Parkland Post -December 2016

Parkland Public School 18 Coxworth

Ave. Markham, ON

L3S 3B8 Phone

905-472-8536 Fax

905-472-8538

Principal Sharon Moss

Vice Principal Pamela Miller

Secretaries

Premila Patel Jhoan Tinio

Superintendent

Erik Kilji

Trustee Juanita Nathan

WEBSITE: http://www.parkland.ps.yrdsb.edu.on.ca EMAIL: parkland.ps.@yrdsb.edu.on.ca

Principals’ Message

Thank you to all parents for attending the Parent-Teacher Confer-ences held on Thursday, Nov. 24 and Friday, Nov. 25. Communi-cation between home and school is an essential element of student success. We appreciate your ongoing involvement in your child’s education and the time you have spent communicating with staff. We look forward to strengthening our partnership in the upcoming year. Finally, on behalf of our entire staff, may your family enjoy the peace and joy of the upcoming holiday season. Family time where you can share in the gifts that each of your children bring to the Parkland community everyday is invaluable. Have a safe and hap-py holiday.

Sharon Moss & Pamela Miller

Looking Forward to…. 5—Skills Canada Grades 7 and 8 - Grade 6 to Richmond Hill Theatre 8—School Council Meeting 6:30 in the Library 14—WINTER CONCERT—see page 3 of the Newsletter 20—Intermediate Spoken Word Presentations 23—Character Assembly: Empathy 11:00am December 26-January 6: Winter Break January 9: Return Back to School

Message From Our Trustee As we near the end of 2016, I hope everyone has had a great school year so far and found opportunities to get involved with the life of the school. It is wonderful to have opportunities to see not only what our students are learning, but to see how they are learning – collaborating and problem solving, using technology in exciting new ways, and engaged in hands-on activities. I want to take this opportunity to thank the dedicated staff members, students, families and community mem-bers across our Board. Thanks to all of the great people we have in our system, we continue to advance student achievement and well-being. Our Board continues to have a strong commitment to creating welcoming, inclusive learning environments that enable all of our students to thrive. Engaging families in your child’s education and the school community is in an important part of creating that environment. There are resources for families available on our Board website at www.yrdsb.ca/parents, including information on Board programs and supports, and tips for parents to sup-port your child’s learning at home and at school. Best wishes to everyone for a safe and happy holiday season and a wonderful start to 2017. I hope you are able to enjoy time with family and friends. Juanita Nathan

Investment in Education

This year we are asking that you make a dona-tion for Parkland’s “Investment in Educa-tion”. This donation will go directly back to the school; as detailed in the letter attached as well as the one that your child/ren brought home earlier in November. Donations can be made online through School Cash Online (instructions are included on the backside of the letter) as well as by personal cheque. Thank you for supporting Parkland Public School and your child’s learning journey with us.

School Council Meeting

Thursday, December 8th

6:30 pm in the Library

All Parents Welcomed!

In an effort to maintain our Healthy Schools fo-cus and to raise funds for school activities, Park-land PS will be offering submarine sandwiches from Mr. Sub. They will be offered twice month-ly on Mondays.

The dates are: January 30, 2017 February 13 & 20, 2017 March 6 & 20, 2017 Please watch for an email to be sent out be-fore the Winter Break and a letter in January

Popcorn Sales

Our Grade 8 students are selling popcorn daily at morning recess. Each bag is $2.00. Popcorn will also be available for sale at the Winter Con-cert.

We Are Silent Campaign— The Social Justice Club

The We Are Silent Campaign hosted by the Social Justice Club was a success! The event happened on November 22, only a few weeks ago. This campaign is about how women and children don’t have a voice in developing countries, so by keep-ing silent, the students feel how it feels to not have a voice. 85+ students participat-ed the event by signing a pledge and keep-ing silent for 24 hours.

Parkland’s Mitten Tree

We are collecting new mittens, gloves and hats in the front foyer. These items will be donated to The Yellow Brick House—a shelter that helps abused women and their families. Please remember to do-nate—the “Mitten Tree” will be set up in the front foyer so that you can add your donations to it.

Please join us for our

2016

Holiday Concert B

Wednesday, December 14

Show starts at 6:30 sharp!

k Featuring performances by:

• Kindergarten Fassel-Casson/Virani & Rowntree/Grant

• Grade 1 Hartnoll • Grade 1/2 Lyman • Grade 2 Grace & Agelopoulos • Grade 3 Williams & 3/4 Babbar • Grade 4 Liu & Saravanapavan • Gr. 4/5 McKay • Grade 5 Lovatsis & Sengupta • Grade 6/7 Kameka

Helping Others Stay Warm… We encourage families to bring new hats, mitten, gloves or scarves to donate to our “Mitten Tree.” Donations will go to families who need a little extra support during this winter season.

Students should arrive for 6:00

Please arrive early to secure a seat and be able to walk your child to their room.

Water and popcorn will be available for purchase in the main foyer. 6  

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This month in the

Learning Commons It’s “Maker Month” in the Learning Commons! In addition to book displays featuring winter holidays such as Christmas, Hanukah and Kwanza, we will also be trying out several new activity stations where students can make seasonal crafts, try their hand at computer coding, work through logic puzzles, math challenges and different games…. We are also introducing our brand new LEGO center and are excited to be able to provide a place for a brand new Lego Club (for Primary students) to meet. The club will be lead by some of our Primary staff members. Our expectation is that students will challenge themselves to build creative projects, problem solve, learn how to share materials and help to look after them.

Many thanks for your support with our fall book fair! We were able to raise enough money through our sales to get $400 worth of books for our library as well as some additional funds to put toward new resources for our Learning Commons. Way to go Parkland! Keep on reading! Our next fair will be in early June to help everyone get a jump-start on summer reading!

Students and parents are reminded to have outstanding books back to the library before leaving for the break. This helps us collect some of our overdue books and helps prevent loss and damage of resources. We will let students know if they have any outstanding books before the holiday begins to help ensure that their accounts are up to date when they return in January.

The Forest of Reading® program is starting up at Parkland over the next few weeks. We will be running 2 reading clubs for junior and intermediate students. This voluntary reading club provides students an opportunity to read several Canadian titles and then cast a vote for their favourite book to help select the 2017 Forest of Reading® winners! Students who choose to be part of the club read a minimum of five titles on the list and then vote for their favourite title. Voting will happen once our reading groups having finished reading their books.

Did you know that between the beginning of November and mid-January around 30 different holidays are observed by 7 of the world’s major religions? …With this in mind …Happy Holidays everyone! Have a safe and happy winter break! Find out more about different winter celebrations here: http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/explore/winter-celebrations/#WH-Tree-Lights16x9.jpg

Special Thanks to our student Learning Commons leaders for helping in the library during morning recess, and welcome to Mrs. Leung, our new community volunteer!