ÉCOLE SPERLING ELEMENTARY SCHOOL 2200 Sperling Avenue, Burnaby, B.C. V5B 4K7

(604) 664-8836 Fax (604) 664-8651 http://sperling.sd41.bc.ca/

Principal: Mme K. Floyd Head Teacher: Mr. D. Kelsey Secretary: Mrs. S. Bonvino

Days to Remember:

OCTOBER

7-9 Gr. 6 Timberline Camp

PAC General Meeting @ 7:00pm in library

Thanksgiving Day (no school)

Kindergarten Vision/Hearing/Dental Screening

School Photo Day

Gr. 6 Immunization

PRO-D DAY (students do not attend school)

Pumpkin Patch (pm)

Halloween Celebration of Learning Assembly 9:30—10:30am

September 2015 Bulletin #2

Student Supervision

Please be aware that, un-less your child is in a reg-istered after school activ-ity, or occasionally work-ing after school in class with their teacher’s permission, student supervi-sion before 8:50 and after 3:00 is parent/guardian responsibility. Staff members are only available to supervise during school hours and we ask that you please arrange for your children accordingly.

Thank you for your

cooperation.

NUT AWARE

We are a peanut aware school. There are many students in our school who have a severe allergy to peanuts and/or tree nuts. To respect the health con-cerns of our students and community members, please avoid sending food with nuts and/or nut ingredients in snacks and lunches. Healthy alterna-tives include soy beans, raisins, celery or carrot sticks. We thank you for your cooperation.

We’ve Started with Spirit! We had an exciting and productive start to our school year. We spent our first week in grade groups working on the theme: Going Green! We kicked off with our new recycling and food scraps program throughout the school. Students worked on understanding our school responsibilities and routines while building Sperling community in a

respectful manner. September has come and gone already and we are in full swing! I am sure everyone is adjusting to their busy schedules at school and at home and as parents, you are coordinating activities, setting schedules and getting back into the hectic pace of providing as many opportunities for your children as you can. At the school, cross coun-try season has begun, our grade 6 classes are preparing for Timber-line Ranch, and students have started to take on leadership roles (student safety patrol, primary lunch time monitors, office monitors, morning messages, recycling, etc.). It is wonderful for all involved when students take an active role in their school community through either participation or service. We encourage all students to find a way to become involved in activities within the school. An active in-volved person makes a positive contribution to their community! The staff of Sperling looks forward to an exciting and rewarding school year working with you and your children. K. Floyd

GOING GREEN AT SPERLING

with three different buckets to sort our plastics/metals, paper and returnable plas-tics. Signs are posted on the walls and on the actual buckets to help communi-cate where waste should be discarded. Parents how can you help? Speak to your child about recycling, why it is important and do you know where in the school to dump food scraps? Plastic contain-ers? and Paper. In addi-tion, we encourage you to use reusable food contain-ers and water bottles for your child’s lunch.

The school challenge will be to reduce our current garbage by half. We can all do it together! Go Green!!!

Did you know that food scraps make up 40% of the garbage going to our landfill? Discarded food in the landfill creates greenhouse gases. Re-cycling our food scraps reduces the amount of garbage we produce, cuts down on global warming pollution, and creates compost soil for local gardens and farms.

Residential homes have been doing their part in the zero waste effort for months. Sperling joined in early September. The school hallways have green coloured food waste bins, along

SAFETY BEFORE CONVENIENCE As our school population has increased this year with many new students and a larger staff, our parking lots have again become a safety concern. Parents are asked to drop their children off on Adair (after the orange cones), along Sper ling Ave. (school side) or on Hycrest Ave. Our parking lots are designated for staff members only and there is not enough space for parents to park or drop off when bringing children to school. It is also very unsafe for students and parents to be walking through the parking lot as staff members are arriving and trying to park.

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT DAY

On Friday, September 25th, the Sperling staff participated in our 1st professional day for this school year. Teachers spent the morning working with technology and how to integrate iPad learning in the classroom. A big huge thank you once again to our Sperling PAC and parents for all the fundraising you did last year to

purchase our new iPads and projectors for the classroom – everyone is very excited about learning new technology with their students in the classroom. In the afternoon, we welcomed back Luba Banuke from SFU to work with teachers on the Ministry of Education’s new curriculum that will be implemented in the 2016-2017 school year.

A REMINDER TO PARENTS: LUNCHES

Please remember to include spoons, and forks in your child’s lunch or recess snack. Unfortunately, we are una-ble to provide utensils for students.

SPERLING CROSS COUNTRY TEAM IS OFF AND

RUNNING TO A GOOD START!

The Cross Coun-try team has had two meets al-ready at Burnaby Lake.

The students demonstrated out-standing sportsmanship and ef-fort that made us all very proud. Every member of the Cross Country team participated and had a great time, running in the beautiful fall sunshine! Thank you parents for driving team members to and from the meet. We love the extra cheers!

Cell Phones/School Phones

It has recently become very common for students to have personal cell phones at school. Our position is that these cell phones are intended for, and should only be used for, safety. With that in mind, we ask for your support in reinforcing the following guidelines:

Cell phones (or any expensive items such as iPods) are here at your child’s own risk in terms of loss or breakage

Cell phones should remain in student’s backpacks in the cloakroom during the day, including recess and lunch

All cell phones are to be turned off during the school day

If students need to use the telephone during the day to make important phone calls to parents, they may ask their classroom teacher for a phone pass that allows them to use the office telephone. Students who do not follow these guidelines may have their cell phones confiscated until the end of the school day.

Thank you to all of the volunteers at the Book

Fair!

The Scholastic Book Fair was a great success. The money earned from this fundraising event will go towards paying for the plastic sheets that we cover all of the paperback books with, as well as more book tape, reading club prizes and certificates, boxes of spine labels, and library books that I purchase from other suppliers. I would like to say a big “thank you” to all of the wonderful parent vol-unteers who helped us run this event: Tara Ranger, Helen Wong, Kim Robinson, Vivian Shen, Aline Grobocopatel, Yoko Watase, Iva Vincalek, Ke Li Pong, Michelle Jenkins, Echo Li, Tak-iko Meighan, Joanna Jahns, Silpa Shaw, Marian Mann, Liz Stockwell, Shirley Chiu, Agnes Fejer, Chelsea Zhang, Ji-ping Zeng, Virginia Bahn, Monique Costa, Tina Liew, Ol-ive Chan, Tracey Hurtado, Cliff Ng, Jocelyne Chow, Peggy Chan, Susan he, Ruth Heyde, Maria Scarcelli, Kin Domino, Lynn Kam, Reza Nilli, Salim Khimani, Denise Lau, Nichole Leo, Corina Andreoiu, and Irene Li. I would also like to thank the student volunteers who helped with the big line-ups in the hallway: Sam Hall, Kevin Oliver, Caleb Liu, Victor Bellamy, Kaisei Meighan, Makayla Young, Avril Brigden, Alexa Brasset, Jaya Parmar, Emily Liu, Mini Zheng, and Cassidy Johnson. Many thanks to all who participated in this event. I really appreciate the level of support that our school community provides. I would be unable to host a book fair without your help! From Ms. Hunger Black Umbrella Found at Book Fair If you left your nice black umbrella with a wooden handle at the book fair, it is waiting for you at the library.

Volunteers needed for our “walking sidewalk”

20 minutes on Monday, Wednesday or Friday morning from 8:35 - 8:55am. Please contact Monique at chair@sperlingpac.com.

ART FROM THE ATTIC - ART SALE! Sat., Oct. 10, 10 am – 3 pm Scandinavian Centre

6540 Thomas St., Burnaby (Free parking & admission) • Over 1500 pieces, priced to sell • Wide variety, range of prices • Signed originals & reproductions • Paintings, prints, photos & posters • Framed & unframed Contact: burnabygogos@gmail.com www.greatervangogos.org Proceeds to the Grandmothers to Grandmothers Campaign (GOGO’s), Ste-phen Lewis Foundation, in support of grandmothers caring for children or-phaned by AIDS in 15 African countries www.stephenlewisfoundation.org

LOVE THE WATER? CHECK OUT WATER POLO!

Do you enjoy swimming? Do you like team sports? Try water polo! It’s a great way to devel-op your water skills and it’s a lot of fun as well!

Burnaby Water Polo Club is now accepting regis-tration for Boys and Girls Beginner Water Polo (6-13 years). Programs run from September to April. Practices are at Bonsor Recreation Com-plex, 6550 Bonsor Avenue on Saturdays 5-7PM. Games are played on Sundays with locations to be announced.

Not sure if you’ll like it? Come give the game a try for free! Boys and girls are invited to join us for one of our free introductory water polo Saturday clinic on September 19 & 26 or October 3 & 10 from 5-7PM, at Bonsor Pool. Please call to reserve a spot as space is limited.

Contact Harry Jung at 778-328-2657or email regis-ter@burnabywaterpolo.com for more info.

www.burnabywaterpolo.com

Balloholics Youth Basketball Fall Session

Balloholics provides programs for students in grades 2 to 9. Presented in a fun and active format, students learn the FUNdamentals of basketball in a modified games format. Elementary programs are offered at Au-brey, Edmonds, Kitchener, Twelfth Ave and Burnaby Central.

We are also excited to announce a new class for 5-7 year old boys and girls provided in conjunction with NBA Canada. Spots are limited and the 12 week class will run in 2 six week sessions, one in the fall and one in the winter.

Register now at http://www.balloholic.com/programs/fall-session/ For further info call 604.800.3539 or info@balloholic.com

Note: If your child is returning, please note date changes. League play 2 day option for U11/U13/ U15 will now take place Friday nights at Burn-aby Central.