Mustang Memo - January 26, 2024
This was a FUN week!
We had two tasty popcorn days thanks to our incredible hot lunch parent volunteers!
We also had two incredible assemblies led by our Grade 6 students. They taught us all about the importance of physical activity for keeping our bodies healthy and our stress low! We were impressed with their public speaking skills and their dad jokes! Here's one I learned from the assembly:
Q: What happens to a book when it starts to exercise a lot?
A: It gets ripped.
The week ended with some fun as we hosted our 2nd Annual Family Math Night. Thank you to the many families who came out to the school to play games and have fun over the hour! We were so impressed to see families laughing and having fun with math! Thanks to our parent volunteers who ran the concession. We saw you putting your math skills to work collecting all that cash!
Finally, in this week's Memo, you'll see an article about our Mid-Point Review. We high suggest you click on the link and have a quick read!
Helene Hewitt & Jay Robertson
Principal & Assistant Principal
You belong here!
Table of Contents
Week At a Glance
Action
- Interviews are Coming
- Fee Survey
- Kindergarten Registration Starts Soon!
- Returning Student Registration for 2024-25
Opportunity
- Mid-Point Review
- Pink Shirt Contest - Order Your Shirt!
- Supporting Literacy at Home
Information
- Counsellor's Corner
- What are Teachers Learning on PL Days?
- Parents Make the Difference
WEEK AT A GLANCE
| Monday |
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| Tuesday |
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| Wednesday |
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| Thursday |
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| Friday |
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ACTION
Parent/Student/Teacher Interviews are Coming
Parent/student/teacher interviews are on February 5 and 6 from 4 to 7 p.m.! Online bookings are now open! Click here to book your 10 minute interview slot!
Fee Survey - Gift Card Draw on February !
Did you complete our fee survey yet? It's not too late! If you add your name and email address, you will be automatically entered in a draw to win a $50 Sobeys gift card! This is our thank you for taking the time to share you thoughts with us!
We invite you to fill out our fee survey to share your thoughts about how we should set fees for the 2024-25 school year. We want to know what you think about fees in general to help us make good decisions in the future.
Kindergarten Registration Starts Soon!
Is your child turning five on or before Dec. 31, 2024? If so, it’s almost time to register for kindergarten.
Kindergarten registration opens for the 2024-25 school year at 9 a.m. on Feb. 1, 2024.
To help families prepare, Elk Island Public Schools has put together an online EIPS Kindergarten Tool kit to make the transition as smooth as possible. The kit includes information on registration, important dates, programming options, what to expect, eligibility, how to find your designated school, transportation and more.
Additional information regarding Davidson Creek Elementary’s kindergarten program is available at https://www.davidsoncreekelementary.ca/programs/kindergarten.
Returning Student Registration for 2024-25
Elk Island Public Schools (EIPS) will once again conduct an online returning student registration process to confirm student registrations for the 2024-25 school year. Families of all current students—with the exception of graduating Grade 12 students—must complete the process to confirm the school their child plans to attend in the 2024-25 school year or advise the Division of their plans not to return to EIPS. Additionally, students who want to attend a non-designated school need to make that request through the returning student registration process—acceptance is based on available space. The 2024-25 returning student registration takes place Feb. 8-21, 2024.
One contact for each current PALS to Grade 11 student will receive the Returning Student Registration Form link through Permission Click on February 8. The recipient is based on which contact has been identified as the one to receive forms as listed on the most recent registration form, Correction and Verification Form or Student Information Update submitted to the Division. To review the contacts listed for each student, refer to the Student Information Update available through the PowerSchool Parent Portal. Only one contact can be selected to receive forms.
For more information, contact the school office at 780-467-5557.
OPPORTUNITY
Mid-Point Review
January marks the middle point of the school year and it's time to stop and celebrate!
We have some amazing things happening at our school like our incredible student-led assemblies or the many extracurricular clubs that connect kids to their passions and give them ideas that might turn into careers later on in life!
You can see how we are doing in a variety of measures such as citizenship, student engagement, the quality of education and how parents are involved in our school!
Pink Shirt Contest - Order Your Shirt Now!
Sales for Pink Shirt Day 2024 are now open!
A BIG congratulations to our Division One winner: Madilyn M. in Kindergarten and another BIG congrats to our Division Two winner: Tessa F in Grade 5! We hope you love seeing your art represented on our 2024 DCE Pink Shirt!
Thank you to all the teachers for making time for our Pink Shirt Day 2024 Art Contest and to all the DCE students who participated! There were SO MANY amazing entries that it was hard to choose winners!
You can purchase a DCE 2024 Pink Shirt in many youth and adult sizes through https://dce.hotlunches.net/. Help us get in the school spirit and stand up for kindness by celebrating Pink Shirt Day here at DCE! Sales for shirts are open NOW until February 2. Be sure to purchase your shirts as soon as possible!
All shirts will be delivered to DCE before Pink Shirt Day so we can come to school wearing our shirts for Pink Shirt Day on Feb. 28th!
Ordering Instructions:
All ordering is done through our hot lunch website at dce.hotlunches.net. Please order through the fundraising tab and not through hot lunch ordering through these steps:
- Sign in to your account through https://dce.hotlunches.net/, move your cursor over the Home tab. A drop-down tab to the Fundraising Site will appear.
- Click on Fundraising-Site. You will be sent to the fundraising site login page where you will have to login again to order. Yes, this system is a bit archaic people but we are doing our best at the moment!
If you want to help us come to School Council! We would LOVE to have you!
For more detailed instructions on how to order please click here.
Any extra funds raised through Pink Shirt Day sales will go directly to DCE for further resources for our students! Thank you all for your participation and support!
Supporting Literacy at Home -Invented Spelling
Have you ever noticed that your children sometimes spell words in imaginative ways? This is called invented spelling. Why does this happen? Students are trying to make sense of which letters make which sounds when they are just beginning to read and write. In English, many letter combinations make the same sound such as the long e vowel which can be written in 7 different ways:
- e: as in be
- ee: as in see
- ie: as in field
- ea: as in eat
- ei: as in protein
- ey: as in key
- y: as in baby
No wonder it can be confusing!
Since there are a few possibilities, students may get the right sounds but the wrong letter choices. We want to encourage kids to try to spell it using the sounds and letters they know - even if it's not the correct spelling. The act of trying to pick out the right letter/sound combination is great work for the reading brain! It is an important part of mapping sounds to letters!
So how can you help them to spell without telling them the spelling? Watch this LitBit video with Mrs. Martin-Spady to learn some great tips and tricks for supporting your child in spelling at home.
INFORMATION
Counsellor's Corner
Strathcona County’s Family and Community Services offers a variety of supports for families living in Strathcona County, including Solutions Navigation, Counselling, and the Family Resource Network. The Family Resource Network (FRN) provides programs and services for families with children and youth ages 0-18 years that focus on well-being and resiliency, including:
- Programs to support healthy child development
- Reliable parenting information and education
- Connection to other local resources
Davidson Creek Elementary’s Family Resource Facilitator through the FRN is German Villegas. Parents can contact him directly to connect with any of the above resources. He can be reached by phoning the Social Support Line at 780-464-4044 or by calling his direct line at 780-504-8508. He can be reached via email at german.villegas@strathcona.ca
~ Madison Bashaw and Kelley Mitchell
DCE School Counsellors
What are Teachers Learning During PL Days?
While students get to sleep in on Wednesday, our teachers will be at school working hard and learning new things! Professional Learning Days are when teachers become students in order to perfect our skills and better meet the needs of our students!
So what will we be learning this month?
Our teachers will be focused mostly on math this Monday in support of our School Education Plan goal: By building capacity for all teachers to implement best practices that support number sense and fact fluency, all students will demonstrate meaningful growth.
We will be analyzing our current numeracy data and deciding on ways that we can work both within our grade level teams and across grade levels to support student learning in math. We will be deciding on key math vocabulary that we should focus on in each grade level and makes some decisions on how we can improve fact fluency for all students in the school in fun ways.
It should be a great day of learning for teachers.
Parents make the difference
Here is this week's article with helpful tips for families:
Are you helping your child take school seriously?
Attending school every day improves your child’s chances of academic success. Are you reinforcing the importance of regular on-time attendance and encouraging your child to take school seriously? Answer yes or no to the questions below to find out:
- Do you say that you expect your child to go to school every day? Show that attendance is important to you, and it will become important to your child.
- Do you reinforce healthy habits for sleep, nutrition and exercise that ensure your child is ready to learn?
- Do you ignore weak excuses for missing school? Not feeling like getting out of bed isn’t an acceptable reason to miss part of school.
- Do you try to make medical appointments outside of school hours?
- Do you set the alarm clock earlier if your child has trouble getting up and ready for school on time?
How well are you doing?
Each yes means you are supporting your child’s attendance. For each no answer, try that idea.
Reprinted with permission from the January 2024 issue of Parents make the difference!® (Elementary School Edition) newsletter. Copyright © 2024 The Parent Institute®, a division of PaperClip Media, Inc.