Important Dates
November 21 Crazy Hair and Moustache Day
November 27 Deadline for Christmas Hamper Donations
December 13 Winter Breakfast and Pajama Day
December 17 Early Dismissal 1:27 pm
December 18 Winter Concert 12:45 pm (parent audience – even divisions)
December 19 Winter Concert 12:45 pm (parent audience – odd divisions)
December 18 Theme Day: TBA
December 20 Last day of classes before Winter Break
Learning Spotlight
The students in Ms. Chamberlayne’s class have been busy making games out of cardboard. This activity was inspired by Caine’s Arcade. There is much learning as students have been busy working – students are required to plan, design, and problem solve as they build. In building their games, the students put many math concepts (measurement, geometry, fractions, etc.) into use. Please watch the video that Charlie Zhang made of Marilyn and Jacob, from division 9, describing their project.
Student Leadership
We Scare Hunger
In the month of October our student leaders were busy counting canned goods our community donated to the Surrey Food Bank. We collected 1200 food items! Thank you to all the families who dropped off canned goods – what a great way to pay it forward.
Paying it Forward
As we head into the months of November and December we will continue to focus on paying it forward with more Kindness Counts initiatives. One initiative that we have participated in for years is supporting 2-3 families in the Newton area during Christmas. Every year we have had parents donate money so our leadership students are able to go out and shop for gifts for the families we are supporting. Once we know how much money has been donated we can determine how many families we can help. We spend approximately $100 on each child in the family. We ask the children we are shopping for to provide us with a list of wants (interests, likes, etc.) and needs (shoes, pajamas, socks, etc.). From these lists our leadership students determine what they will buy. The leadership students wrap the gifts themselves and we then have a staff member deliver the gifts to the school. We are asking for parents in our community to donate money so we can continue to pay it forward this holiday season. Deadline for donations is Wednesday, November 27th. If you would like to donate, please see Ms. Chohan at the school office.
Book Fair Breaks Records – Student Leaders Step Up!
Scholastic tells us that our Fall Book Fair was the highest grossing Fair in the history of Pacific Heights Elementary! Library Book circulation continued as usual. Our Student Leaders stepped up to the challenge. They attended meetings, returned permission slips, learned about displays, customer service, so much monetary math and working as a team. We had two contests: Guess the Number of Pages and a draw for the Grand Prize. Cash profits will be used to purchase new books for our collection. Several piles of current Scholastic bonus titles will also be added. Great work everyone.
To learn more about the learning happening in our Learning Commons please click here.
Lost And Found
Our lost and found team have collected many items such as jackets, hats, lunch boxes, water bottles, clothing, etc. As our Lost and Found grows, we encourage students to have their items of clothing tagged with their name for easy returns. Our Lost and Found is cleaned out at the end of every month and anything that is not claimed and will be donated. Please check it for your child’s lost items on a regular basis.
Communicating Student Learning
In the week of December 9th, 2019 students will bring home their CSL “reports”. Some teachers in our school use FreshGrade, if your child’s teacher is using FreshGrade then you have already been invited into your child’s portfolio and have been able to see the progress.
We have early dismissal on December 17th at 1:27 pm for Parent Teacher Conferences. Please call the office to set up an appointment with your child’s teacher to discuss your child’s progress.
Winter Concert
Our Winter Concert this year will be held two days so all parents are able to attend and so we are able to accommodate seating. On Wednesday, December 18th we will have parents of students in even numbered divisions to watch the concert. On Thursday, December 19th, we will have parents of students in odd numbered divisions to watch the concert. The concert time will be 12:45 pm start on both days. It is the same concert on both days.
If you have children in both odd or even numbered divisions – choose one day to attend. Remember, the reason we are doing this is so we can accommodate parent seating.
The Winter concert will have all of our music classes performing. Please talk to your child about the performance his/her class is practising for the concert.
Upcoming Events
Learning Spotlight: Student Vote Canada 2019
Parking Lot Safety
Drop Everything And Read (D.E.A.R.)
We Scare Hunger
Important Events
Harvest Day – October 11th
Handball is sometimes called European Handball – it is an easy sport to learn and play. Handball is a great team sport for learning and practising basic movement skills like throwing and passing. The sport allows players to learn about offence and defence skill strategies. The students in grades 4 and 5 signed up to participate in our handball season. Teams have been made and a schedule has been posted by the gym door. Students play every Wednesday and Thursday during the lunch hour. Thank you to Mr. Henderson and Mr. Litt for organizing and supervising the games.
October 7-11th is our Walk and Roll to School Week. As a school community we are encouraging students to walk or bike to school. We understand that some families do not live within walking distance of the school and for that we have a safe solution. For those families who do not live close by we recommend parents park their vehicles 1-2 blocks away from the school (and away from the traffic) and walk the rest of the route. It is a win-win for everyone:
Halloween
Upcoming Events
One student noticed that there were larger round dots on some cities. Using our knowledge from the story we had read yesterday, students determined that these dots marked important parts on Terry’s journey, such as where he started, where he ended, and when he realized his cancer had returned.
Terry Fox Run
We are recognizing Orange Shirt day on Tuesday, October 1st. We encourage all of our students to wear orange shirts on this day.
Upcoming Events
Litterless Lunches
Learning Commons
Spirit Wear
Cross Country
PAC WEBSITE REGISTRATION
Principal’s Message
I am also excited to introduce our new vice principal, Jen Barker. Ms. Barker is entering her 22nd year in education. She has spent time in the Surrey School District as a numeracy helping teacher, as well as a faculty advisor at UBC. When she is not teaching and learning, Ms. Barker enjoys spending time with her family and baking.
Important Dates
Kindergarten – Gradual Entry
Class Placements
Parking Lot
If you ordered school supplies through EduPac then your child will receive the supplies once classes have been set. All supply lists are found on our school website.
Ms. Holmes has modelled kindness to all of us – never have I met such a kind soul. You could always count on Ms. Holmes and her witty humour (best known for her puns) to lighten any situation. Ms. Holmes taught our students much about sea critters and the importance of keeping our planet green. One of the most challenging parts of teaching is getting students involved and excited for what they will learn about – Ms. Holmes never had this problem. She would do the neat things in her class like dissecting a salmon or planting tomato seeds from Mars!
Ms. McIntyre and her team spirit attitude is what we appreciated most. We will miss the flair she brought to our theme days. She just knew how to get the students excited and would come to work with the best theme day costume of all! We will miss the fantastic classroom plays she had her students put on – all the time and effort Grade 2’s spent making props, backdrops, and practising their lines. The end product has always been amazing. We have so appreciated the sewing club that Ms. McIntyre started with Ms. Ecclestone. Both these lovely ladies saw that some students were interested and voila – sewing club started!
Ms. Powell came to our school this September and we are sad to see her go. In the short time she has been here, she worked her magic as a Teacher Librarian with great book recommendations ready for the readers that entered her library. She built a sense of community in the library with the mosaic wall, and engaged students with activities like coding using Scratch Jr., and book tasting. Teachers would ask Ms. Powell for a resource and end up with way more. Ms. Powell shared her love of books and reading with us all.
Ms. Ecclestone is a TTOC at our school but one would never know that as she volunteered countless hours with the primary students working on arts and crafts. I am certain every student in this school has an art project in his/her home that was made with Ms. Ecclestone. She has always been a part of our primary wing by the Kindergarten classes ready to lend a hand and help a student. As if being a TTOC and volunteer art teacher was not enough, Ms. Ecclestone also decided she wanted to give our community more – so she led the sewing club with Ms. McIntyre!
Ms. Gauthier has been an Education Assistant at our school for over 6 years. She has demonstrated such compassion with all the students she worked with. Ms. Gauthier was always there in the classroom helping out with the social issues that students were having and helping them problem solve. She worked well with all our teachers and had an approach where she could look at any situation and try to think outside the box.
If you would like your child to participate in the Bike Parade, please have your child decorate his/her bike in their house colours. Bike’s will be parked in the parent parking lot (by Ms. Beale’s portable). Once the parade ends, bikes are kept in the gym or in the parking lot.
Important Dates