I hear, I forget

I see, I remember

I do, I understand

-

Principal: Mrs. Shelley Cords

Phone: 752-2251 Fax: 752-2509

Email: alexander@bsd.ca

Website: www.bsd.ca/alexander MISSION STATEMENT: “To engage students socially, emotionally, intellectually, physically and artistically through quality learning experiences in a multi-age environment.”

Dec. 20, 2013 Artist’s Corner

Resource/Guidance – Mrs. Ballingall

Grade K/1 – Mrs. Clayton

The K-1 Class had a fun December. We did a Countdown to Christmas attendance on the Smartboard. We loved singing the S-A-N-T-A song and the Reindeer Pokey. We had lots of fun making art with toilet paper rolls this month. We used them to make adorable Rudolphs and to create beautiful stamped Christmas trees. Be sure to check out our art in the hallway display case. We practiced hard for our annual Christmas concert. The KinderClub, Kindergarten and Grade 1 students had a special part at the start and participated in many songs throughout the Christmas musical. We enjoyed sharing our songs with everyone! Have a very Merry Christmas!

RACHEL ASHLEY VISITS ALEXANDER SCHOOL

Alexander School was fortunate to have Rachel Ashley visit December 6th. Rachel shared her

personal story on how she dealt with bullying going to school. Her powerful message through

sharing her story and songs she personally has written has helped her be an inspiration to all

students. Ashley started her “No Time for That” anti-

bullying tour in November 2012 free of charge during

her senior year of high school. Rachel states on her

website “It is so important to focus on the positive and

what makes you happy, and to not let people or things

bring you down.” So far, Rachel has visited over 125 schools throughout the province and is

spending this next year touring Canada.

More information can be found at http://www.rachelashleymusic.com/

HUMAN RIGHTS DAY - JANUARY 24TH

January 24th, Youth Revolution is planning a Human Rights Day for our school. We have booked three speakers for the day and they

include: Cliff Cullen Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) Spruce Woods, Pam Roberts, Human Rights Investigator, Manitoba

Human Rights Commission, and Shayla Gillis, a grade 12 student from Baldur School who recently travelled to Kenya, Africa to build

schools with Free the Children, the organization that has the annual WE DAY all over Canada, United States, and now the United King-

dom. The grade 7 & 8's were fortunate to attend WE DAY this year at the MTS Center in Winnipeg on October 30th.

Grade 2 – Mrs. Wood O’Grady/Ms. Turnbull

A special visitor from the North Pole has been keeping us on our toes in room 2. Snowflake the elf has been busy leaving special notes from Santa, jokes, books to read and she even threw toilet paper all over our class-room and Christmas tree! During our literacy time we have worked hard practicing Christmas theme daily five activities. Our favorite centers this month are smelly sight word writing, journal time and letters to the Gingerbread man. We have been continuing to record the daily weather in science, brrrrrr! We also created a large banner de-picting the water cycle. Ask us what precipitation, accumulation, evaporation, and condensation are. In math we’ve been working on adding two digit numbers with regrouping. All of us are getting very excited for Christmas and the concert.

Grade 3/4 – Mrs. Kohut/Ms. Turnbull During the month of December, our class has been reading an amazing book called 'Evangelin Mud' by David Elliot. Students have been learning many interesting new words. Do you know what BRACHIATE means? We do, just ask us! In science we’ve been learning about what exactly sound is and how sounds are made. After Christmas we will put this knowledge to use by constructing our own instruments out of recyclables.

We practised for the Christmas concert with great enthusiasm. We were all excited to share our concert songs with every-one!

The grade three/four class purchased a calf for $31000 at the MooMania! show and auction with our MooMania

money. They were awarded grand prize for their amazing cow poster that they shared at the show.

Grade 5/6 – Mrs. Filewich

The Grade 5/6 class has been celebrating the holiday spirit all month in a variety of ways. We completed numer-ous art projects, such as rolled wrapping paper trees and pastel Christmas light bulbs. We also had lots of fun with holiday reading, writing, and math activities. To finish off the month, the class completed a book to movie comparison of Holes and worked on verbs during writing in ELA. In Math, we are well into our unit on Fractions and we will be exploring the relationships between fractions, decimals, ratios, and percent in the New Year. The students created informative slideshow presentations in Social Studies to demonstrate their understanding of the social injustices of the Aboriginals in Early Canada. And in French, the students took a break from their unit on the body parts to review Joyeux Noe l and write a Christmas gift list en français. We hope everyone has an excellent winter break, full of fun and relaxation!

Grade 7/8 – Mrs. Amos

The month of December has flown by! The students have been busy analyzing the dystopian work of fiction by Lois Lowry called “The Giver”. In social studies we have begun our unit on Canada’s role in WWI and WWII and are studying flight in science. For Christmas, the students used water colour and acrylic paints to develop an arc-tic polar bear and sunset scene. They experimented with self-hardening clay to make painted clay ornaments for

their Christmas tree. From the senior classroom, we wish everyone a very safe and happy holiday season!

Principal’s Message

Wow! I cannot believe it is Christmas time already. Where has the time gone? Once again I would like to thank all parents for their continued care and concern for our school. It is very important for us to continue to work together to provide quality education and safety and security for all students. Our Christmas concert was a great success. It was fantastic to see everyone come out and be a part of our big day. The students had lots of fun preparing for the big night. We have some great performing artists. It was great to see everyone at our Christmas assem-bly. The students have great singing voices. I am going to take this opportunity to thank the parent council for the pancake breakfast they organized on the last day of school before break. The food was delicious. Your help and support has been excellent this year. I am looking forward to the new and exciting events you have planned in the New Year. I would like to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas. I hope all of you have a wonderful holiday with your family. I look forward to working with all of you in the New Year.

Merry Christmas

Your Partner in Education

Shelley Cords

PLEASE REPORT CHANGES

Your assistance is required in updating our school files.

If you have had any changes in phone numbers, ad-

dress, workplace, provisions for day care for your

child or any personal circumstances that the school

should be aware of, please contact Mrs. Kelbert in the

office. Also note that it is VERY important to have a

LOCAL (Alexander area) emergency con-

tact. If you do not have one, please let

the office know as soon as you have one.

Thank you!

REMINDER FOR SNACKS

When packing lunches/snacks for your child

please keep in mind that we are a nut free

school. We also have an egg allergy but bak-

ing can still be brought to school with

your child. If you are sending baking

for the class, please include a list of

ingredients. Thanks!

The school is in need of extra pants of all sizes and mitts for our extra

clothes bucket. Any donations would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

The Festival du Voyageur sausage fundraiser raised over $1500 for our students’ French

learning activities. Thank you to everyone who supported us!

MILK DRAW

Congratulations to the winners of our Milk Draw: Austin, Ally, Danielle, Logan, Breanna and

Tiana!

Keep drinking milk!

A great big thank you goes out to the following people:

Karen Curtis, Tracey Pasternak and Linda McKay who donated clothes for our spare

clothing box

All who helped with and attended our Christmas Concert

Brad Tesarski for doing the music and lights for our concert again this year!

Parent Council News

Thank you to all who purchased items through Mom’s Pantry. Over $2100 in sales were made. Parent Council Profit will be

approximately $800.00.

A new microwave has been purchased for the canteen.

A Pancake Breakfast will be held December 20th for all students free of Charge. Pancakes, Fruit, Yogurt & Juice will be served.

Thank you to Trish Long for organizing volunteers and gathering supplies.

Thank you to Jim Gillon for the use of his building and time for the Farm to School fundraiser.

A staff appreciation lunch will be held in January. Thank you to Karen Curtis for organizing.

Our next Parent Council Meeting will be held on January 6th at 7pm.

Happy Holidays.

MEMO FROM TRANSPORTATION Attention

A reminder to parents/guardians of bus students, please remember to contact the Transportation Office if your son/ daughter will be absent from riding the bus. Parents may communicate by either calling 204-729-3975 or by send-ing a note with the student for their driver. Please also contact the Transportation Department if a bus student's contact information has changed, if a friend is

riding with them, or if other pick up /drop off arrangements are being made. The safety and well-being of our students is priority for the Brandon School Division, your com-munication is appreciated. Also, if you are picking up your bus student from school, please ensure you are at the school by 3:20 pm. Thank you!

WEATHER INCLEMENT WEATHER: If parents hear the term “Inclement Weather” on the radio PLEASE call the school if you decide to keep your child/ren at home. This is one of the criti-cal times that we do want to have all of our students accounted for. At –27°C (temperature and windchill combined) students stay indoors for recess and our patrols are not on duty. Students arrival times should be as close to bell time as possible, bell times are 8:40 a.m. and 1:30p.m. Students are able to enter the school prior to bell times on days where the weather is colder than –27°C. Any temperature warmer than this and students are ex-pected to be outside for recess, lunch time, and before 1st bell at 8:40 a.m. and at noon. Please ensure that your children are dressed accordingly for the weather.

Please ensure that when you are visiting the school, you do not park in front of and block access to residential driveways. Thank you very much!

URGENT REMINDER

From Manitoba Education:

Vehicles traveling in either direction MUST STOP when a school bus is stopped with its

alternating red lights flashing and stop arm extended.

If found guilty of violating this section of The Highway Traffic Act, you are subject to a

penalty of up to $655.65, and two demerits will be applied against your driver’s licence.

ALL DRIVERS MUST STOP BEHIND OR IN FRONT OF THE SCHOOL BUS

WHEN RED LIGHTS ARE FLASHING.

Thank you for your cooperation in this matter as our students’ safety is our top priority.

DATES TO MAKE NOTE OF:

Jan. 6 Classes resume

Parent Council 7:00 pm

24 Human Rights Day

30 Gr. 5-8 Ski Trip

31 PD Day-NO SCHOOL

Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat

1 2 3 4

5 6 7 8 9 10 11

12 13 14 15 16 17

Chicken Finger Day

18

19 20 21 22 23 24

Pizza Day

Human Rights Day

25

26 27 28 29

Hot Dog Day

30 31

JANUARY 2014

Christmas Break

Christmas Break

Christmas Break

School Days: 20

Day 2

Day 2

Day 2

Day 2 Day 3

Day 3

Day 3

Day 4

Day 4

Day 4

Day 5

Day 5

Day 5

Day 6

Day 6

Day 6

Day 1

Day 1

Day 1

Professional Development Day

K-8/ Administration

Day 9-12