Goodbye to February

I would like to start this blog by thanking our Class Safety Reps for the wonderful job they did on Monday and Tuesday as they served around 800 pancakes to the adults and students at LKS! Even though most of us never want to see another pancake for a very long time, it was truly a wonderful time spent together. Thank you to staff and parents who supplied us with some griddles and alternative snacks for those with allergies. It was nice that everyone was included in this experience. Next week, the reps will be looking at the Fairness Poems our students submitted to help recognize February's Character Trait of Fairness. The March Character Trait is "Honesty".

This week, our sports teams were really busy; namely hockey, swimming and badminton. We would like to extend our congratulations to both our hockey teams as they finished off their seasons on Thursday. Our juniors will be going to the semi-finals next week. What a big commitment that all the players put forth during the season. A special thanks to all the parents who drove the kids in the wee hours of the morning and at lunch. A special thanks also to Mr. Bracht and Mr. Page for your leadership both on and off the ice.

On Thursday, we also hosted many of our grade 8 and 9 teachers in our South West Family of Schools for a Grade 9 Math EQAO Workshop. Teachers were given an opportunity to look at last year's data and discussed the results together. These types of workshops will continue to be invaluable as we send our students on to the secondary schools.

Our students and staff had a great time at the Kiwanis Festival. On Friday, we took the last grade 8 group to John English and came in 2nd to Hollycrest. We really played well on stage and were an excellent audience. A special thank you to Ms. Armin and Mr. Samotowka.

A final note of recognition goes to our grade 8 students who attended the TDSB Skills Competition. This year, the groups had to create a carpark. A total of 44 teams competed across TDSB, and we are very proud to say that one of our LKS groups, consisting of Scott Mitchell, Kyle Wilson, Julia Dmytryshyn and Avery Wentraub, qualified for the Provincial competition in Waterloo in May. In addition, David Yang, Ian Tramble, Julia Tomczak and Julia Vescio will be our back-up team. Ben Pirie, Kenny Malcolmson, Jennifer Thompson, Khrystyna Hnatovska created our third team and need to be recognized at this time. Congratulations! Thank you Dr. deBraga for being so dedicated to our science program.

Finally, from Parent Council, a reminder to mark SPRINGFEST on your calendars-MAY 2, 2009! We are looking forward to a fun Saturday!

Dates to Remember:

March
4th-Swim Practice
5th-Grade 6-8 Ski Day
9th-Swim Practice; Interview Letters go Home!
10th-Grade 7 Hep B #2/Grade 8 Girls HPV #3; Middle School EcoSchools Conference
11th-Swim Practice
16th-20th-March Break
23rd-Eco-Warriors Lunch-Room 123; Swim Practice; K-3 Handwashing Workshop
25th-Swim Practice
26th-Parent Council Family Night; Swim Practice
27th-Sharing Assemblies; Pizza Lunch; Student Council Battle of the Bands
30th- Report Cards Go Home; Junior Swim Team Meet
31st-Sr. Swim Team Meet

April
3rd-Parent Teacher Interviews
7th-Grade 2 to Reptilia
8th-Swim Finals @ Riverdale; Grade 5 Olympics
10th and 13th-Good Friday/Easter Monday
20th-Earth Week Begins; Eco Assemblies
22nd-Author Kenneth Oppel visits
24th-Sharing Assemblies; Grade 6 Presentation-Cosmic Connections
29th & 30th-Wizard of OZ

Pancake Tuesday!

The Safety reps will be really busy on Monday and Tuesday as they will be cooking pancakes for all the classes to celebrate Pancake Tuesday. We thought this would be a great community building activity at LKS! Just a reminder to all the students that your "Fairness" poems are due at the end of the week.

We would like to extend our thank you to Ms. Armin and Mr. Samotowka for taking all the grade 7 & 8 students to the Kiwanis Music Festival this year. For those of you who do not know, Ms. Armin teaches strings to our grade 6-8 students and Mr. Samotowka teaches band. Both are instrumental music teachers assigned to a variety of schools in our area. Thank you for the extra effort!

At the last parent council meeting, someone asked if the portable was ever inspected. The answer is yes. Our portable was erected in 2007, and will be inspected in the summer of 2009. So far there are no areas of concern.

At the meeting we also discussed our enrolment. We should be getting our final projected enrolment over the next month. So far, it looks like we will have approximately 720 students, down 20 from our current enrolment. Even though we are slightly down, we are still "closed' for optional attendance. That means that we do not accept registrations outside our catchment area. Our staffing process will begin shortly.

February
23rd-Grade 6-8-Pancake Monday (those grades are busy on Tuesday)
24th-Grade 7 Band to Kiwanis; Pancake Tuesday-JK-5
26th-Hockey Conferences
27th-Sharing Assemblies; Orchestra to Kiwanis

March
4th-Swim Practice
5th-Grade 6-8 Ski Day
9th-Swim Practice; Interview Letters go Home!
10th-Grade 7 Hep B #2/Grade 8 Girls HPV #3; Middle School EcoSchools Conference
11th-Swim Practice
16th-20th-March Break
23rd-Eco-Warriors Lunch-Room 123; Swim Practice; K-3 Handwashing Workshop
25th-Swim Practice
26th-Parent Council Family Night; Swim Practice
27th-Sharing Assemblies; Pizza Lunch; Student Council Battle of the Bands
30th- Report Cards Go Home; Junior Swim Team Meet
31st-Sr. Swim Team Meet

April
3rd-Parent Teacher Interviews
7th-Grade 2 to Reptilia
8th-Swim Finals @ Riverdale; Grade 5 Olympics
10th and 13th-Good Friday/Easter Monday
20th-Earth Week Begins; Eco Assemblies
22nd-Author Kenneth Oppel visits
24th-Sharing Assemblies; Grade 6 Presentation-Cosmic Connections
29th & 30th-Wizard of OZ

Happy Valentine's Day

We finally wrapped up our celebrations today. A big thank you goes to all the grade 8 students who helped organize our bake sale, candy grams and dance. You have shown a tremendous amount of leadership in the school this week. Congratulations!

Just a reminder to our grade 8 students that your course selections are due on Wednesday.

We hope everyone has a great Valentine's Day and Family Day! Please remember to be careful near any open water; the snow is melting and our rivers are running high!

Have

13th-PA Day-no school and 16th-Family Day-no school

17th-Grade 8 Band to Kiwanis; Eco-Warriors meeting @ lunch in Room 123
18th-Grade 5/6 Spec Ed Reviews
19th-Junior Boys Hockey;Brazil Dancers @ 2:00 for grades 4-8; Swim Practice @ 7:00 a.m
20th-Author Lucy Falcone visits grade 5 and 6
24th-Grade 7 Band to Kiwanis
27th-Sharing Assemblies; Orchestra to Kiwanis

March
5th-Grade 6-8 Ski Day
16th-20th-March Break
27th-Sharing Assemblies
30th- Report Cards Go Home

April
2nd-Kindergarten to Grade 2 Spec Ed Reviews
3rd-Parent Teacher Interviews
10th and 13th-Good Friday/Easter Monday

LOVE IS IN THE AIR

Congratulations to both our Girls' VBall teams who played well at their tournaments. Thank you to Dr. deBraga, Mr. Elias, Mr. Littlejohn and Ms. Moser for dedicating their time to our sports teams. Please take a look at our website to access our DRA/CASI fall data (under Data). We'll look at them closer at the Parent Council meeting on Monday. Once again, we have lots going on this week...in addition the grade 8 students continue to sell their Candygrams!

Feb:
9th-Parent Council @ 7:30 p.m.in the Library
10th-Jr Boys Hockey@ 11:00 a.m; Grade 6 Scientist in the School
11th-Sr Boys Hockey @ 8:00; Kindergarten Registration;Family Bingo Night-cancelled; Grade 8 Bake Sale
12th-Grade 4 Medieval Times Trip; Kindergarten Registration; Grade 6-8 Student Council VDay Dance
13th-PA Day-no school and 16th-Family Day-no school


17th-Grade 8 Band to Kiwanis
18th-Grade 5/6 Spec Ed Reviews
19th-Junior Boys Hockey
20th-Author Lucy Falcone visits grade 5 and 6
24th-Grade 7 Band to Kiwanis
27th-Sharing Assemblies; Orchestra to Kiwanis

March
5th-Grade 6-8 Ski Day
16th-20th-March Break
27th-Sharing Assemblies
30th- Report Cards Go Home

April
2nd-Kindergarten to Grade 2 Spec Ed Reviews
3rd-Parent Teacher Interviews
10th and 13th-Good Friday/Easter Monday

LKS ART

I thought I would post some pics of the fabulous artwork that is happening at LKS. We are so proud of the children as they explore their talents. Art can be such a great tool to express both feelings and ideas. Many teachers at LKS integrate art across the curriculum. Yesterday I was covering a grade 7 math class and thought of the wonderful art lessons that we can start using as they are learning about tessellations. Welcome to String ART!

We are also very happy that Ms. Hoffman, Mr. Blais and Ms. Zappi will be attending our first South West Family of Schools Arts Festival in March. They will have the opportunity to perform a few songs (and drumming) and listen to other performances. It should be a great time. The performance will be at Islington P.S.

I am just learning how to post pics and slideshows on the blog. I have discovered posting pics on the web so you can see some of our great shots. Please be patient as I am learning this..a new skill takes so much time to learn! If you know how to use Picasa and Google web albums, I have a few questions...please stop by to see me. Greatly appreciated. Please visit http://picasaweb.google.com/LKSPICS for more fabulour art at LKS! (Hopefully they show up)!