ELWICK COMMUNITY SCHOOL MARCH NEWSLETTER Elwick Community School 30 Maberley Road, MB R2P 0E2 Phone: 204-633-5641

Website: www.7oaks.org/school/elwick Principal: Bobbi-Lynn Haegeman Vice-Principal: Jenny Bilodeau

Important Dates March 13th: Report Cards March 15th: Family/Teacher Conference Evening March 16th: No School Family/Teacher Conference March 26th—April 2nd: Spring Break

Absence Call If your child is going to be away please call the office: 204-633-5641

Wolf Night by Ashley in Room 19 I Love to Read Month

February was I Love to Read Month. We invited people from our community to come and read with our students and share a little about themselves. It was very exciting month! We had a lot of visitors! We would like to thank them all very much for their time and for sharing their love of reading with us all. Ask your children who came and read to their class this month.

We also had a book exchange/give away where students were able to choose a new or gently used book to keep. This was a favorite of the students and we plan to do it again next year.

Look at all the people who came to read with us! Author Tamika Reid Tasha Spilett Roxanne Shuttleworth Phil Endleman Gaylene Schroeder-Nishimura Helen Robinson-Settee Renee McGurry Teresa Jawarski , Derek Dabee Lita Fontaine Claudia Sarbit Alice Klumper Gord LeClerc CTV News Fireman Doug Sinclair Sgt. Alex Bear, RCMP Greg McFarlane, School Trustee Lydia Hedrich Jermese Jones Kevin Rebeck March Sistema News

Sistema stayed huddled inside this month. Warm and cozy, next to a fireplace stoked with broken bows and last year’s sheet music. Beethovens are flying through pieces faster than we can give it to them. Mozarts are improving every day; eager to have the brass and strings play together. Vivaldis are taking their endless amount of energy and putting it to- wards beautiful music. We have quite a few moments to celebrate this month. Beethovens played and sang their hearts out with the WSO at the WSO: Valentine’s Special on February 14th. They wowed the audience with Pirates of the Caribbean and One Love. We were also excited to get two visits from the WSO. Alexander Mickelthwaite dropped by to rehearse with the kids. By the end of the night, they sounded better than ever. Alexander was really impressed. Julian Pelicano also came by to help prepare the Mozarts for their con- cert with the WSO in March. They will be playing Pavane at the Adventures in Music series with the WSO on March 13th. We will send a letter with more details of the Mozarts dress rehearsal and perfor- mance. Please note that we changed Family Night to March 22nd. Below are some pictures of our special guests and a Festival du Voyageur night we had in celebration of French and Metis culture in . March Sistema Calendar

Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday

1 2 3

4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Mozarts Dress Rehearsal with WSO

11 12 13 14 15 16 17 No Sistema No Sistema Mozarts Perform Parent Parent with WSO Teacher Teacher Conference Conference

18 19 20 21 22 23 24 Sistema Family Night 5:00 pm

25 26 27 28 29 30 31

Ecological Education

Our ecological journey in Grade 1 has lead us to mapping. Jessi and I had been talking about investigating the community, with a potential focus on mapping. That same day (what are the chances?!), Gillian Judson emailed me a copy of her Walking Curriculum Journal, which includes amazing ideas of different things to document in the community, including local events in the community, ethnicities in the community, languages in the community, need I go on? Okay I will, there is a page called “My Maps: Favourite Spaces and Hiding spots.” Jessi and I loved this idea of mapping our community. We started with the question, What is a map? Here are some of the responses:

 A thing where you get help going to where you don’t know where it is, you get it?! -GG  If you want to go somewhere and you get lost, you use a map. -KL  It tells you where you are. -JJ  If you’re on a treasure hunt, you have to have a map or else you won’t know where the treasure is. -KP  I’ll just find the “X”, and put anything in it to be a treasure. -GG  If you’re lost, you have a map. -KP  You grab your map if you’re at the treasure. -HM We hunted around for some map books and read them aloud with the learners. We dissected the parts of the maps, including legends, compasses, and lines. There was an immediate interest in the treasure mapping page, how exciting!

Then we began mapping our classroom…

JJ started with a compass and then began sketching his map as if he was “sitting on the projector” (hanging from the ceiling). Some of our map sketches... Ecological Education Continued

The focus of discussions continued to be treasure maps. We decided to have our first classroom treasure hunt. The learners worked in partners. One partner marked an “x” and hid the treasure (gems) and the other hunted for the hidden treasure.

Elwick Community Room Preschool Program March 2018 Our Parent/Caregiver and Child (birth to 6 years) Programs will take place on Wednes- days, from 1:00-3:00pm and Thursdays, from 9:00-10:30am. We will have play, special activities, Story Time, snack and coffee. Thursday March 1— Play and Story Time Let’s Paint Wednesday March 7—Play and Story Time Making Music Thursday March 8—Play and Story Time Making Music Wednesday March 14—Play and Story Time Green Dino Smoothie Thursday March 15—Play and Story Time Move and Munch Wednesday March 21—Play and Story Time Food Fun Thursday March 22—STORYTIME CANCELLED - SPRING CLEANING March 26—30 —SPRING BREAK

March is Nutrition Month. Nutrition information will be available in the Community Room. After Spring Break, Preschool Programs will resume on April 4th and 5th.

Grade 7 & 8 Lacrosse

Our Grade Seven and Eight students have started an amazing lacrosse program with Youth 1st Lacrosse. They will be attending this camp once a week for the month of March and have already worked on their passing skills, shooting and have even played a game. The kids are absolutely loving this program and are so glad to have the opportunity to go. Physical Education

Middle Years: Basketball - The grade 6,7,8 basketball teams have finished their season. It was great to see the improvement in many of the players from start to finish. The grade 8 girls had a blast at the big Divisional tournament that took place at the Sport for Life Centre on March 1st. A big thank-you to Mr. Weekes, Ms. Smith, Ms. Brown, and Ms. Thompson for their dedication to the students. Badminton – Badminton practices should start shortly for the grades 6,7,8 students interested. Please listen carefully for practice times. The tourna- ments will begin after our Spring break.

Early Years: Badminton – Practices have begun for our grade 4/5 team. They will mainly be taking place on Day 5’s at 12:25. Students that join us for practices will have the opportunity to take part in the Divisional tournament on April 4th at the Maples Collegiate. A note will be sent home for those students wanting to participate. Basketball: Some of our grade 5 students had the opportunity to play some 3 on 3 basketball against other schools from the division. We took a bus to the Sport for Life Centre on February 23rd and had a great time! Basketball

Congratulations to the Grade 8 Girls Basketball Team for an amazing season!

Contact Information

If at any time, you have changed your address, contact information, medical information or absolutely anything else, please call the office to update your student’s file. 204-633-5641