It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

Thank you to Mr. Munk for getting our tree, and to Mrs. Tornroos and Mrs Emery for decorating it.

WINTER CONCERT

We are all looking forward to our concert on Wednesday. The matinée starts at approximately 1:15 pm (doors open at 1:00 pm) and the evening performance starts at 7:00 pm (doors open at 6:40 pm.)

Please enter by the door at the back of the gym and have your ticket ready. The production will be filmed by Mr. David Cooper Stone, a professional videographer and made available to parents. Therefore please limit taking photographs as this is often a distraction for both performers and audience. Please turn off cell phones and encourage children to be quiet. We ask that you stay seated until the end of the performance, respecting the hard work that all the children and staff have put into this production. You may meet your children afterwards in their classrooms after the evening performance. If you do not attend the evening performance, please arrive to pick up your child at 8:30 pm.

Please remember to thank staff who are volunteering their time to put on this production. Evening activities are taken on by staff because they believe that it is good for children and a pleasure for parents to see their child perform. Therefore, they deserve a big “Thank you” for their donated time and their hard work in planning for this event.

STUDENT COUNCIL SPONSORS  SPIRIT DAY

On December 20th all students are asked to wear red and or green plus any kind of festive hat to celebrate the season. Student Council will also be selling candygrams in the coming week to be delivered on the last day of school,

CHRISTMAS CRAFT DAY

A thirty year tradition at Maple Grove is the Christmas Craft Day. Supported by PAC and over 50 volunteer parents, the children had a wonderful time making delightful Christmas ornaments, messages and cards. They looked so happy as they carried their Christmas boxes around the school to the next station.

Mrs. Tornroos Reads a Christmas Story

DIVISION 13 – A WALK THROUGH TIME

Division 13 has been studying ancient civilizations. They created a “Walk Through Time” as a way of sharing their work with other students and parents.

KILOMETRE CLUB CELEBRATES

We have a very active Kilometre Club with many active parent volunteers. Thank you to all these people who come out to help record the students achievements, to run with them, to encourage them and then to put on a party for them. The students really enjoyed their pizza party. Thank you very much to Mrs. Belliveau, our teacher sponsor, who puts in much time and planning to make sure that our students get this valuable opportunity for exercise. All students who had run 10 kilometres or more were invited and everyone received a small prize. Ribbons were awarded according to the distance run.

REPORTS HOME

You will receive your child’s report today. Please take the time to review the report with your child focussing on the positive. In particular, it is valuable to look at comments related to hard work, effort and social responsibility. Focussing on the positive, and helping students to understand that success is related to work and effort as much as, or even more than, it is dependant on natural talent.

Chinese Tea

Last week there was a Chinese tea at which Ms Serbic, one of our ELL (English Language Learners) specialists, made a presentation to parents about learning English as a Second Language as an intermediate student. Thank you, Ms Serbic for the time and preparation you put into this.

Alberta Ballet, The Nutcracker in Vancouver over the holidays

One of our students, Shaolin Young, is performing in The Nutcracker this holiday season.  Here’s the link for more information:

http://www.balletbc.com/2013_nutcracker.html

UPCOMING EVENT PRESENTED BY PAC:

SEX TALK. NO SWEAT

This will be a wonderful opportunity for parents to learn how to talk about this challenging subject. Conversations should be begun in pre-school and continue throughout teenage years as students become ready to learn more. It is a complex issue that is often associated with specific moral values. The teachers and school nurse cover the curriculum on this topic. We need parents both to reinforce facts and set a context for decision making.

Upcoming Events

December 13 – First Term Reports are sent home

December 18 – Winter Concert. 1:15 matinée (doors open at 1:00 pm); 7:00 evening performance (doors open at 6:40 pm).  Tickets are $3.00 each and are necessary for admission to the concert. If there are any tickets left over after each family has received their guaranteed 2 tickets , we will sell them from the office starting on December 11th, and at the concert performances.

December 20 – Last Day before the winter holidays

January 6- First day back to school after the winter holidays.