Happiness depends

upon ourselves.

-Aristotle,

(384-322 B.C.) Green philosopher

April Calendar 2

Parking at Parkside Montessori 3

Casa News/ELMO News 4/5

Upper ELMO News 6

Spring Fundraiser; Mighty Peace Day 7

Book Fair; Supporting Anxious Youth 8

Inside this issue:

Mo

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Volume 1, Issue 8

April 3, 2017

Spring has sprung at Parkside

Montessori! This is an exciting time

of year for our school and marks

our first Information and Registra-

tion evening for new families in

our own site! Thank you to all of

the student volunteers for show-

cases some of the work that is

completed during our daily work

block time. We had very positive

feedback from our new families

about all that they were able to

see and do while they visited

Parkside. Thank you also to our

Parent Ambassadors who were

present for the evening to answer

questions and speak with new

families. We appreciate you be-

ing involved with and supporting

our school community.

As the snow begins to melt on our

playground, we are working with

our students to understand the

natural consequences of playing

in the puddles. If they choose to

play in the water, they might get

wet. Please make sure that your

child has additional clothing in

their backpacks or at school in

case they require a change of

clothing throughout the day.

We are excited about an upcom-

ing fundraiser we will be having

for our school. Each child has cre-

ated a piece of art that has been

turned into a greeting card. Sets

of cards will be available for pur-

chase. We are hoping to have

April News the cards sent home just prior to

Easter Break so that they can be

shared with extended family over

the holidays. Fundraisers like our

Read-A-Thon and the Art Cards

helps to support our school in bring-

ing in presenters, purchasing materi-

als for our MALT days, purchasing

items to support our Practical Life

cooking opportunities, purchasing

additional library books, enhanced

PE equipment, specialized art mate-

rials, and additional technology for

our school.

As always, thank you for your support

of our school. We truly are thankful

to have such supportive parents to

partner with us.

~Miss Corrine and Miss Terra

Page 2

On the Calendar...

M ONT ESS ORI NE WS

Music Festival– We have several groups participating in the Grande Prairie & District Music Festival

this year. Our Grade 2 Elementary Montessori Voices sing on Monday, April 3 at 9:30 a.m. Our Gr. 3, 4 & 5

Parkside Pax Choir sing on Tuesday, April 4 at 9:50 a.m. Our Grade 4-5 Parkside Montessori Band plays on

Wednesday, April 12 at 2 p.m. All choirs sing at the Christian Fellowship Assembly. The band plays at the

GPRC D.J. Cardinal Theatre. Parents and community members are welcome to attend

these performances.

Festival Dress:

GRADE 2 BOYS CONCERT DRESS: dark pants, white dress shirt with collar, & tie*

GRADE 2 GIRLS CONCERT DRESS: dark hose & shoes, white long-sleeve top, & jumper*

GRADE 3, 4 & 5 BOYS CONCERT DRESS: dark pants, white dress shirt with collar, & tie*

GRADE3, 4 & 5 GIRLS CONCERT DRESS: dark hose & shoes, white long-sleeve top, & skirt*

GRADE 4 & 5 BAND: dark hose/pants & shoes, Green Parkside Montessori Ambassador t-shirt

*Montessori ties, jumpers & skirts are provided. Parents are responsible for all other concert dress items.

Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat

1

2 3 Gr. 2 Choir at

Music Festival,

9:30 a.m. @ CFA

4 Gr. 3-5 Choir

at Festival, 9:50

a.m. @ CFA

5 6 7 11:40 a.m.

dismissal (Staff

Meeting)

8

9 10 11 12 Gr. 4-5

Band at Festival,

2 p.m. GPRC

13 Easter Bon-

net Parade @

12:30 p.m.

14 NO

SCHOOL

Good Friday

15

16 17 18 19 20 21 22

23 24 Classes

resume 25 26 Admin

Assistant Appre-

ciation Day

27 28 11:40 a.m.

dismissal (PLC/

SIP PM)

29

30

April 2017

~ Easter Holidays, April 17 to April 21~

V OLU ME 1, ISS UE 8 Page 3

Parking at Parkside Montessori We want to keep all Parkside Montessori students safe. Unfortunately, there is a problem with

where people are stopping and dropping off their children which is causing great danger for your chil-

dren. To help clarify where it is safe to park and cross the road, please check out the photos below to

know where it’s safe to stop and park.

Please be advised that there is NO PARKING on the south side of 91a Avenue in front of the school

from the bus loading zone all the way to the end of the staff parking lot. Parents are encouraged to

park at the end of the loading zone (marked in green) or in the City of GP Parking Lot at the back of the

school. Loading & NO PARKING zones are clearly signed. Please check these out before stopping.

The City of Grande

Prairie’s By-Law un-

der Parking Control-

Prohibited Parking

clearly states “within

5 meters of a cross-

walk”

Crossing at the cor-

ner or at clearly

marked crosswalks

is the safest way for

everyone to get

where they need

to be.

Casa dei Bambini: Miss Trisha

Page 4 M ONT ESS ORI NE WS

It’s hard to believe it is already April!! Some highlights were:

MALT day, and Demonstration of Learning. Congratulations to

our March Authors of the Month who created a story together:

Jax, Henry, Madelin, Emily, Macie, Emma, Nicolas, Olli, Mad-

dox, and Gabby. Their story, Captain Underpants at the Pool,

will soon be in the Library available to take out!

In April we will start a new unit on plants. The children will learn

about the different types of plants we have in our area. We

will also study the life cycle of a plant by growing our own

plants. The children will learn how to care for their own plant

and what needs plants have. We will document the changes

a plant makes as it grows from a tiny seed. It should be great

fun!

The Farm activity has come out in the Language area of the

classroom! The Farm is a favourite Montessori activity for many

children. For our older students, the focus of the farm will be

parts of speech, including, nouns, articles, verbs, and adjec-

tives. This will lead into sentence writing. For younger students,

the focus of the farm is oral language.

We have been having tons of fun in Math lately that will carry

on into April. We are exploring “skip counting” and problem

solving. Many of the children are coming up with Math prob-

lems that their friends are solving. It is amazing to see so much

creativity coming from these young minds!

-Miss Trisha

Casa dei Bambini: Miss Renee

Above: Zoey, pa-

tiently sewing

buttons onto fab-

ric.

Right: Emma &

Brayson writing

out nouns from

the Farm.

flowers? Do red peppers have rainbow coloured seeds? Is

there seeds in everything? The children anticipate the

answers to their questions over the next few weeks.

-Miss Renee

During the month of March students celebrated the

100 day of school. Starting in September, the chil-

dren have been counting each day of school, as

the number increased we practiced counting by 5s

and 10s. On the 100th day of school the children

brought one hundred items to organize and count.

The boys and girls enjoyed organizing and counting

various collections of one hundred.

Cocoa, our traveling stuffy, has returned to class

after spending a month in Arizona with Kinley and

her family. Cocoa’s journal is full of pictures of plac-

es he has traveled such as the Grand Canyon, Olive

Mill, Sedona and Zion National Park. Kinley included

a wonderful diagram of Zion Canyon showing the

different rock formations. Our class has been learn-

ing more about the world through Cocoa’s experi-

ences. Please contact Miss Renee if you are interest-

ed in taking Cocoa on a trip.

We have begun a study on seeds. Most of the chil-

dren have enjoyed dissecting and extracting seeds

from several types of fruit. As we investigate, the

boy’s and girls have questions: Are there seeds in

Above: Addison is examining the

seeds inside of a tomato.

Left: Cocoa and friends at the

Grand Canyon!

Lower Elementary, Gr. 1-3

V OLU ME 1, ISS UE 8 Page 5

Well March definitely came in like a lion and went out

like a lamb this year. At the beginning of the month the

students ended up being together more than usual due

to a large amount of indoor recesses but spring seems to

have sprung and the students are definitely enjoying the

weather. Please continue to send rubber boots and

splash pants and to remind students to stay out of the

puddles.

We also had a ton of fun events this month with our

grade two and three students off on a swimming field

trip while our grade one friends enjoyed some time to-

gether as a group playing in the gym and making Fruit

Loop art. The tradition of the leprechaun invasion con-

tinues and even though the traps were incredibly crea-

tive unfortunately we have not caught one yet!

Near the end of the month the students learned about

World Water day and learned how important it is to con-

serve this precious natural resource. This tied in well to

our current social studies topic of communities around

the world. All three classes are getting close to wrapping

up studies of Tunisia, India, Ukraine and Peru.

March was also our second Celebration of Learning and

it was great to see so many families out to share in their

child’s learning.

Our most recent MALT day was another huge success

with students participating in many different activities

such as crocheting and art. We still have one more

MALT day this year and would love to have tons of volun-

teers to offer as many different and exciting sessions as

possible. If you are interested in helping out with this

please let us know.

-Miss Desiree, Miss Laura, Miss Lora Rae

Top: Desmond and the last snowman of the

season Middle: Casey & Raiki working on a

St. Patrick’s Day project. Right: Kairo working

on nouns– Animals & their Homes.

March was a marvelous month in our

classroom. We had a lot on the go and lots

to share with our families at Celebration of

Learning. For this round, students used a self-

assessment guide to lead a discussion with

their family about what they have been do-

ing in class for the term, what they would like

to improve, and what goals they have for the

term to come. This was a new twist on our

normal student-led Celebration of Learning

process that was very well received by both

students and their families.

We had quite a few activities & events

that will be wrapping up before the Easter

break. Students are excited to once again

be participating in the Grande Prairie & Dis-

trict Music Festival with the Parkside Pax Choir

on Tuesday, April 4 and with the Parkside

Montessori Band on Wednesday, April 12.

Once festival is finished, we will be shifting our

musical focus to preparations for Mighty

Peace Day on May 2 where the Gr. 4 & 5

Ambassadors will be the back-up choir for

featured band Her Brothers.

We’ll also be completing our collabo-

rative research project on Aboriginal People

in the Past with presentations and a scaven-

ger hunt. Students have done an excellent

job researching and preparing their materials

for this project. In Science, we will be con-

ducting our last experiments for our unit on

Classroom Chemistry and hope to begin

studies of Electricity after the Easter break.

We’re learning all about Statistics and

Probability in Math this month. Grade four

students are learning the ins and outs of

reading bar graphs and pictographs while

grade five students are introduced to the ba-

sics of Probability.

Wishing everyone safe & relaxing

Spring break!

-Miss Terra

Page 6 M ONT ESS ORI NE WS

Upper Elementary, Gr. 4-5

Congratulations to Eva who won $25 of

books for herself and $25 worth of books

for our classroom from the spring book fair!

Gr. 4 & 5 students prepared and presented infor-

mation for World Water Day on March 22.

V OLU ME 1, ISS UE 8 Page 7

Parkside Montessori students have been working on special art projects with their teach-

ers. A sample of each child’s card featuring their special work or art will be sent home

before the Easter break with the order information on the inside. Parents may purchase

their child’s cards as a fundraiser for the school. This fundraiser will to support our school

in bringing in presenters, purchasing materials for our MALT days, purchasing items to sup-

port our Practical Life cooking opportunities, purchasing additional library books, en-

hanced PE equipment, specialized art materials, and additional technology for our

school.

*Orders with payment will be due on Friday, April 28

Looking forward to sharing our masterpieces with you!

Parkside Montessori is very proud of our

Grade 4 & 5 Student Ambassadors for their

work as leaders within our school and com-

munity. Through their work this year they

have earned their way to Mighty Peace Day

2017!

What is Mighty Peace Day: A gathering of

3500 Peace Country Youth who are passion-

ate about creating positive change! MPD is

an opportunity to be inspired by talented

speakers and performers who are striving to

make a difference in the world.

Why: We believe in empowering this genera-

tion to promote local, national, and global

change.

When: May 2, 2017, 9:00 a.m. to 2:15 p.m.

Where: Revolution Place, Grande Prairie, AB

How: Students cannot buy a seat, they earn

it through involvement in one local or one

global or national action project in the 18

months prior to May 2, 2017.

Website: www.mightypeaceday.ca

We all have the Courage to Create Change!

A huge thank you to all of the MPD Sponsors. Im-

pact Student Lives—become a sponsor! Visit the

MPD website for more details.

Parkside Montessori

Corrine Shmyruk, Principal

Terra Shewchuk, Vice Principal

PARKSID E MONTESSORI

9617 91A avenue

Grande Prairie, AB

T8V 0G7

Phone: 780-532-7429

Email:

Parkside.montessori@gppsd.ab.ca

Facebook:

@ParksideMontessori

Visit our school page:

www.gppsd.ab.ca/school/

parksidemontessori

Parkside Montessori

Spring Book Fair!

Thank you to all of our families for supporting the book fair. Our school benefits greatly from the book fair as we receive a mini-mum of 60% credit back to the school from the total amount earned. This allows us to pur-chase many additional books and resources for Parkside Montessori students!