May 2022 Newsletter

Posted on 05/05/2022

2022

Hello Botha Parents and Guardians;

I hope that this newsletter finds everyone healthy and ready for beautiful spring weather. After the wild weather of April, I hope that it gets warmer and only rain for precipitation.

Wednesday, May 4th is "Hats On for Mental Health". We ask that all students and staff wear their favorite hat or toque for Mental Health Week. Students will be given a presentation on Friday by CARS.

Wednesday, May 4th • Halkirk Hotel-hamburgers Wednesday, May 11th: Anaiah's

Wednesday, May 18th: Boston Pizza

Wednesday, May 25th.• Subway

A huge thank you to all the parents that have taken the time out of their busy schedules to deliver hot lunch for our school. You are all appreciated by our students and staff.

A big thank you from Mrs. McMillan to the parent council for the beautiful flower basket for School Administration/Secretary Week. She loved them!

Thank you to Botha School Parent Council and School Society for their continued support of our wonderful school. So much work gets done behind the scenes from our society members.

Please remember that all parents are part of Botha Parent Council and are free to join any meetings. Recently we have been sending out a Zoom invite to our meetings, we would love to have everyone that can attend. Council has many great events planned for the fall, including swimming.

Wednesday, May 18th, the Grade 6 students will be writing Part A of the English Language Arts PAT exam. The grade 5 do not write this exam.

Schedule for other PAT Exams:

Tuesday, June 14th : Math -Grade 6 only

Monday, June 20th: English Language Arts Part B - Grade 6 only

Wednesday, June 22: Science 6 - grade 5 and 6

Friday, June 24: Social Studies- Grade 5 and 6

 

Starting on May, 19th the students will have a break. Staff will be going to a wellness event with all staff from around Clearview Public Schools. On May 20th, student and staff will get this day off in lieu of Parent Teacher interviews and then May 23rd is Victoria Day. Enjoy your extra-long weekend.

 

The grade 5-6 will be going to camp on June 15, 16, and 17th at Circle

Square Ranch in Halkirk. We will be needing parent chaperones for the 3 days. Parents can come just for the day or just evening/sleeping or both. All chaperones will need to have a police check and a child welfare check. We would love to have lots of volunteers come and help out.

Playschool/Start Right:

On Tuesday, May 1 0th we will celebrate our wonderful mothers with a Mother’s day event. We will be planting fairy gardens, enjoying a little snack, and a song the playschool kids have been practicing. Thank you to the Botha School Society for purchasing the fairy garden kits, and to Echoglen Gardens for putting them together for us.

This month we will learn about plants and how they grow. We will continue to practice printing our names as well as learning our letter sounds with the Jolly phonics songs. We hope to get outside and enjoy the sunshine as much as we can too.

The kids loved learning about shapes in April, they have gotten very good at finding shapes in the environment and love to play spy" for shapes or colours now.

Kindergarten:

With the warmer weather, kindergarteners will be setting out on longer walking field trips to study pond creatures and the changing plant life of Spring.

Vowel sounds, word families, beginning writing, simple reading and comprehension activities continue.

We will begin our last unit of study in Math where we will compare length, height, weight and volume.

Grade 1-2:

This month we will be working on:

LA- writing a story with a beginning, middle and end.

Math- story problems (gr 1) Money (gr 2)

Science-small crawling and flying animals

Social-Finish unit on Saskatoon and starting Communities of the past

Grade 3-4:

In writing we'll work on revising & editing and attempt to inject energy and interest with effective and interesting words and description. We are continuing with Spelling and language skills, but will likely finish up our levels 'X' and Z' this month. Then the whole class will be on a level 'YI for the rest of the year. Some students who want an extra challenge can create their own spelling lists from challenging words they find in their reading and from 'million dollar words' and powerful verbs. We will continue to work in our reading groups for guided reading. Students are encouraged to do home reading. Grade three should be reading 15 min per night, grade four should be doing 20 min and they should be doing that at least 3 times a week.

In math Grade four will finish up multi digit multiplication and both grades will be learning about fractions. Keep practicing the basic multiplication and division facts.

In social we are discussing Global Citizenship and how it all starts small in our own communities. We make all kinds of links to health class and relationships and the skills we need for getting along and working with others. We will have our test in our unit about scientific method and fair testing and begin our biology' unit of Life Cycles this month.

Grade 5-6:

The grades 5-6 have been very busy the past month and will continue to work on the many projects that they have started* Ms. Imbery, our student teacher, left on April 22 with a pizza party and cupcakes. She will be missed by both Ms. Burton, the kids and myself.

In language arts we are working on grammar as well as writing narrative stories and newspaper articles in preparation for the PAT exams. The grade 6 students write part A of their language arts on May 18th.

In social studies we are reviewing local and Provincial government as will be starting on our last chapter on the Charter of Rights.

We have just finished ALL of our Math Units! We are now working on reviewing and ensuring that we have all our Math units mastered. In Science we are finishing up our Evidence and Investigation unit and will soon be going into our last science unit, Trees & Forest. Gym consists of many different activities outside from kickball Barbarians, Track & Field practice and any other fun games that we come up with. We are getting busy creating our Mother's Day craft for Art!

 

In closing, I want to express my sincere gratitude to all the students, staff, community members and parents for all the support I have had the past 3 years. I will be leaving the Botha School at the end of June as I have decided to retire after 35 years of teaching and 12 years as an administrator. I will spend time with my grandkids, help my husband on the farm and hopefully travel to many far off locations. I leave with a heavy heart as I will miss all the friends and students, staff and parents at Botha School. This is a wonderful school and a wonderful community.