Just a reminder that we have class photos tomorrow.  Full dress uniform, please!

Here is the spelling list for this week:

employee

athlete

multitude

bureau

heifer

vehicle

library

vicinity

confectionery

athletic

anniversary

opportunity

emergency

treachery

disease

calculator

calendar

isthmus

consequence

controversy

We have a busy week so I thought I would give you a quick re-cap of the things coming up this week:

Monday, April 22st – IMPORTANT transition meeting for all parents who have students heading into grade seven next year.  Please meet in room 201 at 7:00.

Tuesday, April 23rd – HRA Knight’s Day.  Students can wear the Knight t-shirts to support the girls volleyball game.

Wednesday, April 24th – Jeans for Children’s Hospital.  Get your pins at the office for $5.  If your child does not have a pin they need to wear their uniform.

Here is the spelling list for this week.

weight

campaign

consciousness

controllable

organize

organization

sense

sensible

compression

experience

permitted

profit

arrangement

discussion

session

welfare

tying

resemble

resemblance

magnificent

There are few more dates to be aware of this month:

Tuesday, April 23rd – Knight’s Day.  Students can wear their knight’s shirts/jeans or regular uniform.

Wednesday, April 24th – Jeans for Children’s Hospital.  Can pay $5 at office for a pin and wear jeans/casual shirt.

Tuesday, April 30th – Class photos:  Full Dress Uniform.

Thanks!

Here are a few dates for you to remember:

Thursday, April 18th – Service Day

Friday, April 19th – Pro D Day

Monday, April 22 – Grade 6 – 7 transition meeting (7pm)

Here is the spelling list for this week.  The test will take place on THURSDAY since we have no school on Friday.

mysterious

relieve

advise

solemn

apparent

image

imagine

column

independent

evidence

testimony

individual

innocence

sacrifice

prejudice

coarse

leisure

reference

occasion

acre

Please note that the grade 7 orientation meeting for current grade 6 parents is on MONDAY, APRIL 22nd.  Sorry about the confusion!

All parents of grade six students are invited to attend an important meeting on Monday, April 22 at 7:00 pm.  The meeting will take place upstairs in room 201 and will cover information about what t0 expect next year as your child moves into grade seven.

Today the grades four to six students were part of an assembly led by Simon Choi, a HRA parent and RCMP officer.  Simon spoke to the students about a number of very important topics including stranger danger and internet safety.

I, as a parent, was shocked (and a little scared) to hear the dangers of social media and how that can be used to put our families and loved ones in danger.  As most of us know, social media (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter etc.) can be used to share pictures and information with our friends and family.  What I did not realize until today was how easily accessible that information (or pictures) is to ALL people.

Simon started one portion of his talk by asking the students who had access to a cell phone or computer.  The next question he asked was who had a computer in their bedroom.  What he shared after that was shocking…did you know that  ‘hackers’ are able to look through the webcam in your computer and see what you are doing?  They can do this whether the computer is on or off.  He strongly suggested that a piece of paper be put over the web cam at all times.

We then followed that assembly up with a very serious and in-depth discussion in class and I strongly encourage you to continue this dialogue with your child at home.  Yesterday Simon talked to the k-3 students about stranger danger and this gave my husband Patrick and I an opportunity to reinforce this with our own kids that evening.  We all want our children to be safe and it is my hope that you will take the time to chat with them about what they learned this morning.

Mrs. Goosen

Just a reminder that on Monday students need to bring some information on the animal that they are researching.  I have  some books from the library but it would also be helpful if students could print off some information.  Here are a couple of websites that might be helpful.

http://www.seaworld.org is a great website – look under animal information.

http://www.sheppardsoftware.com  – look under animals (on top bar).

Thanks!
Mrs. Goosen

Wow!  What a great day with our class and Miss Warden’s class.  Praise the Lord for very little traffic, safety for all, and fantastic tour guides at an amazing venue.  The Britannia Mine Museum was one of the most interesting field trips that I’ve been on and I can guess that the highlight for most students was the train ride into the mine.  Here are a few of the pictures that I took of our day together.

Thankfully the traffic was light and we arrived in ample time before our tour.  This allowed us some time to stretch our legs and enjoy the short hike up to Shannon Falls.

The first thing we did at the Britannia Mine Museum was to meet our tour guide, Marshall.  Marshall was a wealth of information and had many personal experiences and memories of Britannia since he had worked at the mine from the age of 18-27.  His stories and passion for the community of Britannia were contagious.

We started off our tour learning about acid rock drainage and the environmental concerns that arose with so much mineral-polluted water running into Howe Sound.

Next was a walking tour around the community of Britannia.  Marshall showed us which dorm house he lived in as a young miner.  We saw the elementary school (high school students had to travel 4.5 km up the mountain to go to school) and the church which had two entrances.  Why two entrances?  I asked my family and their guesses were men/women, whites/other races, and children/adults.  None of these guesses were right.  The real reason was that Protestants entered one side and Catholics the other with an interior wall inside separating the two congregations.

After much begging from the students, we got to enter the mine.  Hardhats put on, loaded onto the train, & transported back into 1904 when the mine first opened.  We saw the drills they used, the explosives – 8 minutes to boom after the fuse was lit, the ‘mucker’ machine to get the ‘muck’ out of the mine, and the honeywagon – also known as the double toilet to provide relief, and little privacy, for the miners.

The final stops were in the core sample building and the mineral processing plant.  We were able to see and hold core rock samples taken from the mountain that the geologists would analyze to see if there were minerals worth mining.

The mineral processing plant is where the chalcopyrite was separated into copper, iron, and sulphur.  In the next 5 years, tourists should be able to take full tours of the plant, once it’s made structurally sound and the 375 stairs are up to code.

Thanks for the great day everyone!  Enjoy your weekend!

Hi Everyone,

A few last minute reminders about our Britannia field trip tomorrow:

Departing at 7 am SHARP!!

Bring lots of snacks and lunch – it’ll be a long, hungry day without them 🙂

Returning at about 5 pm, traffic permitting.

No phones or ipod touch devices allowed.

Ereaders and gaming devices (like Nintendo DS) are permitted.

Country Research Report Info:

In Social Studies we are exploring countries from around the world.  Every student is researching a different country that they chose.  They have created a research notebook to keep their point form notes in while they research.  Please remind your children to record the book and website information that they use on the ‘References’ page.  Also, we’re working really hard at avoiding plagiarism.  To help the students with this I gave them the following pointers:

1.  It is ok to copy proper nouns.  For example, Mt. Fuji – tallest mountain.

2.  It is NOT ok to copy down description information.  They need to put these words into their own words.  For example, if the textbook says, “Mt. Fuji is beautiful,” the student would need to think of a different word for ‘beautiful’ since this is a describing word.

Below are links to the report guidelines. This is an in-class project.  The only homework generated from it should be small things that they didn’t finish in class.

Hope that makes sense!  If you have any questions, please contact me via e-mail or at the school.  Thanks, Melanie Derksen

Country Research Report