It is hard to believe that we have finished another

winter and are now heading into May. During the

past eight months the students have participated in

many school activities and have achieved many

successes. Congratulations to all of the students, staff,

parents/guardians and volunteers for involving

yourself and supporting all that we do here at the

school. Without your support and commitment none

of these activities would occur.

As the warm weather approaches we

would like to encourage our students

to walk or bicycle to school. We are

going to be promoting walking and

bicycling to school throughout May

and June.

We welcome Ms. Judy Ignatowitz in the role of an acting

Vice-Principal. Ms. Ignatowitz was a principal at several

TDSB schools prior to her retirement. She is a highly

experienced educator and the Highfield community is

thrilled to have her back.

As we begin to plan for September 2016, please be

reminded of the change in instructional time.

Students should be in the school playground for 8:40

am, allowing for 8:45 am start for instruction. This

will also impact the end of day, when students will be

dismissed. At this time, a 3:00 pm dismissal is

anticipated.

TDSB is extremely pleased to offer Summer School at John

D. Parker for students in Kindergarten to Grade 8. Please

have your child pick up the summer school application form

from the school office. Spaces are limited. So, to avoid

disappointment, send your forms in to the Highfield school

office as soon as you possibly can.

HIGHFIELD’S MISSION

STATEMENT

Our mission at Highfield Junior

School, home of the “Better

Beginnings, Better Futures”

Project, is to enable all our

learners to become literate,

creative and responsible

participants in our diverse society,

by ensuring a stimulating,

supportive and stabilizing

environment which integrates the

efforts of school, family and

community.

Highfield Junior School

85 Mount Olive Drive

Toronto, Ontario

M9V 2C9

Web site: http://schools.tdsb.on.ca/highfield/ Twitter:@highfieldjs

Telephone: 416-394-7510

Fax: 416-394-6141

A. Patel

Principal

Office Hours:

8:30 am - 4:30 pm

Pankaj Patel &

Rakesh Kantaria

School Council

Co-Chairs

Mary Jane McNamara

Superintendent

Michael Ford

Trustee

May 2016

The Highfield Herald

Greening Highfield

Remember when walking and biking to school was the norm and

how much fun it was? Do you remember meeting up with your

friends, talking to neighbours along the way, and how the physi-

cal activity made you feel energized for the day? Most Canadian

children are not getting enough daily physical activity which

means they’re not active enough to achieve optimal growth and

development and maintain a healthy weight. Walking or cycling

to school is an excellent way to get the 60 minutes of recom-

mended daily physical activity,

but few children now regularly walk and cycle to school.

By walking regularly to and from school, children can spend im-

portant time with their siblings

or friends while also benefiting from the physical activity. Children can also learn other

valuable skills such as safety, responsibility, independence and an increased connection to

the community.

The entire school community benefits from an environment that supports children and families

to walk and cycle to school. Decreased car traffic in and around the school also means

increased safety and improved air quality.

(Source: Simcoe Muskoka District Health Unit)

STUDENTS CREATE A

GREEN ENVIRONMENT!

Highfield is proud of being awarded with the Platinum

certification based on the waste audit. In efforts to

reduce the amount of waste and educate our school

community to become eco-friendly, Highfield Junior

School has once again launched “waste-free lunch

campaign”.

A waste-free lunch is a lunch that has NO GAR-

BAGE. It is a lunch that is packaged only in reusable containers to minimize the amount of

waste.

A Big Congratulations to Mrs. Patterson’s Grade 1 Class on winning the Waste-free Lunch tro-

phy for the month of March 2016. Also, congratulations to our individual winners: From grade 4

Prem Dave and grade 2 Aikam Doal.

Licensed 2 Learn (L2L)

Our L2L session has officially come to an end.

20 grade 4 and 5 students worked hard to

support the learning of 20 grade 3 students.

Many of the students have stated that they

would recommend the L2L program to other

students or even become a tutor in the future.

We would like to thank all of our students for

dedicating every Tuesday lunch hour since J

anuary 12 until April 26. We would also like

to thank Ms. Bognar, the L2L trainer, Ms. Ward,

Ms. Kansara and Mrs. Tanga for committing t

heir time to the students and the program.

Thank you also goes to Angelina, Sarah and J

eysica who helped Mrs. Tanga mark the booklets each week.

Eco News

A second group of the Eco Garden team students

made an outstanding presentation in Hindi to our

school’s seniors group in order to get more support

with our summer watering program. Many of the

volunteers gladly volunteered and will even be

bringing their grandchildren to help with this task

so that our school landscape can look beautiful! If

you are interested in helping to water the plants,

trees and shrubs during the summer, please contact

Mrs. Tanga at the school so that dates and times

can be arranged.

The Eco Garden team has been working diligently to

improve the landscape at Highfield. Most recently,

the students assisted with creating the signs outside,

kindly asking our community members to not walk

on the grass by the Oak tree. We are hoping to

have grass there soon! Thank you to Rona on

Martin Grove Road for donating the posts for

the signs. An extra thank you to Hiba for

interpreting the sign into Urdu for our Eco team!

Our learning continues n and out of the classroom

Our trip to the royal Ontario museum

By Shruti and Idrees from Mrs. Boms

Grade 3 class

On Monday, April 18, 2016 all grade 3 classes went to the

Royal Ontario Museum (R.O.M). At the Royal Ontario

Museum we saw many kinds of animals, insects and fish

from around the world- even an American Bison! After

we went to walk through the bat cave. Next we went to

the Kid’s Zone and pretended to be paleontologists and

searched for dinosaur bones. In the afternoon we went to

see the Native peoples artifacts in the Canada exhibit.

We saw Native canoes made of birch bark and other

weapons they used. At the end of the visit we went to

see an ancient Egyptian mummy that was 3000 years old.

We also saw real dinosaur bones which were so huge.

In my opinion I think that the Royal Ontario Museum

was a very fun and interesting trip!

Our badminton experience!!

Ms. DiComo and Ms. Canevale along with the Badminton team

had a fantastic day full of suspense and excitement! The students

played really, really hard and fought for every point. It was great

to see their determination and commitment to the sport. Stu

dents got back to Highfield just after 6 pm. after winning the tour

nament, going to the semi-finals and continuing to win a spot in

the finals. The kids played hard and fought till the the finals.

We came in second place!!! WE are proud of our students and

of our coaches who have high expectations of the students in and

out of the classrooms.

Our love for music!!

Music is a universal language

And easily connects people of

all cultures and backgrounds.

Led by our Music teacher Ms.

Park, all students from

Kindergarten to grade 5 came

together to share their love

for music.

Our learning continues n and out of the classroom