Trustee Greetings

With spring approaching and the hours of daylight increasing, now is a good time to enjoy the outdoors and our natural environment. Did you know that our Board has five outdoor education centres, and students have opportunities to visit them and other outdoor learning spaces throughout their schooling? This is part of our commitment to giving students an opportunity to learn in and about the natural world. This learning supports students in gaining a deeper appreciation for nature and the importance of environmental sustainability.  

 “Modelling continuous environmental sustainability” is one of the goals outlined in our Board of Trustees’ Multi-Year Plan. We believe that we all have a role to play in reducing waste and protecting our environment. Our students, staff members and families continue to show leadership when it comes to supporting student learning and initiatives to reduce our ecological footprint.

Spending time outside as a family also provides a great opportunity to support and enhance your child’s learning outside of school. Whether visiting a park or museum, reading with your child in your home language or asking questions about their day at school - know that there are many ways you can support their education and that you are making a difference.

I hope you all have a happy and safe March Break and enjoy the warmer weather ahead. 

Carol Chan

Trustee

LUNCH ORDERS ~ Deadline March 1 for orders until June

The lunch programs for the remainder of the year are on School Cash Online and the deadline for orders is WEDNESDAY MARCH 1, 2017.  The new term begins the week of March 20^th and runs until the end of June.

Chess Tournament Today

Today, over 30 Silver Stream students participated in the Optimist Chess Club Tournament.  4 or 5 of our students will move forward to the provincial tournament. Congrats to all of our students for participating and best of luck to those moving forward to the next level Thanks to Ms. Gnoinski, Ms. Lazarovic and Ms. Lak for supporting our students in the Chess Club at our school and appreciation to our parents who volunteered to drive our students. 

Basketball at Silver Stream PS

This week, our intermediate girls' basketball team competed in an area tournament.  Although the girls did not finish in a place marker, they played hard and persevered to try to win.  Way to go girls for making us proud of your determination to do your best. 

Congratulations to our Intermediate Boys' Basketball team for winning the area tournament! They will move on to the Regional Championships on March 9.  Go falcons go!

The boys demonstrated strong teamwork, strong basketball skills and encouraging behaviour towards each other.  Way to go boys and good luck at the Regional Championships!

Thanks to our teachers Mr. B. Smith and Ms. Sun for all your time and expertise in coaching our basketball teams.  

Skating Lessons

Safety Presentation TONIGHT!

Order school lunches for Term 2

Family Day Weekend

On behalf of the staff at Silver Stream, we wish all of our families a wonderful long weekend.  Enjoy the extra time as a family.  See you on Tuesday. 

Students Helping Students

The High 5 club at Silver Stream has started a new initiative to help students in a northern Ontario First Nations community.  They are collecting unused school supplies for the Nibinamik Education Centre in Summer Beaver, Ontario. The school is very excited for the support, as they have a great need for many of these basic supplies.  Members of the High 5 team delivered a box to each homeroom that lists supplies that the school has requested.  

Please consider donating items for the box in your child's classroom.  Thank you for your support. 

Parent Workshop Available

Speech Writing Contest & Canada's 150th Anniversary

To commemorate the 150^th anniversary of Confederation, the Speakers of the Senate and the House of Commons have launched a speech writing competition for Canadians aged 12 to 17. This national contest asks, “What does Parliament mean to you?” Young Canadians are invited to participate by submitting a written speech via our contest webpage.

Six finalists will win an all-expenses-paid trip to Ottawa in June 2017, where they will be recognized at a reception at Parliament and have an opportunity to meet with the Speakers.

The contest closes April 21, 2017.

Visit the contest webpage:

Desktop: www.facebook.com/PARLyouth/app/941345315938094/
Mobile: https://traffik.io/Q4sK

We would greatly appreciate your assistance in promoting the Speakers’ Speech Writing Contest
within your schools and school boards. 

For additional information, please contact the Parliament of Canada Information Service at
1-866-599-4999 or at info@parl.gc.ca.

Safety Presentation for Parents

Reminder: Report Cards go home on Thursday Feb 16

When reviewing your child's report card, spend time in a conversation with your child discussing the learning skills.  These are important skills for students to develop as they are foundational for student success and achievement in school and in life, in general.  Teachers work together with students to develop the criteria used to assess learning skills and work habits.  Please refer to the evaluation of these areas on the report card and talk to your child about what he/she feels they do well and those areas that need to be improved.  Most importantly, together identify a goal for term 2 and some strategies to support the goal.  As with all learning, parents are partners in education. Supporting your child with learning skills will support your child's overall achievement in school. 

We have a large number of students who are late for school on a regular basis. We will be calling parents of those students to determine if there are ways that the school can assist you to ensure that students arrive to school on time.   Arriving late for school is disruptive for the learning of others and may result in missing some key instruction.  Arriving on time, teaches and reinforces a valuable life skill, that arriving on time for work or in this case, school is both important and expected.  

We do recommend that students gradually increase responsibility in getting ready for school each day.  Some or all of these responsibilities can be the child's, depending upon the age of the student:

• pack knapsack the night before with all materials needed for school 
• lay out clothing needed for the morning the night before
• use a timer for eating breakfast or getting dressed in the morning 
• make lunch the night before so that it can be quickly put in a lunchbag in the morning 
• aim to arrive at school between 7:50am - 8:00am 

Considering Perspectives in a Novel

Students in one of our Grade 8 classes have read the novel Freak The Mighty by Rodman Philbrick and used Edward De Bono's 6 thinking hats to view a situation from every perspective. Students discussed the events using each perspective to arrive at a conclusion or evaluation. At the end of the book the students used the same process to respond to an overarching question and also used a mind map to display their thinking. The Blue hat response is the final response to the central question of, "How does the story of Kevin and Max help us see beyond the disability? "   Here is a sampling of a final mind map. 

Poetry Slam

Inspiring, emotional and goose-bump worthy.   5 of our Grade 8 students participated in a Poetry Slam competition with other elementary schools this morning.  A poetry slam is a competition in which individuals or teams perform their own personal poetry before an audience, which judges the poems and the artists' performances.  All of the students who participated delivered poems on topics ranging from homelessness, discrimination, culture, beauty, stereotypes, bullying and self esteem.  Congratulations to our team of 5 who placed first in this quarter finals!  They will represent Silver Stream at the semi-finals in March. 

Wear Red or Pink on Tuesday!

To remind all of us to show kindness and care about others, everyone is reminded to wear the colours of love, RED or PINK on our School Spirit Day on Tuesday February 14. 

REMINDER: Parenting Speaker

LAST DAY for Pizza Orders is MONDAY!

A reminder that the last day to order Pizza is Monday February 13 for the remainder of the year.  The new orders start on Friday February 24.

Intermediate Science Fair - Feb 16

Silver Stream P.S. is excited to announce our Annual Science Fair on Thursday, February, 16, 2017 taking place in our gym. 

The fair will be open to family and friends from 8am Thursday morning until 3pm.

Why is a Science Fair so important?

Providing a meaningful and engaging intermediate science and technology program is a challenging task. Project-based science and technology is the natural culmination of a program that involves students in developing inquiry and design skills. These skills help students to connect science and technology to each other and the outside world. Students selected from one of three different inquiries; 1) Research based 2) Innovation or 3) Experimental; for their projects.

What Happens to Our School Fair Project Winners?

Through authentic investigations, students constructed an understanding of how science works, and developed critical thinking skills that will serve them well in their future endeavours. Award winners from our school-based fair will be competing in the Regional Science Fair taking place in April.  This science fair includes all schools in the York Region area competing to receive an award and continue on to the Canada Wide Science Fair.

We believe important connections exist between projects, a classroom program that is both hands-on and minds-on and the Ontario Curriculum in science and technology.

We hope to see our families on Thursday, February 16, 2017 and help make this exciting event a successful new learning experience for everyone!

The ROC rocks on Wednesday!

Some of our brave, and smiling Junior grade students at the ROC.  Nothing like exercise in the winter air all morning to help students focus in the afternoon. Thanks to our parent volunteers who were able to attend and support supervision. 

Intermediate Math Olympics

The Intermediate Math Olympics is a competition for students in grades 7 and 8.  It offers students the chance to work on rich mathematics problems as a group, in pairs, and individually.  We are invited to send one team to compete, consisting of 1 Grade 7 female, 1 Grade 7 male, 1 Grade 8 female, 1 Grade 8 male.   We will be holding tryouts on February 15th, 2017 where students will be solving mathematical problems individually.  The sign up sheet is located on the door of Room 209.  The competition will take place on Wednesday, April 19th, 2017 at Middlefield C.I. 

Parenting Session Available

FREE classes for adults

York Region District Survey for Students

Students in Grades 5 to 12 at the York Region District School Board will be invited to participate in a survey between March 20 and April 28, 2017.  The survey is voluntary, anonymous and confidential, and will take place at school. 

The YRDSB survey fulfills the Ontario Ministry of Education’s requirement for schools to conduct student surveys and is aligned with the YRDSB’s Board Improvement Plan for Student Achievement and Well-Being. Survey questions will address topics related to Math, Modern Learning, Mental Health and Well-Being, Equity and School Safety.

This survey provides an opportunity to hear directly from students and the results will be used to identify student needs and plan strategies to support student achievement and well-being. If you have questions, please contact the school office.

If you do not wish your child(ren) to participate in the survey, please contact the school by March 10, 2017.

REMINDER: PA DAY on FRIDAY

A reminder for all parents/guardians that FRIDAY FEB 3 is a PA DAY and there is no school for students. Please ensure that you have made alternate plans for child care. 

National Sweater Day at Silver Stream PS on THURSDAY

We will be lowering our temperature... slightly to participate in National Sweater Day on Thursday. It is a fun way to learn about the importance of saving energy and to inspire you to use less heat all winter. Heating accounts for 80% of residential energy use in Canada and is a significant source of emissions. If all Canadians lowered their thermostats by just 2 degrees Celsius this winter, it would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by about 4 megatons – that’s equivalent to shutting down a 600 mega watt coal-fired power station or taking nearly 700,000 cars off the road!