Elmdale School

In the event of an EA strike, there will obviously impacts to programming at school, but we will do our best to reallocate other resources to minimize the impact on students.

A few pieces to be aware of:

1. There will be no crossing guard at the Main Street or 7-11 Crosswalks. If you send your child to school using those crossing points, please make sure to walk with your child across those crosswalks
2. Morning supervision on the Elmdale playground will begin at 8:40 - please do not drop your children off before this
3. Our recess and lunch supervision may look a little different, but please rest assured that we will ensure adequate supervision is available to ensure student safety. If you are willing to help out with supervision, specifically during the noon hour, please fill out this Google Form. You must have your volunteer information on file with the school already, in order to help out in this way.
4. If you are willing to help out in your child's classroom, please contact their teacher directly to arrange for this. Again, your volunteer information must already be on file with the school
5. Please be aware that any assessments or supports from OT, Speech and Language, Reading Clinicians, School Psychologists or Social Workers including individualized assessments or services, will be on hold for the duration of the strike.

Thank you for working together with us to minimize the impact on our Elmdale students. Please contact the school if you have any further questions.

Mr. Vince Hiebert

Principal: Elmdale School

Email: vhiebert@hsd.ca

Instagram: elmdalehsd

It is important that all guests (including parents) check in at the office whenever they arrive at Elmdale. If you are volunteering, this involves signing in and wearing a visitors badge. If you are dropping or picking up your child, parents are not permitted to walk their child to class or pick them up directly from the classroom. Parents must go to the office and your child will be brought to you there. If you have a scheduled meeting at the school, also, please check in at the office and someone will direct you to your meeting location from there.

Finally, if you wish to meet with your child's teacher, please contact them by email or SeeSaw and make arrangements directly with them. Our teachers are quite busy throughout the school day, so If you come to school during the school day expecting an impromptu meeting with your child's teacher, this likely will not work. It is best to arrange a meeting time directly with your child's teacher.

These steps and practices are in place to ensure that our school remains a safe place for all students. We ask for cooperation from our Elmdale families and guests to ensure these expectations are followed.

November is Hearing Screening Month at Elmdale. All students in kindergarten, grade 1 and those new to our school will participate in our annual hearing screening. In addition, teachers may identify students who seem as though they don't hear or pick up on certain sounds or instruction in the classroom. A dedicated screener (employee of Hanover School Division working with the Speech and Language Pathologist) comes to school to assess these students with a screening device. Students who show signs of hearing loss are referred to Southern Health to an Audiologist. Parents are notified about the referral. Please contact our Learning Support Teacher, Ms. Rose Friesen (rfriesen@hsd.ca), should you have concerns about your child's hearing or have other questions about the program

Our Fall Parent-Teacher Meetings will be taking place on Thursday, November 9 from 4:00-5:30 and Friday, November 10 from 12:30-3:30pm. Please note the following

• Parents/caregivers will be given the opportunity to sign up for a 10 minute interview with each of their children's teachers
• If you have multiple children at Elmdale, we ask that you leave a 10 minute buffer between interviews to give you time to transition to your next appointment. Booking your appointments back to back will shorten your interview time.
• Due to the limited time for each interview, we ask that you show up 5 minutes early for your interview and wait on the chairs in the hallway outside your child's classroom. It is very important that we stay on schedule. If you miss your scheduled time you will need to arrange a different meeting time with your child's teacher.
• This is a parent-teacher interview to give the teachers a chance to talk openly about how your child is doing and for you to ask them any questions you may have. Therefore we ask that children do not attend these meetings
• You will also have a chance to meet your child's Music and Phys Ed teacher as well as connect with the Literacy Support Teacher, Learning Support Teacher and/or School Counsellor if they are involved in your child's learning. Sign up will be in Parent Portal for Music and Phys Ed, and by email for other specialist teachers.
• Please note that Mrs. Tufford (Phys Ed) will only be available on the evening of November 9. If you had hoped to meet with her and can only attend on the 10th, please email Mrs. Tufford to arrange a different time to meet.

ALL sign up will take place on the Parent Portal starting immediately. If you are having difficulty with this, please contact the school office and our secretaries can help you get set up on the Parent Portal.

This month's theme was Empathy. Thanks to the following students for doing such an awesome job of demonstrating Empathy at Elmdale this month!

Ivy Cheesaquay 1J; Jasnoor Kaur 1M; Aubrey Hutchinson 1/2F; Vikki Radostino 2E; Saxton Hiebert 2G; Taurian Jowett 3T; Leyam Barley 3/4B; Darryl Swampy 4T; Remy Thiessen-Derksen 4M.

Picture Retakes will take place on November 17. Please let your child's teacher know if you would like Picture Retakes that day.

If your child does not attend Kindergarten that day, please contact the office to arrange a time to have their picture taken.

This month our focus is to build a growth mindset. To briefly summarize, in a fixed mindset we believe that our intelligence and talent are something we are born with and can’t change. This leads us to the false assumption that talent alone, without hard work, will lead to success. Extensive research has shown that children with this mindset give up easily and often avoid challenges.

In a growth mindset, we see ourselves as growing and developing. We believe we can build any skill with effort and this can help us create a love of learning and an excitement around new challenges. We see the brain like a muscle, the more effort we put in, the bigger it grows.

Parent Tip: Help Your Child Recognize Their Fixed Mindset Voice

The story we tell ourselves is a choice. By recognizing and acknowledging when we are using self-defeating and fixed self-talk, we can start to choose a growth mindset voice instead. Recognizing that we have a choice of which voice to hear is a big step towards using a growth mindset voice. When you hear your child using a fixed mindset frame of reference, remind them that, much like opening our umbrella to protect us from the rain, the choice is up to them. Knowing this choice exists can help children take control and feel empowered in situations where they would normally feel powerless.

Here are some fixed mindset statements and alternatives we can choose:

Click HERE for this month's Nutrition Bits and Bites Newsletter from Southern Health.

"Soup's On" provides daily school lunches to families in need. It can be started and stopped as needed. Contact our Learning Support Teacher Ms. Tara Klassen (tklassen@hsd.ca) to register your child.

Please check our website for information about bus transportation.

If your address has changed, please call transportation at 204-320-2347 to make sure that your children are riding the correct bus to and from school.

Elmdale's eNewsletter

Publisher: Mr. Hiebert

Email: elmdale@hsd.ca
Website: http://elmdale.hsd.ca/
Location: 160 Elmdale Street, Steinbach, MB, Canada
Phone: 204-326-3325
Twitter: @elmdalehsd