We spent a lot of time in October learning about safety. The teachers taught and reviewed all the ways to stay safe inside and outside at school. We also practiced some fire drills, a lock down drill and a relocation drill.

It was also bus safety month and we learned about the many ways we can be safe while on the bus and getting on and off the bus.

Safety is very important to all of the staff at Woodlawn and we do our best to keep the students safe. There are a lot of ways parents and family members can also help in the area of safety. We ask that everyone work together by following these guidelines:

• Students and families that need to cross the busy streets must cross with our crossing guards. We have a crossing guard at the corner of Penner and Barkman Street in the morning and afternoon. We also have a crossing guard at the end of the day at Henry Street (in front of our school). We ask everyone to wait safely behind the crossing guard until they tell them it is safe to cross. Crossing Henry from our parking lot to the church parking lot is very dangerous because drivers are expecting people to be crossing at the crossing guard.
  
• We ask that parents do their best to keep home time routines consistent every day. When routines change there is a higher chance that mistakes will be made. If parents must change the home time routine they must communicate with us before 2:45. Parents can email the classroom teacher and the office (woodlawn@hsd.ca) or call the office before 2:45.

• If it is necessary to pick up your child during the school day (9:05-3:30) please sign them out at the office. Your child may not be in their homeroom when you come for them so please allow yourself some extra time before appointments. We ask parents/guardians to avoid picking up children during their activity break as supervisors are busy supervising outside and will not be able to easily locate your child. The end of the day dismissal time for all students is 3:45.

Thank you in advance for your cooperation.

Karen Fraser and Tara Reimer

“There is no such thing as a bad kid.” - Stuart Shanker

Kids may drive you bonkers sometimes with their choices, actions, and attitudes; but they are never bad kids. Most times when kids “misbehave” they are actually experiencing stress-behaviour.

You may be thinking, what possible stress could a kid experience? A lot of things, actually - hunger, tiredness, loud volumes, anticipating an upcoming event, separation anxiety, time pressure, confusion about expectations/instructions, poor working memory, recess problems or worries, guest teachers, an absent friend, social media, and the list goes on.

Combine a few of these stressors together to get a child in a heightened state of stress. When a child’s stress-load is overflowing, they are unlikely to handle a negative situation in a calm manner. (Think of a time when your stress-load was overflowing, and you did not handle a situation the way you wanted. This happens to kids too.)

What can you do to help?

• Recognize that your child is not deliberately trying to stress you out. Their actions are a cry for help because they cannot do it themselves.

• Calm yourself before addressing your child’s problem or situation.

• Validate their feelings (eg. I know is very frustrating, I know this makes you very sad)

• Recognize your child’s stressors

• Try to reduce those stressors as best you can

• Figure out what helps calm your child - breathing exercises, colouring, going for a walk, quiet time

The school staff are learning and focusing on self-regulation. If you are interested in learning more about self-regulation for home, please contact one of the school counsellors below.

As always, if you have any questions or concerns regarding your child’s social-emotional state, please feel free to contact your child’s teacher and/or one of the counsellors below.

Sandy Caners scaners@hsd.ca

Courtney Gangloff cgangloff@hsd.ca

LOVE LITERACY - TIPS AND TRICKS FROM LITERACY SUPPORT

I have two boys who are 9 and 11. I have taken tons of pictures of them over the years. But I have to confess that most of those photos are still on my phone and computer! Like many of you, my life is busy and it’s hard to find the time to do anything more with all of those pictures. What to do? I am seriously considering creating a FAMILY SCRAPBOOK, a memory keeper that is made by and with my family. I am not a crafty person so I don’t expect this to be a work of art. That won’t be the main point. But I will hope for this to be an activity that we all do together that we will find valuable as the boys grow up and life goes on.

Some suggestions:

• Decide what your scrapbook will be about and how it will be organized - is it focused on a particular trip or event or is it memories from the past year or number of years?

• Choose a simple photo album or make your own

• Consider including some patterned paper, stickers or other fun details

• Select and print out photos that you and your children find meaningful

• Consider including drawings, stories, souvenirs like postcards or ticket stubs, or found objects like pretty flowers or leaves

• For at least some of the pictures or items, invite your child to write the date and a line about where you were and what you did - you could allow them to try their best with the writing or give more guidance depending on what they and you find works best

• Consider working together to write a more detailed summary of some of the key events or places or people

• Don’t forget to include funny details

• Share the scrapbook with family and friends

I hope you enjoy making and sharing memories together. Who knows, maybe this will become an enjoyable tradition for my family and yours, one that you will appreciate and enjoy for years to come!

We are learning and using math every day, but we try to take some time in November to celebrate numeracy as a school. Each day in November, students will find an open-ended math question on the whiteboards in the hallways. Open-ended questions invite all students to participate. I will share our numeracy question / task on our new Instagram account the day before so feel free to explore the question as a family! It is always fun to see how each person thinks about a problem or question differently.

We will also have a "Show Your Math" dress up day on November 25th. Students will be encouraged to wear a shirt that has some math on it. Examples could be jerseys with numbers on them, shirts with patterns, shapes etc. Be creative!

Finally, we will enter all of our students in a draw to win a math prize. We will do a draw for Kindergarten, Grade 1, Grade 1/2, Grade 2, Grade 3, Grade 3/4, and Grade 4!

We have received a divisional grant to have an Elder or Knowledge Keeper in school one day a week for much of the school year. The Elder/KK will be available to classrooms who request the knowledge they share. In addition, the Elder/KK will be working with our Indigenous Student Leadership Group. If you would like your child to be part of the Indigenous Student Leadership Group please let the school know (priority will be given to Indigenous students as many Indigenous students do not have access to their culture in our community). This group will be learning about Indigenous culture and history from the perspective of the Elder/KK that they are a part of (eg. Cree, Metis, Ojibwe, etc.). We hope to invite Elders/KK’s from a variety of First Nations, the Metis Nation and hopefully Inuit Nations as well.

Woodlawn is excited to announce that we’ve received a Teacher Idea Fund grant of $116 000 for nature/forest school to support academic achievement, mental health, and social emotional well-being. We will be working closely and learning alongside forest/nature school practitioners from Momenta. Last year three classes participated in the program. Momenta has braided Western ways of knowing/learning/doing together with Indigenous ways of knowing/learning/doing so students participating in this program will have the opportunity to learn from Indigenous Knowledge Keepers for parts of their time in the forest. This year 8 classes will be participating in the programming (KM1, KM2, 2PR, 3R, 3/4D, 3/4M, 4G and 4K) . To learn more about the impact and what happened during our forest days last year, you are welcome to explore this Storymap.

--

Monica Martens
Curriculum Learning Support Teacher

October was yet again another amazing month for PAC.

Huge thank you to all the volunteers who assisted with Hearing Screening, Picture Day, Pizza handouts and our October special events day for staff!!

THANK YOU for your generous gift of time and energy! We appreciate you all so much!!!

Hot Lunch

Hot Lunch in October was successful with nearly 500 hot lunches served to the students of Woodlawn. For November, we are excited to be working with Main Bread and Butter to add some variety to our hot lunch menu. Our goal for this year with Hot Lunch is to offer a variety of options so students can find opportunities to find their favourites. Stay tuned to hear what our December menu will be!

Special Event

October was Finger food fall! The staff were extremely showered in yummy treats and drinks. So much giving from parents we needed 2 tables! Thank you so much everyone who dropped off and helped make it such a success.

Pizza Fundraiser

We profited $10,500 with our pizza fundraiser!

Totals sold

1777 pizzas

207 gift cards

128 pizza shells.

Huge thank you to everyone who sold and bought!

Hope everyone is enjoying pizza night.

Winners to be announced at school

Looking ahead…

Our next PAC meeting will be held, Tuesday November 8th at 11:05am, Woodlawn Library.

If you have any questions for PAC, please reach out to Sara Richards, PAC President at woodlawnelementarypac@gmail.com

Last week our staff and students were treated to a performance from the Southeast Manitoba Festival. Two of the performers were Woodlawn students! If you are interested in more information please visit The Southeast Music Festival website for more information. Deadline for entries is December 1.