Southwood School Newsletter
October 2021
In this edition
-Southwood School Planning Priorities
-Balanced School Day/Nutrition Information
-Absentee/Late Policy
-Sick Policy
-End of Day Messages
-Note from Transportation
-Parking Notes
-Picture Day
-Costume Parade
-Additional COVID-19 Cleaning Measures
-Tumblebooks
-Fundraising for Terry Fox Continues until October 1st
-Nutrition Bits and Bites Newsletter
-Parent Advisory Council (PAC) - Annual General Meeting
-Dates to Remember
National Day for Truth & Reconciliation - Orange Shirt Day
For more information on Orange Shirt Day, feel free to visit the link below:
Southwood School Planning Priorities 2021-2022 Care. Learn. Grow.
● A focus on student well-being and activities that promote positive mental health choices will support healthy learning environments. These include Zone of Regulation, Music Therapy, Roots of Empathy, Project 11, and the development of citizenship skills.
● School programs and activities will be provided to increase student engagement and enhance student learning of the curriculum. Activities include Earth Day, STEAM Month, Pink Day, Orange Shirt Day, Terry Fox Run, Literacy and Numeracy Month. Activities include the house colour system, balanced day scheduled clubs, Global Day of Play, MakerSpace challenges, Kindergarten Welcome and Orientation, Gr 4 Farewell, and school picnic. Intentional activities, focused on cohorts, will provide opportunities for deeper connections for students and enhance a sense of belonging.
● Learning partnerships with community members will be leveraged to support a variety of curricular objectives and to celebrate the diversity of those in our local and global communities.
● Learning partnerships with Variety Children’s Foundation and accredited music therapists to support students in developing their communication, academic, and social skills through the use of music.
Planning Priority #2 - Numeracy
● The school based numeracy support teacher, along with a numeracy team, will support classroom teachers in the planning, development, implementation, and assessment of classroom instruction. Direct intervention will be provided for students who would benefit.
● The continued implementation of the Southwood Numeracy Achievement Project, in partnership with the Manitoba Rural Learning Consortium, will focus on teaching foundational outcomes for each specific grade level and based on a school based pacing guide. Teacher training and support will also be provided.
Planning Priority #3 - Literacy
● Literacy team, clinicians, and learning coaches will support literacy training (guided reading, home reading, F & P Training, running records and continued review of the new ELA curriculum) including strategic writing and reading instruction. The team will continue to explore to improve tiered interventions for students (RTI Model)
● Teachers will engage in effective, frequent guided reading sessions and “check-ins” with students to support and provide timely feedback to the reader, focusing on the accomplishments and suggestions for the next steps.
Southwood School Balanced School Day - Nutrition Break Information
The Balanced School Day at Southwood includes two breaks. One in the morning from 11:05 - 11:55 and one in the afternoon from 1:10 - 2:00.
The Breaks are split into 2 chunks:
(i) Activity Time - 25 minutes
(ii) Nutrition Time - 25 minutes
Depending on your child’s cohort colour, they might have activity time first and then nutrition time, or it might be flipped.
The eating times are longer and so the lunches that you pack might need to look a bit different. Some examples of organizing your child’s lunch kit could include the following:
- Lunch items separated by a piece of cardboard, with everything on top being eaten during break 1 and everything below the cardboard during break 2.
- Lunch items can be labelled with a "1" and "2" for the respective breaks. Students catch on quickly with proper teaching and modeling.
Example Lunch
Break 1
½ Sandwich/wrap, lunch in thermos, left overs (cold)
Fruit
Vegetables
Granola Bar or Crackers
Yogurt or Yogurt Tube
Water
Break 2
Fruit
Vegetables
Rice cakes or popcorn
Cheese
Water
The following website has some interesting lunch ideas if you are interested take a look.
https://www.unlockfood.ca/en/Articles/School-Health/Articles/Food-for-a-Balanced-School-Day.aspx
Absentee & Late Policy
If your child comes to school late, please have them enter the school through the front office doors so that they can be escorted to their classroom.
Please contact the school or submit your attendance changes through Parent Portal by 9:00 a.m. if your child is going to be late or absent.
If we have not heard from the parent/guardian of an absent student, we will be calling the home and, if needed, work places to make sure the student is safe.
Ways to Contact the Office
Phone: 204-326-3518
Email: southwood@hsd.ca
End of Day Messages & Early Pickup
Please call the school to relay after school messages for your student by 3:00 pm so that we can ensure that student message are given before they are dismissed. This includes changes to pick up or bus information that the teachers on bus duty need to be aware of.
If you need to pick up your child early, please contact the office (and teacher) as soon as possible so that we can arrange an escort to the front office for them where you can pick them up, and they can be signed out.
Note From Transportation
All urban bus routes are posted on the HSD website with times and maps. Any bus urban or rural that will be late due to weather or mechanical issues is listed on the HSD website in the bus delay area.
Please go to hsd.ca. Go to drop down menu of Services/Transportation where you can choose:
1. School Bus Delay Bulletins where any bus that is late is posted with approximate delay.
2. STEINBACH URBAN BUS ROUTES - When you go to your school specific routes and click on the map icon you will see times as well as a map AM/PM displayed.
Thank you for checking these options before calling the Hanover School Division Transportation Department with your questions regarding bus delays and Steinbach urban bus route times and maps.
If you make a change with the Transportation Department to your transportation method, (to, or from, bussed to non-bussed) during the year, please inform the office.
Parking Notes
Picture Day
Picture day order procedure is changing this year! Your photography program this year offers exciting online ordering capabilities.
This year, we will be transitioning to the proof system. Pictures will be taken on picture day, then proofs will be sent to the school. Once the proofs arrive, we will send them home with your child. Once you have received your proofs, you can order them by following the enclosed instructions.
Due to current restrictions, group photos will not be done at this time.
For Tips on preparing for photo day visit www.lifetouch.ca
Questions call Lifetouch at 1-866-457-8212 or email: guestservices@lifetouch.ca
Picture day schedule for this year:
Tuesday, October 5th (a.m.) Day 2
K2G
K4H
1P
1C
1B
2F
2N
3/4B
3/4J
3M
4N
Wednesday, Oct 6th (a.m.) Day 3
K1G
K3B
K5V
3H
3P
1M
1G
2K
2C
4D
4H
Cohort Colour Day
Pink Flamingos - Pink
Green Gators - Green
Purple Panthers - Purple
Yellow Yakity Yaks - Yellow
Blue Coyotes - Blue
Red Rockets - Red
Orange Orangutans - Orange
Costume Parade
Thank you for your cooperation in keeping your kids safe!
Additional Cleaning Measures
Did You Know?
- Self-Screening must take place every day before your child attends school. Please view the Link here: https://sharedhealthmb.ca/covid19/screening-tool/
- Increased cleaning and disinfecting is occurring around your child's school and throughout the day, especially high-touch surfaces and washrooms. Extra hand washing and sanitizing stations are set up and monitored to ensure students utilize them. In addition, we are placing portable wash stations in many of our schools.
- All buses are sanitized before the next group of children boards. Sanitization includes enhanced cleaning of seats and other high-touch surfaces (e.g., windows, railings). Some of our buses will be sanitized 2-3 times per route.
- HSD has also purchased portable sanitizer spray equipment, which is utilized on a routine basis for sanitizing classrooms, washrooms, gym equipment and school buses. This equipment will also be utilized to sanitize spaces in the event that we do have a positive case of COVID-19 identified in one of our schools or buses.
- The cleaning and sanitizing products used by HSD are deemed safe products approved for use in schools. We work with organizations such as Safe Work Manitoba and the Manitoba School Boards Association to determine which products are safe for use.
- Manitoba Education has outlined the steps to be taken by public health and your child's school if a positive COVID-19 case is confirmed.
- All schools in the Hanover School Division are currently operating in the Caution Stage (yellow). Learn more about how schools operate in Code Yellow by visiting: https://hsd.ca/covid19/
- For additional information, links and documents, please visit: https://hsd.ca/covid19/
Tumble Books
The Southwood literacy team has just subscribed to Tumblebooks. What are Tumblebooks? “Tumblebooks is a collection of books (animated, talking picture books) with fiction, non-fiction and foreign language titles, Math Stories, Read-Alongs (chapter books with sentence highlighting and narration but no animation), Videos (from National Geographics), TumbleTV which consists of pre-set playlists of a sequence of books, Tumble Puzzles & Games, and TumbleResources for teachers and students. TumbleBooks are created from existing picture books which we have licensed from children's book publishers and converted to the TumbleBook format”. This collection of online books, etc. can now be accessed from a link on our school website, or at the following web address:
http://www.tumblebooklibrary.com
To login at the top right, simply enter the following information;
Username = southwoodelem
Password = reads
We hope that teachers, students and families will all enjoy this collection of great books at school and at home. Enjoy!
The Southwood School Literacy Team
Fundraising for Terry Fox Continues until October 1st
This year, all fundraising is being done online. Fundraising continues until October 1st and you can donate on our school page at: https://secure.terryfox.ca/registrant/TeamFundraisingPage.aspx?TeamID=951907
It’s fast, easy and donors get a receipt immediately by email. Alternately, go to terryfox.org and search
“Southwood School.”
Your child may choose to set up their own fundraising page by clicking the "Donate to a Student" button. Their page will connect automatically to our school's fundraising page and they'll receive a link to email friends and family to help them reach their fundraising goal
Nutrition Bits and Bites Newsletter
Parent Advisory Council (PAC) - Annual General Meeting
dates to remember October
October
5 Photo Day - see schedule
6 Photo Day - see schedule
11 Thanksgiving Day - NO SCHOOL
18-21 Bus Safety Week in October
22 PD Day- NO SCHOOL
29 Costume Parade
November
11 Remembrance Day - NO SCHOOL
12 Admin Day - NO SCHOOL
19 Assembly @ 9:00 a.m.
24 Report Cards - Term 1
26 Student Led Conferences or Parent Teacher Conferences