Congratulations to all of our students on some outstanding winter concerts this year! Our students should be extremely proud of themselves for the hard work they put into learning their parts in the show. Thank you to Mr. Roberts, Ms. Skibbe and our entire Hillcrest staff for the hours spent working with our students to ensure each of them could do their best.

Below is a link to our Week at a Glance for the week of Dec 16-20, 2019. We look forward to seeing everyone at our Winter Concerts and the Book Fair this week! Don’t forget to bring in your non-perishable food items or cash donations for the Second Harvest Food Bank before it is taken away on Thurs Dec 19.

LINK: https://conta.cc/2YYMuAY

Mrs. Menzies and her students went on a field trip to Picadilly Mall on Friday. They were shopping for children of families who may be experiencing hardship this holiday season.  While at the mall students picked out tags from the Christmas tree reading “Boy aged x” or “Girl aged x” and purchased gifts for the children with money they raised as a class.  Mrs. Menzies matched the money raised by the students to provide almost $400 for the students to spend on gifts!

For those looking to get involved in the Christmas Gift Campaign put on by the Shuswap Family Centre, Christmas trees have be placed throughout the community decorated with tags. Participants are to take a tag from one of the trees and purchase a gift. The Shuswap Family Centre asks that if the gift requires batteries, the gifter include those along with wrapping paper and tape.

The Christmas trees can be found at the following locations:

• Piccadilly Mall
• Centenoka Park Mall
• SASCU Branch locations
• Canadian Tire Shuswap Family Centre

Students in Mrs. Corbett’s class were encouraged to bring their families to school recently for a night of Math games and activities.  It was awesome to see so many students and their families participating! Not only did families learn how to practice math at home through fun math games, each family also received a package of instructions for the games they played and a gift bag full of the manipulatives (dice, cards etc.) one would need to play them. Thank you to everyone who came out and to Mrs. Corbett for organizing such a fun packed evening of learning.

Below is a link to our Week at a Glance for the week of Dec 9 – Dec 13, 2019. Thank you to all of our parent volunteers who are helping out with both Hot Lunch and the Book Fair next week. We look forward to seeing everyone at our Winter Concerts!

LINK: https://conta.cc/349gScz

We did it! Hillcrest has been  named a top 10 finalist in the Passion Prize category of the CBC Music Challenge. Thank you to Mr. Roberts and all of our grade 5 students for their outstanding work on this project. This is an amazing accomplishment that we should be extremely proud of.

This year, an estimated 50,000 students from close to 1,200 music classes signed up from every province and territory to learn and perform their best version of a Canadian song on every instrument imaginable. The winners will be announced on Tuesday, Dec. 17.

SOURCE: https://www.cbc.ca/music/events/canadian-music-class-challenge/canadian-music-class-challenge-2019-national-top-10s-revealed-1.5378939

Mr. Roberts, teachers, staff and students are already working hard on this year’s Western themed Winter Show. Your child will participate in both an afternoon and an evening concert according to the schedule below.

Before the Show

• On the night of the concert, students are to access their regular outside classroom door.
• Parents will come through the main front doors of the gym – the front doors will be open at 6:10pm (parents may leave your boots on in the gym).
• There will be no reserve seating.
• Please do not arrive too early, as it may be cold waiting outside.
• Parking is also difficult on concert nights, so we encourage any relatives/friends who are able to attend the afternoon concert to do so.

Food Bank Donations

• Donations of non-perishable food will be collected during the week prior to the concert and at the concert door for those who wish to donate.

Best Seats in the House and Hot Chocolate/Popcorn Sales

• The PAC will be selling tickets for the “Best Seats in the House” before the evening performances. The money collected from this fundraiser will be used to support our music program.
• PAC will also be selling Hot Chocolate and Popcorn before the evening performances so be sure to bring some change.

After the Show

• Your child will be on stage for the entire concert, and will return to their classroom following the performance, where they can be picked up.
• Please be sure to pick up your child before heading to the book fair.

We look forward to seeing you at your child’s concert(s)!

The breakfast program is looking for someone to help out on Tuesday mornings, about 7:40 to 8:15am. This our grab and go day from the multipurpose room door, of muffins, fruit and hard boiled eggs, so it is very simple! Please email kaylavann88@gmail.com if you’re able to assist our program. Thank you!

The Middle Years Development Instrument (MDI) is coming to Hillcrest in January/February!

School District No. 83 (North Okanagan-Shuswap) has partnered with the Human Early Learning Partnership (HELP) at the University of British Columbia to measure and promote children’s social and emotional development, health, well-being, and assets through the Middle Year Development Instrument (MDI). The Middle Years Development Instrument (MDI) is a self-report questionnaire that asks children in middle childhood about their thoughts, feelings and experiences. The MDI is the first survey of its kind to gather information about the lives of children both in school, in the home and in the community, from their own perspective. The survey questions align with the BC Ministry of Education’s K-12 curriculum, which includes a focus on promoting children’s personal and social competencies.

Grade 4 and/or 7 students are invited to complete the MDI during class time between:

January 15^th and February 21^st, 2020.

For more information and to view the questionnaires:

http://earlylearning.ubc.ca/mdi/

Parent FAQs:

http://earlylearning.ubc.ca/mdi/parent-guardian-resources/

If you don’t want your child to participate please contact your child’s teacher, fill out the withdrawal form at the end of the parent/guardian informed passive consent letter, or contact the MDI project staff at mdi@help.ubc.ca.

• Make sure your child can open all their lunch containers.
• Once your child is no longer “hangry”, see if they can tell you why their lunch was uneaten. Help them problem solve strategies to prevent it from happening again.
• If uneaten lunches occurs regularly, bring it to the teacher’s attention—if they are aware of the problem, they may be able to check in with your child at lunch.
• You can arrange to go to school and eat lunch with your child one day.
• Finally, if your child’s lunch comes home uneaten, having them finish their lunch before offering snack foods is a good strategy to prevent children from “waiting for something better.”

Dear Parents:

Holiday flower order will be available to pick up tomorrow evening (Tuesday Dec 3) from 5-6pm in the multipurpose room. Remaining Purdy orders will also be able to be picked up at that time. Space is very limited so please arrange to pick up your orders ASAP.

A Message from your PAC

Our grade 5 classes participated in the CBC Music Class Challenge again this year under the leadership of Mr. Roberts. Below are the videos posted to CBC’s Music Class YouTube channel. We are extremely proud of all of our students’ performances!

Div 1 – Mrs. Menzies Class

Div 2 – Mrs. Tyssen/Mrs. Matuga’s Class