry Recitation contest. Great job, Jazmin, in the JCS speaking contest. Students are working on ‘w-books’ as a final chapter 3 assessment activity in Geography. These are due on Friday. With the speech writing and presenting complete, we have resumed our study of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Students should continue to work on learning the new skill they chose for their PBL project. We set aside time for this work in school, but students should also work on acquiring this skill on their own time at home too. In the coming week, we will look carefully at the development of the presbyterian form of Church organization in Scotland. In doing so, we will also compare it to the system of organization in our own Churches. Encourage your children to keep reading. We’d like to do well in the Book Week Reading contest. They should have a book with them every day next week, so that they can participate in the daily DEAR (Drop everything and read.)
Memory Work: Psalm 94:1 (Continue to work on Memorizing I Corinthians 13: 8-end
© 2015 Canadian Reformed School Society of Smithville and Surrounding District
