The GREAT PICK UP

Dear Parents/Guardians,

The GREAT PICK UP

Just a reminder to check the Simons Valley School website (or the previous Blog post) for designated times of when you can pick up your child’s belongings.  

Student last name (A-L) ONLY pick up on Thursday, April 9^th and Student last name (M-Z) Tuesday, April 14^th only.

Please only come during your time. Wednesday, April 15^th is an alternate date, only to be used if you are unable to come in this Thursday or upcoming Tuesday.

LIBRARY BOOKS and HOME READING BOOKS

All SVS library books/home reading books should be returned the day of your pick up.

FOOD DRIVE

In addition, to the ‘Great Pick Up’, we will also have boxes available for food donations.

The Salvation Army Berkshire Citadel Community Church has been at the forefront of supporting many of our SVS families and this is one way we can help replenish their supplies. They are in need of canned fruit and vegetables but are grateful for any non-perishable items.

Be Brave, Be Kind, Stay Positive.

Belongings Pick Up Schedule

Dear Simons Valley Parents/Guardians,

Thank you for being the amazing parent group that you are! Your patience and support as we navigate through these uncertain times is so appreciated.  Our school mantra has been ‘We are all in this together!’  and truly what matters the most right now, is how we stay connected in uncertain times.

Many of you have asked about when you are able to come by the school and gather your child’s belongings as well as, returning library books. We would like to offer you the opportunity to come to SVS on

 Thursday April 9^th   AM (only) for student last names starting with A-L

 Tuesday April 14^th AM (only) for student last names starting beginning with M-Z

    ALTERNATE ONLY: Wednesday April 15^th

Please see the schedule below:

    IMPORTANT: In accordance with Alberta Health Services and social distancing:

·       If anyone in your family is ill, please do not come to the school.  Student belongings will not leave the school and we can make arrangements at another time for you to come in when your family is healthy.  We prefer to be cautious and not endanger the staff and their families.

·       Only one parent, (no students will be allowed) is invited to come to the school at their designated time. Please make sure you know your child’s/children’s teacher’s name.  Do not collect for any other families but your own.

·       Ask your child the description of their indoor shoes.

This is not a time to socialize and catch up.  We need you to be as efficient and quick as possible to help maximize the safety of everyone.  We do request that you promptly collect your belongings, not engage in conversation and respect social distancing for your safety and that of our staff. (We don’t mean for this to be so quick and impersonal but health and safety is our number one priority).

Kindly follow the schedule below with the first letter of your child’s last name and enter through the glass doors by the parking lot (Grade One doors) and exit by the front doors on Sandarac Drive. We ask you to try to make it on Thursday/Tuesday and only come on Wednesday as an alternate.

SVS staff is working hard planning and organizing learning materials. We ask that you check your emails and our website Simons Valley School, as it can be translated into a variety of languages. Please feel free to contact us at the school at 403-777-6660 or email your child’s teacher.  Although we have no idea when we will come out of this, if we stand by one another, we can somehow rise above it. After all, when this is all over, all that will really matter is how we treated each other.

Be Brave, Be Kind, Stay Positive,

Chris Snow, Principal

Gina Davidoff, Assistant Principal

Thursday, April 9^th, 2020

Students with the last name A                               8:00am – 8:20am

Students with the last name A                               8:30am – 8:45am

Students with the last name B                                8:55am – 9:10am

Students with the last name C                                9:20am – 9:35am

Students with the last name D                               9:45am – 10:00am

Students with the last name E/F                           10:10am – 10:25am

Students with the last name G                               10:35am – 10:50am

Students with the last name H-I                            11:00am – 11:15am

Students with the last name J/K                            11:25am – 11:40am

Students with the last name L                                11:50am – 12:05pm

Tuesday, April 14^th, 2020

Students with the last name M                              8:30am-8:45am   

Students with the last name N/O                          8:55am-9:10am

Students with the last name P/R                           9:20am-9:35am

Students with the last name S                                9:45am-10:00am

                                                                                          10:10am-10:25am

Students with the last name T/U                           10:35am – 10:50am                               

Students with the last name V                               11:00am – 11:15am

Students with the last name W-Z                          11:25 am – 11:40 pm

 Alternate Only: Wednesday April 15th

Students with the last name W-Z                          8:30am – 8:45am

Students with the last name V                               8:55am – 9:10am

Students with the last name T/U                           9:20am – 9:35am                                    

Students with the last name S                                9:45am – 10:00am

                                                                                          10:10am – 10:25am             

Students with the last name P/R                           10:35am – 10:50am             

Students with the last name N/O                          11:00am – 11:15am                               

Students with the last name M                              11:25am – 11:40am                               

Students with the last name L                                11:50am – 12:05pm                               

Students with the last name J/K                            12:15pm – 12:30pm                               

Students with the last name H-I                            12:40pm – 12:55pm                               

Students with the last name G                               1:05pm – 1:20pm                  

Students with the last name E/F                           1:30pm – 1:45pm

Students with the last name D                               1:55pm – 2:10 pm                 

Students with the last name C                                2:20 pm – 2:35pm                                   

Students with the last name B                                2:45pm – 3:00pm

Students with the last name A                               3:10pm – 3:25pm

Getting Started with Online Learning

Dear Families,

Here is some information about how we will be moving forward in supporting your child’s learning.

Communication

Blogger/ Classroom Blogs - Our classroom blogs will be used to share basic information with parents and students about new lessons and assignments that are posted through Google Classroom.

Parent Communication and Availability 

- All group emails to parents will come through School Messenger. If you do not think your email is up to date in School Messenger, please call Leslie Cropper at Simons Valley School (403-777-6660).

-Please use my email hgboston@cbe.ab.ca to communicate with me directly. I will be checking my email throughout the day and responding within 24 hours                                                                                      

-If you would like to speak to me over the phone please send me an email with your name and preferred phone number.  At this point I will be making myself available for video chats, phone calls, etc with parents by pre-arranged appointments.

Student Lessons and School Work 

-All lessons and assignments will be sent to students via Google Classroom.  You will be sent a link via email to access the classroom by the end of this week (Friday April 3rd). 

-Assignments for each week will be posted by Monday morning.  Feel free to work through the weekly assignments in a way that works for your family’s schedule.

About Google Classroom

Google Classroom is a free online platform that allows students, teachers and parents access to classroom lessons, assignments, assessment, resources and more.  Google classroom takes all of these applications and puts them into one place.  The video below is a brief overview of Google Classroom for parents.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Iowi-gmbys

Accessing Google Classroom for the First Time

We will be using Google Classroom as a learning platform as we continue ongoing learning from home. Below is a brief introduction to Google Classroom and how students at Simons Valley School will be accessing the tool.

Google Classroom

Google Classroom is an online platform that enables us to communicate with our students as well as assign and distribute tasks. Google Classroom gives us the ability to work with our students in a safe, manageable, and appropriate way. It will also help students manage their work while learning from home.

Students will access Google Classroom using their CBE G Suite ID (username@educbe.ca). You will be sent your child’s email address and password by the end of this week (Friday April 3rd). As we begin to use these new teaching and learning tools, we will work with our students and their families to help them understand both the benefits and risks of using online tools.

Accessing Google Classroom for the First Time

Google provides excellent resources to help with signing into Google Classroom and joining a class, along with other supports.

§  How do I sign in to Classroom?

§  Join a class as a student

§  Troubleshooting for students

Other Resources

We appreciate that this is a lot of information, along with all of the other resources/emails you have received from the CBE.  Please know that we are here to support both you and your child as we make this transition.  

Sincerely,

Heather Boston

hgboston@cbe.ab.ca

Thursday March 19th

Hello Families! 

We miss all your smiling faces and hope you are staying healthy and well at home!  Although we don’t know what school will look like just yet, rest assured that we will continue to support students as best as we can.  More information will be sent out once decisions have been made and we have more information.

All student materials such as shoes, journals and JUMP math books will be kept at the school for now.  These items will be scheduled for pick up some time after Spring Break.  Please watch for an email with more information after Spring Break.

Please remember you still has access to the following resources:

Raz-Kids: https://www.raz-kids.com/  

Spelling City: https://www.spellingcity.com/users/memcgivern

Here is a story that you may want to share with your child about Covid-19.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1kjcYNyZk95Z9liSShFCtf_xLm1H8PThD

Next week is Spring Break from Monday March 23-Friday March 27th.  Take this time to enjoy activities with your family.

Friday March 13

Hello Parents/Guardians! 

Please make sure to read all of the information in the reminders section.

W.O.W (Words of the Week) Words: 

1. take
2. every
3. old
4. by
5. after

Weekly Highlights:

• This week in math we learned about skip counting and practiced skip counting by 2s, 5s, and 10s.  We practiced counting objects by organizing them into groups of 2s and 5s. We then compared whether it was faster to count the objects by 1s or by skip counting. After making our groups, if we had leftovers (eg. not enough to make another full group), we used the counting on strategy to figure out how many we had in all.  For example, 4 groups of 5 with 2 leftover- 5, 10, 15, 20, (counting on the two extra) 21, 22.  We also solved word problems related to skip counting. Such as, a class has 3 groups of 5 children working together and one more group of 4 children. How many children are in the class?  Here are some skip counting videos we used to practice this week:
• Count by 10s:
• Jack Hartmann count by 10s: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8CEOlAOGas
• Singing walrus’ count by 10s: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gmEe0-_ex8
• Count by 5s:
• Jack Hartmann exercise by 5s: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amxVL9KUmq8
• Scratch Garden count by 5s: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EemjeA2Djjw
• Count by 2s:
• Jack Hartmann Dancing 2s: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCxvNtrcDIs
• Counting by 2s (slower): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyCr0IgbYcI
• Last week we read Snowmen at Night and this week we read Snowmen at work by Caralyn Buehner.  We brainstormed all the different things a snowman could do at night such as drinking hot chocolate, sledding, shoveling their neighbours walkway, and shopping at the grocery store.  We then wrote all about what we would do if we were a snowman at night.  When writing, the students were reminded to make sure that their sentences made sense, they started with an uppercase letter, and ended with a period.  Some of the ideas students came up with were:
• “My snowman is scraping the crunchy snow.”
• “My snowman will run a cafe.”
• “My snowman would go next door and pull out her sparkly gold shovel and shovel the crunchy snow.”
• We finished our read aloud called, Little House on the Prairie: School Days by Laura Ingalls Wilder.  We learned more about what life and school was like in the past. We then watched an episode from the TV series The Little House on the Prairies which was set in the past.  We saw many differences between our school environment and what it was like long ago.  Some of the things that we saw were: 
• Blackboards
• Lanterns
• Wood burning stove in the classroom
• One room for all the students in every grade (and one teacher)
• No technology (E.g. School bell was an actual bell not an electronic chime) 
• We looked at two more artifacts related to the past.  They were a washboard and a wooden ice cream maker.  We enjoyed learning about how these would have been used.  
• The grade 4 students had their celebration of learning, hosting a Heritage Fair.  We enjoyed  looking at all the fabulous presentations and enjoyed learning all about their family histories! Great job!  

Reminders:

COVID -19

Schools have received information from Calgary Board of Education Communications in regards to gatherings from now until Spring Break.

Please note:

• Events including the school and regular staff population of the school MAY continue. This includes events such as after school clubs, practices etc. Schools with scheduled field trips may still continue at this time.
• Events that expand to include populations from other schools and/or parents or other community members should be postponed and further information will be provided after March break if they will be rescheduled or cancelled. This includes events such as Parent Teacher Interviews, school athletic competitions, drama/musical performances etc.

We have chosen to postpone the following:

• March 19th and 20th - Parent Teacher Conferences
  
  

Thank you to all parents who have offered to volunteer for the book fair. We will create a new signup sheet when we reschedule Scholastic Book Fair.

We will reschedule our Parent Teacher Conferences at a later date.  Dismissal for Thursday March 19th will continue to be  EARLY DISMISSAL at 1:30pm for Grades 1-6 as well as SKILL. Kindergarten there will be NO SCHOOL.

We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and appreciate your support as we all share in these unique times.

Please see the most recent update from the CBE. Keep an eye on the Simons Valley school website for the most up to date information.

http://school.cbe.ab.ca/school/simonsvalley/_layouts/ci/post.aspx?oaid=b598c64d-cd5c-4437-b0bb-067b0ca76d07&oact=20003

Scholastic Book Fair:

The Scholastic Book Fair has unfortunately been cancelled at this time.

Winter Sports Day:

Due to the weather, Winter Sports Day was cancelled for Friday March 13th.  This event has been postponed until further notice.

Ask Me About:

o   Practice skip counting:

o   by 2s, 5s, and 10s. 

o   By 2s, 5s, and 10s with counting on by 1s.  E.g. Hold up 2 fingers for your child they count by 2s.  Then hold up 1 finger-they stop counting by 2s and count on by 1s. Hold up 2 fingers again and then stop counting and start over at 0 counting by 2s.  You can do this for 2s, 5s, and 10s.  

o   Gather large groups of objects:

o   Count them by 2s

o   Count them by 5s

o   Count them by 10s

o   READ, READ, READ

o   When completing your home reading try using at least one adjective (juicy word). 

Friday March 6th

Hello Parents/Guardians! 

W.O.W (Words of the Week) Words: 

1. from
2. any
3. how
4. know
5. put

Weekly Highlights:

• In Social Studies we have been focusing on the topic of Moving Forward from the Past.  We learned the words past, present and future and learned about how things have changed over time. For example, technology has changed how we do daily tasks such as washing our clothes and washing the dishes.  
• This week in Math we learned how to create our own word problems, remembering to include vocabulary that tells us whether to add or subtract (e.g. leave- subtract, join-add).  We also practiced reading and writing numbers and number words to 20.  Here is a game you can try at home:
• http://www.maths-games.org/number-word-memory-to-20.html
• This week we focused on improving the quality of our work by revising and editing.  We used our winter writing sample from last week to practice this skill.  The things that we improved were:
• Making sure that our sentences make sense and are not missing any words.
• Finger spaces between words
• End punctuation (periods, exclamation marks, question marks)
• Starting sentences with an uppercase letter
• Stretching out the sounds in the words to record as many letters as possible.  This makes our writing easier for others to read.  Rather than just recording the beginning and end sounds, we need to make sure to include middle sounds.  Every syllable in a word should have a vowel (e.g. hibernate: h, hbn, hibnt, hibernt, hibernat).
• Printing in lowercase letters unless you are writing a name, day of the week, etc.
• Writing the word I using an uppercase letter
• Spelling word wall words correctly (our W.O.W words)
• Using adjectives
• We finished our last inchie for our Winter inchie project.  This project was inspired by the book, Snowmen at Night by Caralyn Buehner.  We created an aerial snowman out of paper and glued it onto a pastel resist background. 
• This week we worked on demonstrating positive listening skills during daily lessons.  We were reminded to keep our eyes on the teacher and smartboard.  Listening carefully during lessons is important so that you know the assignment steps and can complete your work independently. 
• We ended the week with CAD (Community Activity Day) where we all went to different activities around the school.  Some of the activities we went to were: Origami, Film, Art, Comics, and Zumba.

Reminders:

Parent – Teacher (Student) Conferences:

Parent - Teacher (student) Conferences are on March 19^th and March 20^th.

Thursday, March 19^th will be a short day with dismissal at 1:30 pm (like a usual Friday). Appointments will be available for the following days/times:

Thursday March 19th: 2:30 – 4:30 pm and 5:30 – 8:00 pm.

Friday March 20th: 9:00 am – 12:30 pm. 

You will be notified when conference times are open for bookings. 

Pajama Movie Day:

In celebration of earning all of our classroom gems, Ms. Boston & Mrs. McGivern’s classes will be having a pajama movie day on Thursday March 12th.  Students are allowed to wear their pajamas and bring their favourite stuffy. 

Scholastic Book Fair:

Simons Valley School will be having our yearly Scholastic Book Fair.  Ms. Boston & Mrs. McGivern’s classes will be browsing the book fair on Wednesday March 18th.  Students can bring money on Thursday March 19th to purchase items.  All prices will include the gst.  When sending money with your child please put it in a bag labeled with the amount you are sending as well as the name of your child.  Please put this money into their mail folder.  The book fair will also be open during conferences at the following times:

Thursday March 19 2:30-8pm and Friday march 20th 9am-12pm

The book fair will not be open during recess, lunch, and after school.

The book fair is optional and is a great way to raise money for books and games for the school.

Winter Sports Day Volunteers:

Winter Sports Day will be on Friday March 13th.  Students will be participating in a variety of outdoor activities such as: snowman building, sledding, hoola hoops, tug of war, and a hot chocolate and cookie station.  This Winter Sports Day will run from approximately 12:00-1:15pm.  

We are looking for volunteers to help with this activity.  If you are available to help and have completed your security clearance please contact Ms. Latham at ajlatham@cbe.ab.ca.

School Field/Playground Areas:

With the snow beginning to melt there are many mud puddles in our play areas.  Please remind your child to stay out of them even if they have boots on.  It is a good idea to send your child with an extra change of clothes  in their backpack just in case.

Ask Me About:

• Write the number for the following number words:

1. Fourteen
2. Eighteen
3. Eleven
4. Twenty

• READ, READ, READ