Happy New Year to all of our Casa families! We hope you had a happy, healthy, fun-filled, and relaxing holiday with your family and friends. We’re excited to be back and have lots planned for Term 2 with your children.
Friendly reminders:
If you haven’t already, please return your child’s indoor shoes and extra clothing bags.
Check in to see photos of your children working and playing at school. You will not receive notifications when we post photos so check in every once in a while to see what’s new!
If your child stays for recess, please consider sending two pairs of mitts on Phys.Ed days so they have a dry pair at recess.
What’s happening in January:
January 21st – Teddy Bear Hospital. Your child does not need to bring anything for this special morning in Casa
January 29th – Expert Day. Details will follow but this will take place during drop off for Casa families (approximately 15 minutes)
Tuesdays in Term 2 – Yoga with Kim from Tree Song Yoga
We hope that you are enjoying winter weather! We have been studying winter birds and squirrels recently, and are very excited to share with you this fun link. Some of your children have already been using it!
We also want to say thank you to those families who continue to label their children’s clothing. As the spring weather approaches, we rely on your labels to help us keep everyone on track.
In UE, we had another Engineering Challenge. It was three people in a group, and we had to make a catapult that functioned with long distance and accuracy. We had a lot of trial and error and then we had to test them against the other groups’ catapults. The winner of the challenge was Joe Perras’ stool-cooking spoon catapult, but he would not accept the victory, so first place went to Saad, Sohun, Fraser, and Gabe. Second place went to Jane, Layla, and Emily and third place went to Kaydence, Molly and Nikhil. Jenna, Evan and Ben sniped the accuracy award, being the only group to knock down any cups at all! (Three… or was it four?)
ICE RINK
Once again, thank you to all the people who have been shovelling, getting water, and just helping in general with the rink! We feel that the rink is almost finished. It has been a lot of work and sadly the rink is starting to melt, but with the snow that fell on Thursday, we think it will make a come-back! We have all been looking forward to skating on the rink and we really hope that the rink will freeze again. Fingers crossed!
BURNHAM WOODS
Recently, the UE class went to Burnham Woods for gym. It was a lot of fun and we hope to have more fun like that in the near future. It was especially great because we got to play some good, old ‘Camouflage’! Being outside in the fresh air was really nice. Unfortunately, some students did not bring the proper outside equipment and got cold. So, please, everyday there is snow on the ground (or it is cold outside), make sure to bring proper equipment for that day.
COMMUNITY SERVICE
One time, when we were leaving Burnham Woods, some of the students saw an elderly lady walking down the driveway getting her mail. We felt we could help her. So now, we are arranging with her about volunteering to help shovel her driveway, get her mail, and several other outside chores.
WHAT’S COMING UP?
March Break is coming up soon, but in the meantime, we are going to be doing some small group research work to learn more about First Nations, and what they lived like in ancient times. We know that North and South America were the last continents to have humans on them, and learned about the way they got here — over the land bridge from Asia! Did you know that they have found camel and hyena fossils way up North near Alaska? The earliest people travelled across our country using their feet and the best ‘roads’ in Canada…. lakes and rivers! So Joe is busy testing us about our map knowledge of all the lakes and rivers in Canada, as well as provinces and their capitals (which we should already know… haha). Also, for those of us who are really science keen, there is a Science Fair at Trent University to prepare for. We thought you would like to know, since the fair is right after our March Break, so you might need to do some preparing for that over the Break, if you want to go!
(This blog was by: Kieran and Isla, with help from Kristina)
January was a very busy month in Casa! Along with their regular work, the children took part in 4 Casa Cooks (fruit kabobs, carrot soup, brussel sprouts, and fries), 2 Yoga classes with Kim from Tree Song Yoga, the annual Teddy Bear Hospital, and Expert Day! Please check out the photos posted below from these events!
Our Circle Times this month have had a focus on manners (grace and courtesy) and germs (how they spread and how to prevent the spread). Students were engaged and learned so much about spreading kindness instead of germs!
February will be the month of love in Casa. Just a reminder that we do not distribute Valentine’s Day cards in Casa. In our experience, it isn’t feasible for the students to manage this task in a fair and loving manner at this level. Our celebration of this special day will be meaningful and age appropriate for all of our Casa children, so please do not worry about them missing out. Your children can look forward to a week filled with art, stories, songs, and community outreach, all centering around love, kindness, and caring for others. Students are also welcome to wear colours on Valentine’s Day that make them think of love and kindness (traditionally red, pink, purple, and white…but whatever they’d like!).
WHAT’S BEEN GOING ON LATELY IN UE? (by Molly and Rhys) As you probably might know we all contributed doing what we call Expert Day. We each chose something that we are passionate about and already know, or something that we would like to become an expert at. Another fun thing that we did this January was we had a ski day at Brimacombe. We had lots of fun and learned lots of new skills. We got to hang out with our friends. The most fun part of it all was skiing of course!
In classroom learning, one of the things that the grade sixes have been studying this term is World Religions. Each person picked a certain religion (for example mine was Islam). We each studied it and became a master in our certain religion. Something that the grade fives have been studying is the Middle Ages. The large group of them each had a question about this time period, like “What did they eat?” or “What type of government did they have?” or “What were their houses like?”. They found sources and researched their question, and then included it in a giant slideshow of Middle Ages. Rumour has it we will be learning how to make chainmail, as soon as the materials for that arrive! The grade fours have been learning about matter, states of matter, atoms, and the periodic table. Something that we are all still working on and will continue to work on is our ICE RINK! We started this about two weeks ago and have been working on it ever since. We started by shovelling out all the snow in a certain area then we would get the hose and start to slowly spray the certain area the we shovelled. As I already said the ice rink is still in progress it is coming along nicely.
WHAT’S COMING UP? Well, another ski day will happen in February, so watch out for that. Also, this coming week we will have the folks from TRACKS (Trent Aboriginal Cultural Knowledge and Science) out to join us and share some learning on Thursday! We’re pretty sure that will involve being outside a lot, so dress for success outside, that day! Might even be an idea to bring extra stuff, if it gets wet. Also, our holidays committee has another fantastic potluck for Valentine’s Day on their agenda, because we love celebrating with food, here in UE! More info to follow on that, when the committee has made some decisions. People are really interested in making committees and groups right now. We have some people interested in baking things, especially after expert day, when there was BREAD! Also, we have a Dungeons and Dragons group who stay in one lunch and enjoy doing some role playing and adventuring. We learned in a recent leadership session with our principal, Emily, that we have a shortage of ‘Drivers’ and ‘Relationship Minders’ in our class, though we have lots of creative and spontaneous ideas people. All this committee work lets us practice more organizing and planning and MAKING THINGS HAPPEN, which is a bit of our weak spot at the moment. But, practice makes… better! We really enjoyed reflecting on our group work skills and roles in our Engineering Challenge – ask about the spaghetti and marshmallow 😉
LE Students have jumped right back into routines after the holidays. Students have enjoyed looking at the year ahead, creating New Year’s resolutions and Vision Boards. Thank you to Lisa Cantelon, a KMS parent , who volunteered her time to help us create our vision boards.
A highlight for this month was ski day! The weather was perfect and the students represented our school proudly. We look forward to our second ski day in February!
Culture day also happened during the month of January. Prior to the day, students learned all about the scientific method and the importance of questioning and wondering in science. A number of experiments were done using the scientific method. Students then became experts in one particular experiment and demonstrated their findings to the KMS community during Culture Day.
What’s Coming Up:
February will be a fun month for us as we will be preparing and hosting Pancake Day for the rest of the school! TRACKS will be back again this month to do some more outdoor learning. We will also have Valentine’s day in there where we will be talking about kindness and love! We look forward to a fun month ahead!
Tip/ Reminder:
Don’t forget there will be no school on Friday, February 14th and Monday, February 17th due to Family Day Weekend.
Montessori Week is the last week of February! Please spread the word about how great the Montessori philosophy is and encourage friends and family to visit our school!
October has been a very busy month in Lower Elementary! We enjoyed our field trip to the Petroglyphs where we went on a hike in the woods and learned about the Indigenous rock carvings. We also had a visit from the educators from the Trent Tracks program. We spent a wonderful afternoon in Burnham Woods and participated in activities surrounding indigenous teachings, including learning about the medicine wheel. The exciting news for students this month is that we expanded the Lower Elementary Program into two homerooms. We continue to come together as a group for many different aspects.
NEXT MONTH
In November we look forward to Our Parent-Child Open house and meeting with Parents during interviews the week of November 18-22. We will also be having discussions and activities around Remembrance Day. Students will be participating in our school ceremony with a group presentation.
TIP/REMINDER
P.A. Day November 22
With the cold weather approaching please ensure your child is prepared for all weather conditions.
What an October we have had! Our Wax Museum turned out well, and we enjoyed presentations of some famous people all morning! Well done students, and thanks to those who came out to see them.
Some lovely folks from TRACKS (TRent Aboriginal Cultural Knowledge and Science) came to visit, and shared some teachings around Medicine Wheels. We learned, of course, out in Burnham Woods with the fall colours all around us. Do you know what the colours mean? Your child does, now. We also learned about the hemlocks in the woods, how to identify them, and how they got there. Do you know what a drumlin is? We do! We also know how Canada geese fly — and many details about the sounds they make and the turns they take on their great migration. Group work in nature…
The Grade 5s learned about all of the different early humans, and worked in pairs to present their findings to their classmates. We learned that sometimes it’s tricky to work with a partner on something. Deciding, communicating, reading, researching, summarizing, drawing, compromising… working with a partner is trickier than it looks. It’s always great practice to share what we learned with others by doing informal presentations with others! Other cultural classroom learning has involved researching Early Civilizations, Structures, and of course learning about and presenting party platforms for the recent election. Busy month!
Joe has once again started up the Ukulele club, where UE students who are interested can learn basic chords and strumming patterns in a medium – sized group. We have some returning members, which really helps, and everyone is really enthusiastic!
Please join your child November 6th at the Open House to see exactly what we do all day here. There will be a time right after school that Wednesday where you can come in with your student and have them show you what they are accomplishing! If Wednesdays are difficult, another night is alway a possibility. Just email the teachers! Life does get busy but coming to see your child’s work lets them know you are invested and involved. It’s hard to make the time, but “The Hard Thing is the Right Thing to Do.”
Here are 5 reasons you should get involved in your child’s education (though there are many more than just these):
Cognitive gains – Studies of parents highly involved in the educational process showed that their children were more likely to improve in their academics.
Increased confidence – When students feel supported at home and school, they develop more positive attitudes about school, have more self-confidence, and place a higher priority on academic achievement.
Better behaviour – Kids develop better social skills and show improved behaviour when their parents are involved at school.
Improved community – Research shows that parent involvement can help improve the quality of schools, raise teacher morale, and improve a school’s reputation in the community.
Parents benefit too – When parents become involved in their children’s education, they become more comfortable in the school building, gain confidence in their parenting skills, and feel more capable of helping their children learn. They’re also more likely to continue their own education.
