West Dalhousie School Spot light s January / February 2018
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West Dal housie School Spot l ight s
January / February 2018
PRI NCI PAL'S
MESSAGE
Dear Parents and Guardians
We have reached our yearly milestone where mid-year formal assessment and reporting has been sent home. The
purpose of report cards is for teachers, students and families to have an accurate understanding of what a student
knows and can do in relation to the Alberta Program of Studies and/or Individualized Program Plans in order to
determine appropriate next steps in learning. We are very proud of the achievements of all the students. Our
report card data reflects progress in all areas of learning and character development which supports the priorities
stated in our school development plan. Report cards are one way we communicate student achievements and a
part of a larger student achievement communication plan.
I would like to thank all our Grade 4 parents who completed the Pillar Survey. Data from these surveys help inform
Alberta Education and West Dalhousie School.It is one of the important pieces of data that will be used by the
school when reviewing our School Development Plan for the upcoming year. We strongly encourage your
participation as the results help us identify our school and jurisdiction?s strengths and weaknesses. The survey is
open until February 26th, so please complete the surveys and send them back to Alberta Education in the provided
pre-stamped envelope.All grade 4 students and teachers have completed this survey as well!
In our attempts to foster the innovative minds of the students we have been lucky enough to experience Quest
Theatre. Based on current learning in the school, each class was given their own story, poem, scene, or theme to
work on for the week with an artist from the Quest Theatre Team. The Quest Instructors worked with the students
to explore, develop, and create the shows and take them from the page to the 'stage' all in one week! Each class
was taken through a series of Drama games, acting exercises (including voice and movement), staging techniques,
and of course rehearsing, to get them ready for the Technical Rehearsal (where music, lights, and basic costumes
were added) and ultimately, the final celebration which we all enjoyed on February 2nd . A big thank you is sent to
Parent Association for funding the experience!
On January 19th we celebrated ?Book Character Day.? This was such a success that this month the leadership club
is planning two more events! On February 14th (Love day) the students are encouraging all to wear red or clothing
that may have hearts on it. On February 28th, as a school we will be supporting Pink shirt day. All are encouraged
to wear pink. This day is celebrated throughout our province honouring all anti-bullying efforts.
I would like to remind you to follow us on Twitter and to also refer to our School website and Google calendar for
upcoming events and updates. I would like to wish you all health, happiness and safe travels given the recent
weather conditions.
Sincerely,
Maria Spagnolo
Principal
Al phabet Super St ars! We did it!! We accomplishes ABC BOOTCAMP! And we?re now letter superstars! So how do superstars celebrate? With a fashion show of course! Yes everyone, we had an ABC Fashion Show in kindergarten and it was epic fun! We sent home a paper bag vest with each child. Each bag was labeled with a letter. The children worked with their families to find pictures that started with their letter. They returned the vests to school so we could walk the runway. I loved the creativity in each vest and loved to hear the positive comments from parents and kids about the project! During the fashion show, the kindergartens walked the red carpet runway, modeling their haute couture to the tunes of ?What do the Letters Say? And let me just say, RuPaul would be proud. Some of my most reserved kiddos had the most attitude on the runway. It was epic!!!! Kindergar t en Spot l ight s
I m m ersed in Writ ing!
We started by hearing a tale about a grumpy bear who was sleeping in a cave.Many
animals came along and needed a warm place to sleep? Ask me to tell you the rest of
the story!I am an expert storyteller, and I can remember the beginning, middle and end
of this very interesting story. We were so inspired that we wanted to write our own
story.But where to begin?
We learned the importance of planning our work by using brainstorming templates to
help us draw pictures and print words to get all of our ideas out of our imaginations and
onto paper.After careful planning time, we begin to put our ideas together to write a
story of our own.No two stories are alike! We have learned the importance of revising
our work by sharing our writing with peers and having a ?writers conference?with the
teacher.This helps us to be reflective with our work and add juicy words to make our
stories interesting.The best part is publishing our hard work.Now we have a finished
piece of writing that we are not just the authors of, but the illustrators as well.We can?t
wait to share our newly published pieces of work with you!
Grade 1/ 2 Spot l ight s
BRAI NSTORMI NG
AUTHOR'S CHAI R
EDI TOR'S CHAI R
WRI TI NG
Designing and Buil ding Grade 3/4 Students have been busy working in
I nst rum ent s from groups to research, design, build and play an
instrument using recycled materials! Students
Recycl ed Mat erial s! were excited to reuse items and experiment with
how to make sounds by plucking elastics, hitting
Kleenex boxes, or blowing air into straws. They
combined their instruments and expertise of
sound to create patterned rhythms in groups!
Grade 3/ 4 Spot l ight s
Students were excited to begin exploring
strategies for solving multiplication equations!
Students created their own cities with different
arrays. Students then got into groups and made
different mathematical observations about the
cities. They discovered that buildings that look
completely different could actually have the same
area! Students enjoyed the challenge of
calculating the number of windows in all cities
M u lt iplicat ion an d Ar r ay Cit ies
Mat h and Ar t Col l ide! Piet Mondrian was born on March 7th, 1872 and was a Dutch painter and a theoretician. His artwork started out as drawing of landscapes and little blurbs of color. Many people asked, ?Why don?t you color it all?? After a few years he suddenly got interested in pixel art. He had such a big influence on the 20th Century art. His art had a variety of simple colors and lines like our Mondrian art puzzles. Math Pickle?s Mondrian Art Puzzle is influences by this famous artist! This puzzle was about you trying to get a low score on only a square grid. The rules were as follows: You had to try to get the lowest score possible by subtracting the area of your lowest rectangle from the area of the highest rectangle. In addition, you had to color the rectangles with the minimal amount of colors and the same colors could not touch. By Grade 5/6 Student Grade 5/ 6 Spot l ight s T THE EVOLUTI ON OF FLI GHT The grade 5/6s had the opportunity the develop an understanding of the evolution of flight by attending the Hangar Flight Museum. Students learned about the Theory of Flight including: Bernoulli's Principle, the forces of flight, Newton's Laws of Motion & the control surfaces of aircraft, all while exploring the museum's aircraft collection. Students also had the opportunity to build, test and evaluate flying devices including: gliders, parachutes and helicopters.
I nt ram ural s Draw ing Cl ub!
Patrols and Green Team
continue to make a Does your grade 1/2 child like to
Floor hockey intramurals
difference in our school draw? WDS is offering a Drawing
are in full swing. Grade 3/4 community daily! Club starting Wednesday,
students have been playing
A big Shout Out to these February 14 until March 14. We
on Tuesdays with the Grade Clubs! will have to limit our numbers, so
5/6 students playing on please ensure your daughter/son
Thursdays. Both groups is aware that they need to be
have shown good team committed to attending all
sessions.
spirit and have had an
opportunity to improve The sessions will occur during the
lunch hour on Wednesdays,
their hockey skill. Some
where the students will eat in Ms.
players who play ice hockey Evans?classroom so that we can
have also been able to give get into the activity as quickly as
some tips to those who are possible. If your child is super
new to the sport. Floor keen to improve their drawing
skills, return forms to Ms. Evans
Hockey will continue
by Friday, February 9, 2018.
through the month of
We are very excited to work with
February.
the students and look forward to
exploring their artistic abilities
with them. All students will know
Cl ubs and More if they have been selected to
participate by Monday, February
ORI GAMI CLUB LEADERSHI P CLUB
Grade 5 and 6 leadership students
The grade 3/4 origami club was met with huge popularity! 55
students from grades 3-6 are working together to create some are encouraging and inspiring all
interesting and challenging origami art. Mrs. Harrison and Mrs. students, staff and parents to
Emilsson are origami enthusiasts, they are excited to share participate in two theme days this
their passion for this amazing Japanese art every Thursday at month.
lunch hour for 6 weeks.
Febr u ar y 14t h : "Love Day; Taking
Our first session was focused on learning the traditional, and
most common types of folds. Students made book parks out Care of One Another"; wear Red or
of origami paper by only folding the paper 4 times! Looking a shirt that says "Love" on it!
forward to creating and learning from one another over the
next 5 weeks.
Febr u ar y 28t h : Pink Shirt Day; In
support of Anti-Bullying we are all
SAM CLUB encouraged to wear Pin k .
Song and Movement Club grade 3-6 will begin again on
Wednesday March 7th until June 6th. Students are
encourage to get their singing voices and dance shoes
West
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