Last week of April already!?

Just a few small reminders...

A notice went home today for those students who showed interested in participating in a school photo. The photo is to apply for a grant to assist with the costs of our new playground, and will show students with snorkels or swimming goggles/ masks, standing in front of the wooden playground (which is currently flooded!).  If your child would like to participate, please have them bring swimming goggles or a mask/ snorkel on Monday April 18^th. 

There is a VERY IMPORTANT NOTICE coming home on Monday regarding 4 upcoming field trips, in which we need Parent Drivers/ volunteers. Please sign and return the sheet if you are able to help out! 

A reminder that each student will need to bring in 4 Hard Boiled Eggs for Thursdays Easter Egg Decorating Centers, and then hopefully parents/ family members are able to come and watch the Grade 2s during their Sock Hop performance, which is from 12:45- 2:15.  The Sock Hop is always TONS of fun and I hope to see some of you there! 

That’s all for now! Have a great weekend J

Anna

April= Spring??

Hi everyone!

I just wanted to go over a few important dates for the month of April!

April 5th- Spirit Assembly at 830am

April 7th-8th- District wide PD Day- No School for students
April 13^th- School Council Meeting at 7pm

April 19th- Spirit Assembly at 12:45pm

April 20th- Hot Lunch
April 21^st- Easter Egg Centers, Sock Hop, and Class party

April 22nd- Good Friday/ Easter Holidays begin!!

May 2nd- Students return and Education Week begins!
May 4^th- Dress like your Future Career Day!

*Dress like your Future Career Day is part of a number of activites planned for Education Week, which is the first week back from Easter Break.  These activities were picked to celebrate that “Education is at the Heart of our Community”, and they include guest story readers, a school wide skipping and reading activity (not at the same time! Ha!) and also a “Dress like your Future Career” Day.  This fun costume day will be on Wednesday, May 4^th, and can be as simple as you’d like it to be! If students don’t want to wear a whole costume, they can just bring in one prop to symbolize what they’d like to be when they grow up!  More information on all of these events will be handed out just before Easter Break. 

I am still in the process of organizing some dates for some special Easter art activities, in which the students will need to bring some supplies, and I may need some parent help. I am hoping to have this organized sometime in the next few days so just keep an eye out for the emails! 

Thank you in advance for those parents/ students who have signed up to help with our Easter Party! They are:                                                 Grace- Fruit Tray

Jaydon- Veggies and Dip

Dylan- Meat, Cheese, and Crackers

Ben- Cookies, cupcakes or muffins

Ava- Juice boxes (~25)

Alfie- Plates and Napkins (~25)

These past few weeks have been busy ones!!  We finished our Artist in Residence program with “Rooney and Punyi” and the students had SO much fun with it! A huge thank you goes out to Ms. Nevels who organised the entire thing.  As you can see from our pictures, the students listened to two different stories and made plays out of them. We talked about how by just using a simple bed sheet, we can create all of the props/ settings that we need.  It was a really neat experience and our Grade 2 students had a blast with this! 

 A shout out goes to our Insulation Challenge participates from last week!  Georgia, Aiden, Hunter, Emma and Shada all had very different and unique ways of insulating their containers.  In the end, we discovered that the best way to keep something hot or cold, is to have lots of layers and use lots of different materials!  We’re all finished with our Hot and Cold unit and moving on to Magnets! 

And last but not least, we had too much fun playing a harmless April Fools joke on Mr. Bryant, when we switched his office chair for a mini chair in preschool, and wrapped it in masking tape.  Nothing like a getting into a little bit of trouble on a Friday morning! 

That’s all for now!

Thank you,

-Anna Tsentouros

Reminders for Next Week and Next Month!!

Hi folks!

So once again I just wanted to remind you that each student needs to bring in 1 bed sheet for next week, March 28th to April 1st.  Sorry for the confusion but the sheet can be ANY COLOUR, and ANY SIZED, and please make sure it's a flat sheet and not a fitted sheet.  What are we doing with these sheets you may ask?  I have NO idea, but I'm sure it'll be something very cool :)

Also, we are having our Insulation Challenge on Monday morning! The students are very excited about this and I'm really excited to see what we can come up with. I promise to take some photos and put them up on the blog!

Some exciting news!! We have partnered up with a school in Digby, Nova Scotia to learn more about life out on the East Coast! This week, your student wrote a letter to another student in Digby, asking them about their life, their school, their activities, and their community.  I am sending the letters off today, and we're crossing our fingers for a fast response from our faraway Grade 2 penpals!  Hopefully they can teach us a bit more about their Acadian Community, and we'll be able to relate to them through what we are learning in Social Studies.

I am so proud of the work we have been doing with our Jane Yolen "Owl Moon" unit. Student's Owl Moon journals will be coming home soon, so please watch out for that! 

Grade 2E has 7 students in MMH's Run Club!! I feel like we really represent the Grade 2 population when we're out there!  Reminder for those students that we run Monday/ Wednesday right after school.

Also reminder to those in Junior Choir that there is NO junior choir on Monday.

Here are some important dates for April that you will want to mark on your calenders!

March 28th- bring in bed sheet, Insulation Challenge!
March 28th- April 1st- Artist in Residence begins!
March 30th- Scholastic book orders due
April 5th- Spirit Assembly at 830am
April 7th-8th- District wide PD Day- No School for students
April 19th- Spirit Assembly at 12:45pm
April 20th- Hot Lunch
April 22nd- Good Friday/ Easter Holidays begin!!
May 2nd- Students return! 

Catch Up!

Hi everyone!

I have a few things to post and catch you up on! 

First and foremost, I'd like to thank everyone for coming out last night to our Celebrations of Learning. I can't tell you how excited the kids were on Monday afternoon, and then again this morning to talk about their experience with their friends.  Well...actually, you can probably imagine the excitement! Think of your kid, super pumped up, times 21!! The room was a bit insane!

Today, your student is bringing home a yellow sheet which is a quick survey of the Celebrations of Learning!  The Grade 2 team would REALLY appreciate it if you took a few minutes to fill it out.  This was our first time doing anything like this, so feedback is very important!!  Please include a sentence or two with any comments, questions, or concerns with how we ran the Celebrations of Learning. It can be as simple as "it was great!"  or maybe a suggestion like "have more chairs!" (ha!)  Send it in as soon as possible, and that would be great!  Thanks for doing this!

Next, on behalf of the Grade 5s who are running the "Cents for Sendai" fundraiser, I'd just like to say a huge thank you. I couldn't believe the generosity of everyone, and there's just a buzz in the school about everybody wanting to give.  By the end of the week, the grade 5s were hoping to raise over $1000 and rumour has it that they surpassed that on the first day!! I will definitely keep you updated with the grand total at the end.

Last, as many of you already know, from March 28th to April 1st, MMH has an "artist in residency" program going on, with drama duo Rooney and Punyi!  School Council has arranged to bring in lunch for the teachers and Rooney and Punyi, but they need some help.  The contact for this is Teresa Vanee, one of the moms from the parent council.  She is looking for people to donate the following items:

 2 small trays of veggies and dip

 2 small trays of fruit

 9 dozen squares. 

If you're able to bring something for March 28th that would be wonderful!  Perhaps some of you could even pass this on to the baker in the family, and they could treat us with a dozen squares or two!  Those willing to supply food can contact Teresa at 403-327-7998 or vanee75@ shaw.ca.  If you can do this as soon as possible, Teresa would really appreciate it.

I think that's all for now! Happy St. Patrick's Day tomorrow, and don't forget to wear green!

Thanks,
Anna Tsentouros

CENTS FOR SENDAI!!!

Hi everyone!

Here is a letter I recieved today regarding the devastating tsunami in Japan, and how MMHers can help out!  Please read through, and if possible, have your student bring in a toonie for Tuesday, or another day this week.  Thanks!

-Anna Tsentouruos

Dear MMH families

As you all know there was a devastating earthquake and tsunami in Japan.  In Grade 5, our teacher lived in Japan for two years and two of the students in our room are Japanese so we feel like we need to do something and thought the school could help.  We are going to introduce a school-wide project called CENTS FOR SENDAI.  Sendai is the region of Japan where the earthquake happened.  All the money would go to the Red Cross so that people can get food, blankets, clean water and medical supplies.  We are asking each student in the school bring in a TOONIE.  Because there are about 500 people in the school, a toonie from each student could help our school raise over $1000!  Who knew that doing such a small thing could do so much!  An announcement at 12:45 today will explain the project to all the students.  Our kick-off event will be tomorrow and it is called TOONIE TUESDAY! On “Toonie Tuesday” we hope that almost all the students in the school remember to bring in a toonie to their classes.   We will have students go around the school to collect the toonies from each classroom around 11:30.    For those students who forget to bring a toonie, we will continue the project until Thursday of this week.  We are not sending a note in agendas because we are trying to be environmentally friendly so we are asking for support from the teachers.

Here's how you can help:

*There will be a bucket set up in the office for parents who would like to contribute, especially when they are here for parent teacher interviews. 

*Please encourage students to think of the good they are doing.  It may be a small amount for one person but we can do a lot of good together.  We are important citizens of the world and we should care about other citizens of the world.    We can choose to do nothing, or we can choose to help.  So let’s help.

Thank you for supporting this project and we hope it leads to good discussion about global citizenship in your homes.  If you have any questions, please contact a teacher at MMH.  While we are starting this project, we hope that it spreads through the school and becomes a MMH Special Spirit Project.

March March March!

Hello everyone!

Goodness I feel as though I haven’t posted in awhile!!  It occurred to me today after looking at pictures from the beginning of the year that...your children are getting TALLER!!!  They almost look like GRADE 3S!! Slow down on the veggies at home!!...of course I’m only kidding about the veggies.  Here’s all the news in Grade 2:

I just wanted to update you on the small package that went home on Friday.  Students brought home their Iqaluit unit, which includes a number of things that we have been working on for the past bit.  Their Social Studies mark on their March report cards will reflect the work that has been done in this unit.  It includes:

·         A cinquain poem done in the computer lab

·         The Traditional Way of Living circle colour page

·         Animals of the Arctic Tundra spin wheel

·         My Inuktitut Colouring Book

·         The Land in Iqaluit 3D stand

·         What we learned about the Inuit diet

·         Culture and Traditions

·         Natural Resources and `What is the Natural Resource`` guess flip book

·         Goods and Services

Please take the time to go through this work with your student as they have a lot to be proud of and love sharing this with you!  I’m excited to get started on our new unit, which will focus on the Acadian region of Meteghan!!  ...Anyone been there?! That would be SUPER helpful if you have!!! 

Students also brought home an information sheet regarding our “Celebration of Learning” that is happening on Tuesday March 15^th in the evening.  The Grade 2 team is requesting that ALL parents attend this, and they can use the yellow sheet for instructions on how to sign up for a conference using the Conference Manager website.   There are 5 SPACES for each time but if Tuesday evening does not work for you, please let me know as soon as you can so we can set something up!!  Email, call, write a letter, send a fax, buy a carrier pigeon-whatever works for you! Conference Manager will open at 6am on Monday, March 7^th. 

Here are some important dates in March for your calendars:

March 7^th- Hot Lunch money due

March 8^th- Spirit Assembly at 8:30

March 8^th- After School Skating at Nicholas Sheran 3:30-4:30

March 11^th- Report cards sent home

March 15^th- Our Grade 2E Celebration of learning from 4:00- 6:00

March 15^th- After School Skating at Nicholas Sheran 3:30-4:30

March 16^th- Hot Lunch

March 17^th- Happy St. Patrick’s Day

March 18^th- MMH Parent/ Teacher interviews (not grade 2s) No school for students

March 22^nd- Spirit Assembly at 12:45- wear school colours!

March 22^nd- After School Skating at Nicholas Sheran 3:30-4:30

March 28^th- April 1^st- Artist in Residency program at MMH

March 29^th- After School Skating at Nicholas Sheran 3:30-4:30

Here are some fabulous photos of Grade 2E as we travelled through our school’s Museum, which concluded our One School, One Book project for 2011.  Students had a blast, and it was so cool to see just how each grade level was able to transform their space in the gym to represent the different regions in Canada.  Enjoy J

-Anna Tsentouros

Quick Update

Hi Everyone,

I just wanted to give a big thank you to those volunteers who were able to come and help out, as well to those who brought treats for the 100th day of school. It's always such a fun morning at MMH and I was very sad to have missed it :(  I am hoping to be back to feeling 100% on Monday. 

A quick reminder that we are exchanging and opening Valentine's on Monday, but we will be celebrating our party on Friday with treats and a movie.  If you still have your February Events handout, the class names are on the back, but I will also post them on here.  A reminder again that if your child would rather make their valentines, I can provide the paper and some Valentine's shapes for them to use.  

Thanks, and have a great weekend!

-Anna Tsentouros

Class names:

Aiden

Alden

Alfie

Ava

Ben

Camryn

Carter

Chelsea

Dylan

Ellis

Emma

Georgia

Grace

Hanna

Hunter

Jace

Jaydon

Kyra

Shada

Trinity

Quinten

Miss Tsentouros

Mr. Bryant

Ms. Renner

Mrs. Potts