Paisley Road Public School Newsletter
April 2014
Dear Parents/Guardians,
An dr ew Cr eight on , P ri ncip al
Jane B ibby, Vic e Pr incip al
Contents
Principals Message
pg. 1
East Side Thank You
pg. 1
Petite Blanche Arts Festival pg.2
World Autism Awareness
pg. 2
Special Education Survey
pg. 2
Math Games
pg. 2
New Speed Limits
pg. 3
School Zones
Earth Day
pg. 3
Library News
pg. 4
Calendar
pg. 5
Upcoming Events
April 4 – Grade 6 VIP
April 16–Crawford Lake
Gr. 5/6
April 18 –Good Friday
April 21 –Easter Monday
April 29 –Jump Rope for
Heart
Hopefully, by the time you are reading our next newsletter, the snow will
finally be gone and the flowers will be blooming! I would like to thank you
for your extra patience and co-operation as we went through those
numerous days of extreme cold. I was very proud of our students as they
managed to contain their energy while being kept inside for many days in
a row!
On a more serious note, I would like to mention a couple of items that are
of a safety concern. As you know, we work diligently to ensure the safety
of our students. One way you could support us with this is by waiting
outside of the building if you arrive early to drop off or pick up your
child(ren). This allows us to keep our hallways clear in case of an
emergency and makes it easier for us to monitor who is in our building.
Thank you for your co-operation with this and thank you for signing in at
the office when you do come in to pick up your child(ren).
A second safety item relates to the amount of traffic in our school
driveway at the start of the day. For the safety of our students and
families, we would ask that you park on Paisley Road to bring your
child(ren) into the school. The driveway in front of the school is a fire
route and needs to be kept clear in case of emergency. We very much
appreciate your support with this.
Our students have participated in a number of clubs and teams over the
last month. Congratulations to Ms Bardens and Mme. Clark’s classes for
their participation in the indoor soccer tournament! Ms Barden’s class
qualified for the final tournament and represented us very well!
Congratulations to our volleyball team players for their participation in
the volleyball tournament! Our Chess club is currently preparing to
participate in an upcoming tournament. A special thank you to our Paisley
Ambassadors and our Social Action club for all of their hard work and
commitment to making our school a friendly and socially responsible place
to be!
Bring on Spring!
Andrew Creighton
A Special Thank You
Our Paisley Road Public School JK/SK students would like to extend a huge
thank you to East Side Mario’s of Guelph for their wonderful field trip. East
Side staff gave a free tour to our students where they had the chance to
experience the behind the scenes running of a local restaurant with the big
finale allowing students to create and enjoy their own pizza. Badda Boom
Badda Bing.
Page 2 of 5
School Newsletter
Petite Blanche Arts Festival
School Council volunteers are busy making plans for the Petite Blanche Arts Festival in June. We are happy to announce that
again this year, Scotiabank will generously double our total raised funds, up to an additional $5000! Also, leading up to the
festival, Paisley Road Public School will welcome artists and musicians for classroom workshops funded by School Council
fundraising.
Our silent auction team still needs donations. Do you have a new item that you would like to add to our silent auction? Do you own
a business that would be interested in donating? Silent auction items can be brought to the school office, or contact Charlene
(rumble_mc@rogers.com) for more information.
Finally, thanks to all the families who donated to our prize drive! We appreciate your help!
World Autism Awareness Day
The seventh annual World Autism Awareness Day is April 2, 2014. Every year autism organizations around the world celebrate
the day with unique fundraising and awareness raising events. By bringing together autism organizations all around the world, we
will give a voice to the millions of individuals worldwide who are undiagnosed, misunderstood and looking for help. Please join
Upper Grand District School Board in our effort to inspire compassion, empowerment and hope by wearing BLUE on Tuesday
April 2nd 2014.
Special Education Survey
Does your child have an IEP? If so the Special Education Department would like your feedback about special education supports
and services.
A survey for parents will be posted on the Upper Grand District School Board website from April 14- April 30th. This survey is
for parents who have children at the Upper Grand District School Board with Individual Education Plans (IEP’s). The information
from the survey will be used to help in the planning of special education supports and services.
Responses will be kept as confidential and used in summary reports. Thank you for watching for this.
MATH GAMES
Here are some fun ways to build your childs math skills at home.
Guess My Number
Goal: Can you guess the number I’m holding?
One player takes two playing cards. The cards can be ordered any way.
Be sure no one else can see the cards!
All other players take turns guessing what the number is by asking math questions.
"Is it even?" "Is it odd?" "Is it greater than 10?" "Is it a factor of 20?" and so on.
The payer holding the cards can only answer with a "Yes" or "No", until the actual number is guessed.
Let’s Get Loonie
(Materials: 2 dice, coins 8 pennies, 2 nickels, 4 dimes, 6 quarters and 1 loonie.)
Roll the two dice and add the two numbers together.
Take that amount of money from the centre.
(Try to always have the least number of coins in front of you at a time).
Object: to be the first player to get “Looney”.
On the Way Home from Soccer or Baseball
How many goals/runs were scored in the game?
How many more goals/runs did we need to get to make 10, 18, and 25?
How many players are on the team? If they each have one sibling how many children would that be? What if half of them had 2
siblings? Now how many children would that be?
It cost $50.00 to fill up the van with gas. How much would 5 tanks cost? What about 8 tanks?
And for those nights that get rained out, how about some old favourites.
Puzzles, Pay Day, Monopoly, Rummoli, Phase 10 or Payday.
Page 3 of 5
School Newsletter
New speed limits in elementary school zones
The City of Guelph is implementing reduced speed limits in elementary school zones across the city:
•
•
40 km/h speed limits on arterial roads, in effect on school days from 8-9 a.m. and 3-4 p.m.
30 km/h speed limits on collector and local roads, which will be in effect at all times.
The elementary school zones will be created on the street the school is “addressed” on. Sign installation will begin in
April, and is scheduled to be completed by the end of May 2014.
Once a sign has been installed and unveiled, the speed zone is in effect and will be enforceable by Guelph Police
Service.
Please keep an eye out for the new signs and obey speed limits in our school zones. Let’s all work together to ensure
a safe walking environment for students, parents, crossing guards, pedestrians, and cyclists.
For more information
guelph.ca
Earth Day 2014
Earth Day is just around the corner! April 22nd has been recognized as Earth Day since the early 1970’s and was originally
created to highlight the need for all of us to be involved with environmental protection.
Although many of our communities organize neighbourhood clean-ups and earth friendly activities for us to participate in on
Earth Day, more and more schools are trying to make the environment a focus in the day to day lives of students and staff. One
way is through the participation in Ontario EcoSchools.
Ontario EcoSchools is an environmental education and certification program for grades K-12 that helps school communities
nurture environmentally responsible citizens while reducing the environmental footprint of schools. Schools that have opted to
participate in this rigorous program create a “Green Team” consisting of students and teachers. In some cases, parents,
principals and custodians also participate to create a team that truly reflects the entire school community. This Green Team
takes a leadership role in the school. Students are empowered to take a close look at how the school is conserving energy,
minimizing waste, greening up the school grounds, engaging in environmental stewardship and environmental leadership. The
purpose of this program is to engage students throughout the year by having them collect data about their own school, create
action plans, educate others about how to make some change, and then follow up and report the results back to the school
community. The goal is to create environmentally conscious citizens who think about their impact on the environment as they walk
through their day to day life at school, at home and in the community.
Whether your school is involved in EcoSchools or not, many schools are working with students to actively engage them in things
like litterless lunches, re-useable water bottle campaigns and reducing landfill waste. Parents can help by supporting students in
their participation in these initiatives and by modelling environmentally conscious actions at home. Having conversations with your
children about your choices and actions are a great opportunity for them to understand how important we are to the
environment. By supporting our children to grow up green, we are helping to create a more sustainable future.
For additional information about Ontario EcoSchools, please check out their website at:
http://www.ontarioecoschools.org/
.
SchoolNewsletter
Newsletter
School
Page 44 of
of 55
Page
Jump Rope for Heart
Our school is excited to be taking part in the Heart & Stroke 'Jump Rope for Heart' event again this year. This fun event from
the Heart & Stroke Foundation gets our kids physically active and raises vital funds to reduce the devastating effects of heart
disease and stroke.
In Heart & Stroke 'Jump Rope for Heart', students participate in fun skipping and jumping challenges. Leading up to event day,
kids are encouraged to raise funds (pledges) and in return earn thank you prizes for their individual efforts. Each student will be
given a collection envelope to use to raise pledges from family, friends and neighbours. For safety reasons, we suggest students
do NOT go door-to-door. Collection envelopes will be sent home following our Jump Rope for Heart kick-off assembly on
Thursday, April 10th. Our JK/SK students will skip during their gym classes. All other classes will skip on Tuesday, April 29th.
All pledge forms must be returned to school by April 30th.
Forest of Reading Voting April 28th and 29th
Wow! So many incredible readers again this year! Our Paisley students have really taken to the challenge! A record number of
our students have read more than 10 books in the Silver Birch and/or Le Prix Tamarack clubs. Those students in Grade 3-6 that
have read a minimum of 5 books in one club will be able to vote for their favourite books this April and attend our Celebration in
May. It has been a pleasure to conference with students about the books they have read, read their blog posts, e-mail and
written paragraphs. Our students really seem to enjoy the books this year! Thank you to Parent Council for their ongoing
support of the Forest of Reading.
Silver Birch and Le Prix Tamarack Voting April 28th - 1:40pm-3:15pm
(Students who miss the voting day can still see Mrs. Richer for a ballot on the 29th)
Our Tree of Fame Readers who have read more than 10 books so far are:
Ruth H -45
Hannah R-J -24
Alex P - 19
Sarah H- 13
Vandita P – 13
Ethan H – 11
Nox J- 10
Tate O – 10
Micah B -43
Jillian F – 24
Matthew G – 18
Angela T – 13
Acacia -12
Eric – 11
Rowan S – 10
Crystal N - 34
Sadie D-20
Becca P - 13
Victoria S - 13
Avery T- 11
Bradely M- 10
Connor S - 10
Primary Blue Spruce and Le Prix Peuplier Clubs
Our Kindergarten and Primary Paisley Panthers have also been participating in our Forest of Reading Clubs in their classrooms and
during Library times. Students will be voting for their favourite books on April 28th and 29th during our voting events in the
front Foyer. The winning books will be announced and celebrated during special Library events in May.
One World School House Book Drive
Thank you to all the students, staff and families who donated books for our Book Drive. We were able to donate approximately
2500 books to St. Lucia, Grenada and Haiti. Our school really knows how to work together to make a difference! A big BRAVO
to our student Executive (Simone, Katelyn and Rowan) for their initiative and to all the students on the team who worked hard
for many weeks sorting and boxing books. This was a great example of kids helping kids globally.
Lost and damaged books
Thank you to the families who have paid or provided quality replacements for lost and damaged books. Accidents happen and
when they do we appreciate your support of our library. Please let your child’s teacher or Ms Richer know of any issues of lost or
damaged books so we can help you resolve it and make sure your child continues to enjoy exchanging books in the Library.
Library Volunteers and Student Library Pages
Thank you to our wonderful team of volunteers in the library. Having parents and community members working in our Library is
such a gift. I am very grateful and so are the staff and students. Also thank you to the many Student Library Pages who make a
world of difference. Many of the students work more than an hour a week in our library. You are an amazing team!
Sunday
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
1
2
East Side Mario
trip Grant/Drohan
East Side Mario
trip Purdie/Shoesmith
Thursday
3
Green Legacy
visit
Friday
4
Sat
5
Grade 6
Drumming
workshop
Petite Blanche
meeting 6:30
Popcorn sale
6
7
8
9
10
East Side Mario
trip Reid/Purdie
East Side Mario
trip Drohan
East Side
Mario trip Lee
11
Chess
tournament
12
Popcorn sale
Jump Rope for
Heart Assembly
13
14
Kindergarten
Tribes
15
Kindergarten Tribes
16
Crawford Lake Gr. 5/6
17
18
NO SCHOOL
19
20
21
NO SCHOOL
22
Bike safety assembly
23
24
25
26
Earthkeepers grade 5
Celebration
Assembly
Popcorn sale
Earth Day
27
28
Humane Society
visit
29
Humane Society visit
30
Humane Society visit
Jump Rope for Heart
Jump Rope for Heart
kindergarten
Sharks Swim
Sutherland,
Carr, DeRijcke,
Martin
Forest of Reading voting
Butterfly
conservatory
Kindergarten
Shark Swim Blyde,
Work
www.paisleyroadps.mabelslabels.com