KCI Newsletter
September/October 2015
Principal's Message
We extend a warm welcome back to all of our families and extend a special welcome to all of our new families who have joined us for the 2015-16 school year. We have had an amazing start thanks to all of the preparation done by staff and parents prior to school start up. We are on the road to awesome at KCI!
Together, teachers, students, and parents/guardians make a strong Spartan family. We appreciate your support as your child enters the classroom, learns, and grows throughout the year. Let’s all commit to have a good school year – setting everyone up for success! Students are encouraged to get involved! – we are proud to offer a wide range of extra-curricular programming.
Throughout the year I look forward to meeting the new members of our community and connecting with returning families. I encourage you to get to know each other so that we can build new friendships and support each other as the need arises. You may also become involved with the school by attending our school community council meetings. The AGM will be held Tuesday, November 17. All parents/guardians are invited to attend.
A couple of things to make our year go more smoothly – first is to check out the KCI website It is updated regularly and has information you need to keep on top of what’s happening at school. Check it out! You can also like our facebook page or follow us on twitter. Secondly, school begins at 8:55 am. You set your child up for success by getting him/her to school on time, ready to learn. Please contact the office (542-2521) if your child is going to be absent from school.
At KCI the staff and administration are honoured that you entrust us with your children. The hours that your children are with us each day are so important. Here’s to a great year!
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"Celebrating Each Student"
Education Week provides an opportunity to celebrate student success and recognize the dedication and commitment of education professionals across the province.
Education Week is an opportunity to celebrate the achievements of our students and the dedication of our education professionals this week and throughout the year. This week is an opportunity to acknowledge the success of our teachers and of our students.
GYM Physical Activity/Fun
There were staff and student dodge ball games that students from different grades played each day.
Music/Drama/Literacy
KCI library held it's very first lunch time cafe on the Thursday and Friday featuring open mike with some of KCI's amazing talent. There were cookies made by the grade 8s, served at the cafe, as well as tea and hot chocolate.
Student Voice/Literacy/Technology
To celebrate education week the committee held a Wordle contest. Wordle is an online tool where you take a selection of words and plug it into the tool. It will take the words and form them into different directions and sizes. Students made a Wordle describing what education in KCI means to them, then printed out the Wordles and made a Worlde Wall in the servery.
Literary/Poetry
It was also Saskatchewan Library Week. Saskatchewan libraries held a book spine poetry contest. Students were encouraged to submit their work in the contest.
New/Updated Contact Information
-Tyra Banks
5A News
The 2015-2016 year has begun with a great start in 5A! In Language Arts we have been working on a book club unit about the body. For the last two months, students have been divided up into four groups to read magazines about the human body. This topic relates directly to the unit we are studying in Science. Aside from reading magazine articles about the body, students performed an experiment related to a body function; participated in discussions and responded to questions before, during, and after reading; and listened and responded to a fiction book that is related to our book club unit’s theme.
We have also just started our guided reading program. Our class, along with the other grade 5 and 6 classes at KCI, have been divided up by reading levels in each room and are taking part in a guided reading program four out of the six days of the school cycle. The stations many of the students rotate through involve the following: Teacher-led Time, a Must Do (an assignment related to the reading strategy that has been taught and discussed during Teacher-led Time), Technology Tasks, Word Work, Writing Workshop, Best Fit Books (where students are guided in choosing appropriate books in the library), and Independent Reading Time.
In math we have already completed a unit on place value where students learned to represent, compare, and describe whole numbers to 1 000 000 within the contexts of place value and the base ten system. We are currently finishing up our unit on fractions where students have been learning to demonstrate an understanding of fractions by using concrete and pictorial representations to create sets of equivalent fractions and compare fractions with like and unlike denominators.
We have been learning about human body systems and how they work together in Science for the last two months. Students have also learned about traditional and non-traditional methods for keeping the body healthy. This past term they also researched an organization or individual that provides a health service.
Our Social Studies unit has our class studying First Nations, Inuit, and Metis history. Students have been developing an understanding of the Aboriginal heritage of Canada through a variety of reading and responding activities. Soon they will be learning about the evolution of Canada as a multicultural nation.
So far this year, students in 5A participated in several activities around the school including the Terry Fox Run, a fall hike at Duck Mountain Provincial Park, and KCI’s annual magazine campaign.
Our student-led conferences are just around the corner. Mrs. Guillet hopes that all of the families of 5A students attend the conferences and take part in the activities that will be available for students to demonstrate to their parents and/or guardians.
If Facebook was school I swear I'd have perfect attendance.
Unknown
6A News
In September the Grade 5 and 6 classes went on a 10k hike to Batka Lake. We ate lunch at the Jack Rabbit Junction - a cabin at the end of the hike. The weather was nice and it was a lot of fun. On September 30th, the Grade 6’s had kind of a crazy day. It was Picture Day and everyone dressed up so nice. Then we had Recess Guardians through the morning periods. We learned how to play a lot of fun games and activities. In the afternoon we had the Terry Fox Run. KCI walked around the block to raise money for cancer research. The Mayor, Rod Gardener, was there and so was the RCMP and the cadets.
In Social Studies we are doing Family Trees. Making the family trees helps us to learn about kinships, our heritage, and our bond with our family.
In ELA we are doing a book club unit that is about “When Disaster Strikes”. We are reading newspaper articles about floods, hurricanes, earthquakes, and tsunamis. We also have a class blog and about once a week write a post and make comments. Miss Nichol is reading a book to us called “Safe as Houses” by Eric Walters. It is about a flood in Ontario and is based on a true event.
In Phys. Ed. we learned how to play volleyball. We also made our own game in groups. We taught our games to the class and then our classmates peer assessed us on how fun, challenging, and fair the game was. Hopefully we will get to share our games with the Grade 4 students at Victoria School.
We hope you liked our newsletter. See you next time!! We are going to have an awesome year in Grade 6A!
By: Kate Erhardt and Rylee Zbeetnoff
7B News
The grade sevens have just finished up a math unit learning all about divisibility and the tricks to use. They have just started a fractions, decimal and percentage unit where we will look at adding and subtracting fractions, converting fractions to decimals and decimals to percentages, as well as, learning how to calculate percentages on items such as GST and PST. In Language Arts we have been focusing on a Mystery themed unit. Students have written newspaper and tabloid articles, an original legend, converted a legend into comic strip form, studied a graphic Novel titles Sherlock Holmes and the Adventure at the Abbey Grange. To wrap up the unit students will write an original mystery story either in comic form or short story form.
Mr. P's News
Mathematics 9 have been working on outcomes associated with exponents and rational numbers. Workplace and Apprenticeship Mathematics 10 have covered outcomes associated with unit pricing and currency, earning an income, and length, area and volume. Foundations of Mathematics 30 outcomes have been associated with financial mathematics, set theory and logic.
As for the other half of education, athletics are in transition. Junior and senior golf teams have hung up their clubs for winter but are eagerly awaiting the signs of spring. There is an abundance of energy and potential in our younger golfers. We are hopeful for some championships in the upcoming years! Hopefully it will be a mild winter and we will be swinging our clubs again in March. If the golf course is closed, it must be basketball season soon……come out to KCI and cheer on our Spartans!
Mr. D. Placatka
SADD
KCI SADD chapter is an awareness group that is trying to prevent drinking and driving. The SADD members are Allison Placatka, Allison Thomsen, Breanna Bland, Devin Klapatiuk, Jalayna Bielecki, Kaylie Bowes, Latisha Moar, Laurissa Fedorchuk, Lexie Tomochko, Malee Shingoose, Mikayla Woloshyn, and our advisors are Mrs. Bowes, Mrs. Fedorchuk, and Mrs. Shabatoski. We kicked off our fun year with our BBQ fundraiser and Balloon release. Our Goal in SADD is to bring awareness to the community about the consequences of drinking and driving. If you grades 9-12 and would like to be apart of SADD are meetings are every day 3.
KCI would like to thank our community for contributing to our Annual Fun Night Grad Fundraiser! Fun Night is the only KCI fundraiser for graduation. All proceeds are used for the Academic portion of Graduation Activities. #SpartanSpirit
Tool Time News
Grade 8s have been drafting and starting their mirror projects
Grade 9s. Have been working on Small engines in one class and the other class has started an introduction to welding.
Grade 10s have been working hard on wood projects, metal projects and improving their welding skills.
Welding 11/12 have been busy completing their welding assignments and projects.
From the Gymnasium
Spartans @ the Library
The library has been busy lately with the grande opening of The Bookworm Cafe! On Thursday and Friday with the help of a number of staff, we served hot chocolate, tea and cookies! We had a variety of performers during the open mike sessions! On Thursday we had over 100 students and staff enjoying the new furniture arrangement!
The library also is promoting the Book Spine poetry contest being put on by the Saskatchewan School Library Association. Check out their website for more information
https://bookspinepoetrycontest.wordpress.com/.
Lastly, The Willow books are out and we are encouraging students to read as many as they can so they can vote for their favourite in February.