General News

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The purpose of John Calvin School is to assist and support parents in the education of their covenant children to the glory of God.  In accomplishing this mission, the vision of John Calvin School is to provide excellent Christ-centered education in service to God and our neighbour.

Greetings everyone as we bring the first week of the second term to a close at JCS.  Nice to get in a full-week of learning and teaching after last week’s very short week.  It was good to get together as teachers and parents on Tuesday and Thursday evenings to discuss the progress of the students at the mid-point 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 more about his Word and world, and 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 especially think of staff and students who have been away for an extended period of time.  Mrs. VanAndel plans to be back at school again full-time next week.  Thank you very much Mrs. Oosterhoff for teaching Grade 6A during Mrs. VanAndel’s absence.

A few matters for your attention:

*Final reminder to the Grade 8 students and their parents to complete the Grade 9 registration form and send it to the office at Guido.  Here is the link to the form:  https://forms.gle/HgnVUDnoikJsRv728   Also, the Grade 8 Day at Guido, originally scheduled for Monday, February 14, has been rescheduled for sometime after the March break, probably in April. 

*News and Views materials are due on Monday, February 14 and the magazine is scheduled for distribution on Sunday, February 20.

*Heritage/Flag Day is scheduled for Tuesday, February 15.  A virtual assembly is being planned for Tuesday morning where we hope to commemorate this special day in our country. 

*The annual February CARE Day, scheduled for February 18, has been cancelled because of restrictions that are still in place for larger gatherings.  We will be having a regular school day next week Friday.   

*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 to take place later this month. 

Reminders:

*Monday, February 21 is Family Day.

*Book Week is planned for the week of February 21 – 25.  The theme of the special week is READ, with genre subthemes for each day, e.g. Graphic Novels on Tuesday, February 22.  Activities planned for the week include:

• Journeying across Canada from east to west, illustrated by footprints representing the number of books read by all the students in the school (a total of 5,514 books will need to be read).  This will be a two-week event, February 22 – March 4.

• D.E.A.R. (Drop Everything And Read)- every day from 1:00 – 1:20;

•  Book Character Dress-Up Day on Thursday, February 24;

• Book Bingo for Grades K-4 and Book Trivia/Jeopardy for Grades 5-8 

*Barring more snow days, we hope to celebrate (along with Grade 1) 100 Day towards the end of the week of February 21. 

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

G.Hofsink

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Classroom News

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Kindergarten

Praise God from whom all blessings flow as the blessings abound in the kindergarten classroom. We have completed another week of learning and it was a great week! On Wednesday, we were able to celebrate Mrs. Visser’s birthday!  She absolutely loved all the cards, crafts and gifts that she received from the students.  Ask your son or daughter how old Mrs. Visser is!  Many parents also had the opportunity to come into the school and discuss the progress that their child has made in this school year.  It was a pleasure meeting with all of you!  We also welcomed Miss Emily Schulenberg as a co-op student.  Miss Emily will be working in the kindergarten every afternoon from now until the end of the school year!  The students have picked up the concept of addition very quickly!  Well done students.  We will continue to work with this concept.  Please continue to practice counting at home.  If your child has mastered counting from 0 to 20, please continue counting with them past 20!  I will be sending Core Knowledge sheets that should be completed at home.  Please look for these in your child’s agenda bag.  Have a great week.  JB/SV

Grade 1

Thanks for the many donations of bags for the daily grade one snow pants pack up.  We are nearing the end of our Bible unit and hope to have a test on Thursday or Friday. Check the agenda for details.  By the time you read this, there will only be 10 more days until  we celebrate one hundred days of school.  That should bring us to February 28th unless we have to miss school again (or if we cheat on our counting so that it lands on a Tuesday instead of a Monday….. we will let you know.)  If you have not already done so, please return the report card envelope to school so that we can reuse it for the last report in June.  Students will receive a class list for those who would like to write names on their valentine cards.

Memory Work:  Psalm 74:10, Psalm 119:105

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

Grade 2

We finished another busy week at school! This week felt a little longer compared to our extra short week last week with the PD day and the two snow days! The students were happy to be back in class on Monday with lots of stories to share about playing in the snow. Thank-you to all who came out for parent-teacher conferences this week. If you haven’t done so, please send the report card envelope back to school. Over the next few weeks please ask your child about Social Studies, we will be learning lots of new things about Zimbabwe!  A lot of students are coming in after recess with wet feet! Please keep an extra pair of socks in their bags. Have a great weekend and a blessed Sunday! RG & BV

Grade 3

Bonjour toute le monde, et comment ca va? The children have been introduced to the French play “Les Trois Petits Cochons (the Three Little Pigs”). It is going to be so much fun learning this play. We have turned to the stories about Joseph in Bible History. The LORD continued to bless Joseph, even though he was met with a lot of difficulties on his path.  Great job on your Church History test, boys and girls! In Math we are immersed in division. Circuits, bending water, positive and negative charges….Science keeps us very interested! We have begun creating our own “Where the Wild Things Are” textured creature. Ask us all about it. Continue to practise memory work, text and spelling words, boys and girls. What a blessing and great way to serve the Lord. Thank you parents for coming out this week and speaking about your child’s beautiful effort and progress this first term. May God continue to bless you as you raise your children in the fear of His Name. We continue to pray for you. Have a wonderful weekend and a blessed Sunday.

Memory work: Hy. 2:1   Text: The Ten Plagues

Spelling words: by, buy, didn’t, doesn’t, general

Thursday: bring library books in a bag

Friday: Mission $ and spelling test

Grade 4

We are beginning a new novel study called “From Anna” which was written by Jean Little. It follows the story of a vision-impaired girl and her family as they move out of Germany shortly following World War 1 and make their new home in Canada. Please continue to practice the math facts at home. Grade 4B will be presenting their province and territory presentations to the class on Monday and Tuesday. Grade 4A will begin this project in the next week or two.

Thursday: Grade 4A Social Studies test (Canada)

Friday: Grade 4B Math Test (multiplication)

Spelling Words: grandfather, popcorn, thank, cupboard, grandmother, playground, third, being, newspaper, cowhands, thirty, doing, these, think

Memory Work: S: Psalm 67:1/T: Psalm 121:1-4

Upcoming Memory Work: Psalm 9:4-5

Grade 5

The students have finished reading The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and they are very excited to begin work on the dioramas! We hope to wrap up the project by the end of the week and watch the movie on Friday. Ball hockey intramurals are also going on, adding some fun to the lunch recesses. We continue to work with division concepts in math; Grade 5B plans to write the Chapter 5 test on Friday.  Devotions for the week are as follows: 5A – Gideon (M.), Timothy (Tu.), Judy (W.), Audrey (Th.), Dylan (F.).  And for 5B – Brooke (M.), Benjamni (Tu.), Reanne (W.), Evelyn (Th.), Reece (F.).  Have a great weekend!  RK/KVL

Grade 6

We are very thankful for this past week. We saw Mrs. van Andel being able to teach again for parts of the day. We also had Mrs. Oosterhoff coming in for the rest of the day. It is great that there is provision for the students and that they can continue to enjoy the learning at school. It is again a time of writing tests and quizzes. A major project we are working on is the study about a particular disease. Computer skills are improving as the students  learn how to put together a power point presentation. Your children are working hard and we thank you for the support you give them! We also appreciate the parent-teacher conferences  and we thank every parent who came out to talk to us so we could exchange important information. If there is anything you want to ask or want to know about:, feel free to contact us again. Your child will be served by good contact between school and home. Valentine’s Day is celebrated a little bit, but the students have the obligation to think of all the students and not just of one in particular. It is too early for this…..although….sometimes we see some excitement among these young people already…..it is fun to watch though .In the coming week we will start new units in Bible and Science and in Art we will also start new projects. We have learned to see how the Lord provided for His people through Joseph and have made many applications to our own lives. May we all remember that we are safe in God’s excellent care. Have a blessed weekend. CvA/IdV/SO

Grade 7A

Having wrapped up or low order cooperative games peer to peer instruction, we’re moving on to basketball in P.E.. Having had limited exposure to the game, we’ll focus on the basics. Our P.E. class will coincide nicely with the basketball intramural games. After learning about the particle theory and the difference between temperature and thermal energy, we will design, create and test our own better energy barriers. History class has us learning about the history of our province, formerly Upper Canada, and some of its colorful characters; John Graves Simcoe and Thomas Talbot. Next week we will welcome Mr. D. Bethlehem from the C.C.R.T.C. to our classroom as part of his practicum until the end of March. Enjoy your weekend.

Grade 7B

As we complete a full week for the first time in what seems like forever, we can reflect on how disruptive the month of January was. This week we spent a lot of time putting finishing touches on various work that had been delayed from snow days, etc. With thankfulness we can put that in the rearview mirror and, ‘push on toward the goal’! It was also a blessing to sit down with our parent community this week and discuss the progress of the students. It is a beautiful gift to work together as home, church, and school in the education of these covenant children! Have a blessed weekend. Cheers, Mr. J and Mrs. Ludwig

Grade 8

A couple of tests and quizzes coming up…

Tuesday: 8A Worldly Wise Vocabulary Quiz, Accelerated Math Quiz Algebraic Expressions etc

Wednesday: French Vocabulary Quiz part 1 + Faire Conjugations, Math Quiz Algebraic Expressions etc

Thursday: History Test Chapter 6, 8B Wordly Wise Vocabulary Quiz

Friday: Ch. History Test Reformation in Scotland, French Vocabulary Quiz part 2

Memory Work: Psalm 40 v 3, next week — Psalm 94 v 1, 11, Text Ephesians 2: 1-5