Signal Hill Circular - September 23rd, 2022
September 23rd, 2022
It may have been a shorter week, but it was full of fun and learning! We welcomed the Fall season by starting the harvest of our school garden. Thank you so much to our wonderful parent PAC volunteers and our classes who helped dig and pick. We already have quite a harvest. We are busy planning a pit cook for the food - more information to come.
On Wednesday we had the wonderful opportunity to be joined by scientists working with the Meager Creek power project which included two scientists from NASA!
Michael Paton and Morgan Cable, along with cave geologist Christian Stenner, shared about all of the exciting work they are doing at Mt. Meager to inform their research with NASA. It was pretty cool to hear about Michael's snake robot designs and Morgan's exploration of the possibility of alien life in our solar system. Our students had excellent questions to ask and we are hoping the presentation helped inspire the next generation of scientists in Pemberton!
Our Communication Boards are now up! There is one on the intermediate side and one on the primary side. They can be very helpful for supporting communication between different types of communicators. Please see here for more information.
A Few Reminders for Parents and Students:
Parking is at a premium here at drop off and pick up times! Please do not park in the bus lanes, on the sides of the driveways or block other drivers. For safety reasons, do not park in the staff parking lot on the right when you drive onto the school property. Please do not do U turns in the parking lot! We ask that you pick up your child and leave immediately so others have a chance to park. For those who have primary students, you can park in the Tiyata Roundabout too! Thank you for your understanding. 😊
Hot Lunch
We sent home verification forms for parents to look over. Please make any corrections so we have all of your children’s information. If there are not any changes, please sign and send back with your children anyway! We are holding a contest – any forms that are returned by September 27th will be entered into a draw for a family dinner at Mile One!
Dogs are permitted on school grounds only with a leash and under the control of their person. Please do not tie up dogs on the school grounds and keep them with you on leash at all times. Please clean up after your dog. 😊 If your dog is nervous around children or crowds we ask that you keep them at home. Thank you for your understanding!
News, Updates, and Reminders:
TruEarth Fundraiser for Breakfast and Lunch programs
Signal Hill is fundraising for our breakfast and lunch program for our students! Check out the TruEarth products – free shipping, all eco-friendly and all packaging is completely recyclable! TruEarth is a Canadian company and the school receives 20% of all sales. If you are interested, please check out our online campaign at:
CROSS COUNTRY RUNNING
Any grade 3 to 7 students interested in joining the cross country running team, please sign up in front of room 220 where there is a signup sheet posted on the door. The first practice will be on Tuesday, September 27th after school.
Scholastic Book Fair
We are hosting a Scholastic Book Fair September 27th - 29th as a fundraiser for our school library! All classes will have a time to visit the fair and shop. We will also have a Family Event on Wednesday the 28th from 3:30-5:30 for students to shop with their families. Stay tuned for more information!
SCHOOL SUPPLIES
We encourage you to go online to the link below to purchase your children’s school supplies! We have purchased supplies for all of the students – Grades K to 3 (primary) cost $45 and Grades 4-7 (intermediate) cost $55. This is for the whole school year!
If you do not yet have an account, you can also set up your child’s account through the link below.
Please use the following link: https://sd48seatosky.schoolcashonline.com
Thank you for taking the time to open an account and purchase your children’s supplies. Our district is trying to move to cashless and paperless systems as much possible!
IMPORTANT FORMS TO SIGN ONLINE
You will be receiving emails from our Cash Online Program today to sign forms online that are required by the school district. We apologize if you receive more than one email, you will only need to sign in once to complete all of the forms.
These forms include the Walking Field Trip form (Off-Site Activity Consent for Local Low-Risk Day Trip), Self-Identification of Indigenous Ancestry (First Nations, Metis or Inuit) form, Annual Student Personal Information, Technology and Media in School Consent form, Canadian Anti-Spam Legislation Consent form and the G-Suite Consent form.
Please go to https://sd48seatosky.schoolcashonline.com and sign the forms. If you have not yet set up an account, please open one. You can also take this opportunity to pay for your child’s school supplies if you have not yet.
Thank you for your patience and understanding while we set up our students and families for this school year!
Upcoming Important Dates:
Monday, September 26th - Professional Day – NO School for students
Tuesday, September 27th - Cross Country Running – after school from 3:15 to 4:45 pm
Tuesday, September 27th to Thursday September 29th - Scholastic Book Fair – more information to follow – all classes will have an opportunity to shop at the book fair!
Wednesday, September 28th - Family Event – Come shop at the book fair from 3-5 pm and most teachers are holding an open house as well 😊
Thursday, September 29th - Signal Hill Orange Shirt Day
Friday, September 30th - NO School – National Day for Truth & Reconciliation
Truth and Reconciliation
Truth and Reconciliation Month:
A reminder that as we are in Truth and Reconciliation month, leading up to September 30th, National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. Our staff and students will be learning, listening, and un-packing throughout the month. We will have our "Orange Shirt Day" on September 29th.
· Please take the time to learn about the Survivors Flag, the symbolism and meaning of the art and the teachings represented in the flag here. You can see Signal Hill's Survivors Flag on display in our front foyer.
· emhám: Join Arts Whistler and the Lílwat Nation’s Ts’zil Learning Centre every Thursday evening in September for Indigenous workshops, performances, music, knowledge sharing, and storytelling at the Maury Young Arts Centre. Don’t miss this weekly opportunity to build stronger relationships and share in Indigenous knowledge and foster greater understanding leading up to National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. More information can be found here.
Here is an amazingly beautiful video by Líl’wat Nation about our water and the gratefulness in caring for it as it takes care of us.
Water Celebration 2022 video:
Downie Wenjack Fund, and the Wenjack Walk
Our school is learning about the story of Chanie Wenjack, born Jan. 19/54 in Northwestern Ontario. At 9 years old he was sent to Indian residential school with his sisters. When he was 12, Chanie and 9 other children ran away from the Indian residential school trying to make it back home, 600 km from the school. However the other children were caught and brought back to the school. A week after he escaped, Chanie died near the train tracks. He died of hunger and exposeure on Oct. 22/66. He was 60 km away from the residential school.
Gord Downie (The Tragically Hip) wrote ‘The secret path book and song, in hopes to create a path in making Canada a better country and towards reconciliation."
In 2017, Gord Downie died of cancer, but his story about Wenjack hopes to ignite a passion in each of us to “Do something." The Downie Wenjack Fund Legacy School program helps to bring awareness to schools with some history of Canada’s residential school system . They both joined the spirit world in October, which is the reason for the ‘Walk for Wenjack" in the month of October.
We are hoping to plan our own Wenjack Walk - more information to come.
The Gordi Downie & Chanie Wenjack Youtube channel:
Learning Connections
Some samples of learning happening around our school this week:
Students in Heather's Ucwalmícwts language classes reflected on the good things that happened during pipántsek (peepan-chek)-summer. There were lots of shares about family, and being outside. Heather especially loved the students sharing about harvesting food this summer.
Students in Ms. Penney and Ms. Gladwin's Grade 1/2 class read the book Chrysanthemum and the class decided to figure out how many letters were in all of their names put together. Making 10s was a helpful idea. 112!
What Parents and Students Need to Know
FamilySmart Monthly Events: Every month, FamilySmart hosts online events for parents & caregivers who are parenting a child or youth with mental health and/or substance use challenge called “in the know.” We watch a video and share experiences and strategies that help in the hard moments and focus on strengthening our understanding and connection with our kids. For more information on this helpful resource, please click here.
Parent Advisory Committee
Health and Safety