Another personal note...

...Happy New Year! I hope 2010 brings you all you wish for yourselves and for your families.

On a personal note...

...merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

Holiday concert

Wasn't last week's holiday concert wonderful? It was such fun to see the students in their holiday best, proudly showing the results of their hard work and practice.

The evening kicked off with introductions from our emcees Alisha, Bailey, Cindy, Sabrina and Jahmeika, who explained that many different cultures mark the importance of light in their celebrations at this time of year. At various breaks in the performance, they informed us of the role of light in Diwali, Eid, Hanukah, Christmas and Kwanzaa.


The first performance was from Mme Fahim's SK class, who treated us to "Quel Matin," swaying back and forth in their beautiful party dresses with remarkably good rhythm. After a brief curtain close (during which we saw an animated post-mortem discussion between two of the kids), the same class danced to "Quand le Pere Noel." All the pairs were very light on their feet, with an especially animated performance from the group of three boys.

Next was Mrs. Pires's JK/SK class with an animated rendition of "Santa Claus is Coming to Town." The girls looked beautiful in their party dresses, and Umar was very handsome in a three-piece suit. My personal favourite of course was my very own Simon, who spotted his Dad and kept pointing and making faces.

The Grade 8 Band followed with an impressive four-song Holiday Melody conducted by Mr. Wallace. The audience was impressed by the beautiful harmonies in Jingle Bells and the smoothness of the playing in We Wish You a Merry Christmas.

Mme Volokhova and Mme Speed's Grade 1 classes were next with a joint performance of "J'ai une petite lumiere," sung beautifully with excellent rhythm and projection. We were especially moved by the crescendo and diminuendo at the finale.

After that it was time for a little theatre, with Ms. Vincent's Grade 7 class performing a scene from Romeo and Juliet. With 14 Juliets and 8 Romeos, this was an impressive performance, each reciting a line (or several) with passion and energy. There can be little doubt that the Juliets took the prize for style, and the Romeos for dramatic flair.

The Recorder Club, led my Mr. Landry, performed four Holiday Favourites with nary a note out of place. They closed with a haunting rendition of Silent Night made even lovelier by a beautiful saxophone solo.

Next up, Mme Gidaris and Mme Dungo's Grade 2 class sang a peace canon entitled "La paix au monde," accompanied by no less than eight xylophones and two triangles. It was a wonderful combination of sounds.

Ms. Hawkins' Grade 5 class treated us to an energetic, Bollywood-style performance of "Jai Ho" (May you be victorious). This beautifully choreographed dance was imaginative, energetic and so memorable that my two little spectators have been repeating the performance at home ever since.

Last came the Dance Team's performance of "Up on the Housetop" by the Jackson Five. Their bright smiles and snappy moves were a great way to end this fantastic concert. All the performances were wonderful. Thank you for putting on a great show!

The School Council would also like to thank all the families that contributed items to the holiday baskets that were auctioned off at the concert. These raised more than $1,000 for programs at the school. The students also raised more than $100 for Free the Children through the snack table. 


Only those classes that performed in the concert were asked to contribute to baskets. The others will be asked to contribute to baskets for the spring concert. (Ideas and suggestions welcome!)


Finally, special thanks to SATEC for hosting us and to the teachers who worked so hard to choreograph the performances and support the production: all those mentioned above as well as Mr. Church, Mr. Knierim, Mr. Mitkovski, Miss Lowen, Mme Demeter for the beautiful art display and of course the incomparable Mme Park.  

No meeting this month

Just in case anyone's wondering, there is no School Council meeting this month. We'll meet again January 20.

Snipping off buttons

The most fun I had all week was snipping off buttons.

I usually read once a week with the children in my son's grade one classroom. Yesterday I arrived early, so the teacher asked if I'd help her by snipping buttons off their cardboard backing.

I sat at the back of the class and snipped while watching the children learn. It was truly fascinating to observe the intricacies of the classroom, the answers the students gave and the way they responded to one another and to their teacher. I'm now able to ask more probing questions to find out about my son's day. I also have a better sense of what he's learning and how, and of what's expected in the classroom.

I'm telling you this because sometimes I think parents don't quite know whether they're welcome in their children's classroom, or what they would do if they were to spend the morning there. So when you're having your parent-teacher interviews this week, ask the teacher if it would be ok for you to visit sometime, and help in some way. I'm sure the response will vary from grade to grade and from teacher to teacher, but if you are interested in being there, it doesn't hurt to ask. Have a conversation with the teacher to find a convenient time.

If you're working full time, you might not have time to volunteer on a regular basis...but even if you go just once, there might be some little task to keep you busy while you observe the classroom in action. Becoming more engaged in your child's education is more than worth the effort. (Classroom volunteers will require a police check.)

By the way, I'm pretty sure the buttons are for math. These days math is taught using grouping, patterning and logic, and sorting buttons is one way for visually-oriented kids to learn. And it happens to be way more fun than memorizing times-tables, like in my day. (I'm still not very good at the 7 times table; I must have been sick that day.)

December newsletter & holiday concert info

The December newsletter is now online. It contains a list of classes that will be performing at the Holiday Concert (Dec 10). The other classes will perform at the Spring Concert.

Days shift twice next week

Since today is a PA Day, Monday will be a Day 1. Also, Wednesday has been blocked off as a practice day for the holiday concert, so it's a Day 0. That means the days shift again and Thursday will be Day 3. (See December calendar at right.)

A couple of other reminders:

• The concert is Thursday Dec 10, 6:30pm at SATEC. Students are asked to arrive by 6:15pm.
• Gift baskets will be auctioned at the concert. Each student is asked to bring in a $5 item that fits with their class's theme, which should be listed at the bottom of the green notice that came home. These items are due on Monday, please.
• Items for the holiday food drive are being collected in the classrooms.

The Student Leadership team has a blog now too.