October News
October 11th, 2023
The colours of the leaves are changing and the temperature is dropping. We seem to be back into some regular temperatures after the summer-like ones for the last couple of weeks. Thank you to everyone that was able to make it out to the September Open House and Book Fair. It was very well attended and so great to see so many people.
We are off to a fantastic start, with soccer teams competing, cross country up and practicing, and some other clubs getting organized to start soon. We honoured The National Day of Truth and Reconciliation with Orange Shirt Day on September the 29th. The school was a sea of Orange as staff shared books and some students shared part of their culture.
On Friday, we found out that we did receive the $10 000 from the Kid Doodle competition that we participated in last Spring. Many thanks to Mme. Furst for organizing the entry. Over the coming weeks we will be looking at how best to use the funds to upgrade our outdoor learning environment and equipment.
We have welcomed three Queen’s student teachers for part of their educational journey. They are here to learn and be a part of our great community. We also have two, St. Lawrence students who have joined us to work with students in their field of study. We welcome them and hope they have a great learning experience in our school.
We have students and staff that have a very active life outside of school. So many of our students and staff are engaged in a wide variety activities and organizations. Every now and then there are some special things that happen. Mrs. Jennifer Guild was successful in a competition for a lead role in a musical called, “Madeline the Musical”, at the Grand Theatre in October. The link is here for any that are interested in attending- https://www.kingstongrand.ca/events/madeline-the-musical
We also have a grade 8 student, Colton Dee, who is the only Canadian, and 1 of only 10 athletes in his age group in North America that qualified to compete in the Drive, Chip and Putt competition at the Masters’ Golf Tournament at Augusta National next Spring.
The school calendar, that is on the school web site, is one of the best ways to see what is happening. School events are put into the calendar on a regular basis and we try to keep it up to date.
It was mentioned to the parents/guardians that pick up at the East end one day last week, but I may have missed some; if you are picking up your child(ren), we ask that please do not let them go to the climbers outside the kindergarten yard until after the busses have left. Safety is the primary concern– as the busses are pulling out we do not want students to be running near them or out that way and staff think they are students that have missed the bus. Thank you for your help with this.
Terry Fox Support
The support from our Elginburg DPS community continues to impress. For this year alone, over $5000 was raised, between the donations and the shirt sales. We had our school walk on Thurs. Oct. 5 and it was an amazing day. We had a wonderful community turn out as well. Many thanks to our Student Council who helped to organize and set up for this special day.
School Council Corner
School Council is getting their fundraising events under way. This Saturday, Oct. 14, there will be a bottle drive held at the school from 9-12. Please drop off any empties to help support the School Council. All proceeds go towards supporting student activities.
Wreath/Planter order – due Oct. 27 – you will get information via paper copy and attached in this newsletter. All Orders will be done through School Day.
Flip Give – an ongoing fundraiser – code to get connected: HCCTLR
Mabels Labels – ongoing – search Mabels Labels then search for Elginburg
Next meeting Mon. Oct. 16 @ 6:00PM – 7:15PM
Literacy Corner
Phonemic Awareness
Phonemic awareness is the understanding that spoken language can be broken down into individual speech sounds. The most important part of phonemic awareness for reading is the ability to blend sounds together to create a word. For example, the sounds /sh/ /o/ /p/ (sounds, not letter names) blend together to make the word "shop". For writing, students need to be able to take a word like "shop" and determine the individual sounds they hear in the word, /sh/ /o/ /p/. Students spell the word while saying each sound. In this example, students would say /sh/ while writing s and h, /o/ as they write o and /p/ as they write p. Practising these skills has been shown to greatly improve students' reading and writing.
Phonemic awareness can be practised orally in short but frequent sessions. You can practise this by thinking of a word (varying length depending on the age of your child) and saying the individual sounds (sounds, not letter names) in the word and asking your child what word you just said. Alternatively, you can say a word to your child and ask them to tell you the individual sounds they hear in the word.
You can also play around with some other phonological and phonemic awareness activities to decrease or increase the difficulty of the task. Some examples follow and they increase with difficult at each stage. The italics are children's responses.
Compounds Words: Say birthday birthday Say birthday again but don't say <birth>. day Say seashell seashell Say seashell again but don't say <shell> sea Syllables: Say plastic plastic Say plastic again but don't say <tic> plas Say engine engine Say engine again but don't say <en> gine Beginning sound: Say tap tap Say tap again but don't say /t/ (say the sound not the letter name) ap
Community Agency Updates
See the Picture below for Walk in Clinics for Maltby Centre
Link below for Mental Health Services for November and December
Does your child need glasses - QUICK FACTS ABOUT VISION:
- 1 in 4 children may have a vision problem that can impact their learning.
- Annual eye exams with an optometrist are free for children with an Ontario Health Card. However, fewer than half of children have an eye exam before age 5.
- Treatment for amblyopia or “lazy eye” (which can lead to permanent vision loss) is most effective if it begins before age 7.
- Children in JK and SK can get free glasses through the “Eye See, Eye Learn” Program.
o For more information and for financial assistance for older children, see kflaph.ca/SchoolVision