Botha Parents and Guardians;
Happy Spring! I hope that everyone had a chance to relax and spend time with their families over Spring Break. The weather didn’t always cooperate and March went out like a lion as the saying goes.
We had an incredibly busy March with many different activities. I wish to thank all the parents and grandparents that came out to supervise and support us during the month of March.
We had many parents come to ski at Valley Ski Hill in Alliance on March 4th. The students had a wonderful time and glad that they had the opportunity to ski this year as a school.
Botha School had a wonderful opportunity this year with the Trickster Theatre Production. The students and staff had fun creating and participating in our own special Theatre production about the Botha area. It was amazing what the students were able to accomplish in a very short time. A big thank you to our Botha School Society for the financial support of this as well as Ms. Burton for her hard work getting Trickster to come to Botha. This has been three years in the making. Thank you for the donations to the Stettler and area Food Bank. They were greatly appreciated.
It is crazy to believe that we are into the final months of this school year. We have many things happening in April, May and June.
Hot lunch for the month of April:
April 6: Club Cafe
April 13: Coffee Tree
April 20: McDonalds
April 27: Pita Pit
A big thank you to the parents that pick up our food orders and deliver them to the school on Wednesdays! Thank you to Botha School Society for setting up the vendors for the food.
The Spirit Squad was busy in March with two special days. On March 17th, leprechauns iced and decorated cupcakes and delivered them to all students and staff.
As a special treat for the last day of school before Spring Break, the Spirit Squad popped popcorn for each student and staff member as an afternoon snack.
Easter Break begins on Thursday, April 14th, staff have professional learning and students have no school. Students and staff have April 15, 16, 17 and 18th off for Good Friday and Easter Monday. We will see everyone back at school on Tuesday, April 19th.
On Friday, April 8th, the k-6 will be creating Fairy Gardens with the help from Echoglen Nurseries. Each student will go home with their own miniature garden. This has been made possible by the Botha School Society.
Play School - Start right:
Although the kids didn’t manage to catch the elusive leprechaun last month, they sure had fun building those traps! Maybe next year we will have better luck.
In the first few weeks of April we will be having Easter fun! We have an Easter basket factory set up where the kids can practice building baskets, counting, sorting and pretending to be that magical bunny! We also have some Easter themed counting games and crafts planned.
After Easter we will learn about shapes with some fun, hands-on activities. We will also celebrate earth day and talk about what we can do to keep our earth clean.
This month we welcome two new students to the class. Welcome Owen and Steven! We are so happy to have you join us.
Kindergarten:
We had some absences due to sickness in March and I hope everyone is healthy and ready to work in April.
We will continue reading and writing 3 letter words and substituting letters to make new words.
In between geometric shapes we will play with some addition. We will finish our Social unit, All About Me. Kindergarten kids will be observing spring while using their senses appropriately.
Grade One/Two:
The grade one/two’s were very busy during March. They had a great time being “Cows in Space” in the Trickster Production. The students will continue to work on their science and social units as well as reading and writing lots in language arts. The students are making great progress in their reading. We will be having an Easter Party during the last 2 periods on Wednesday April 13th. More details to follow.
Grade Three/four:
Grade 3 has learned about multiplication and division! Gr 3 needs to know their multiplication and division basic facts up to 5 x 5. Gr 4 have been reviewing multiplication and division and learning the facts up to 9 x 9. (Have up to 7 x 7 automatically and be able to figure out anything x 8 & x 9 quickly.) And we will begin multi digit multiplication while gr 3 finishes up their multiplication and division unit. Gr 3 should also start learning any one digit number x2 x5 x3 & x4.
In ELA, we will springboard off of our Trickster experience to delve further into the genre of Adventure. We will be reading and writing adventure stories. As always, we’ll continue to work on spelling, vocabulary and language skills. We’ll practice the proper use of dialogue and how to punctuate and set it up into paragraphs. We’ll also look at main ideas and supporting details.
We will be starting our look at Rights and Responsibilities in social studies. This should be quite interesting in light of the current events that are happening right now, as was our peek into leadership in Marh.
We are continuing our study of Testing Materials. This is a great unit to also learn the scientific method and the idea of a fair test. We will occasionally revisit Hearing and Sound to finish off the last few concepts of that unit.
Grade Five/Six:
The grades 5-6 had a very busy month of March. They enjoyed going skiing and they really enjoyed participating in the Trickster Theatre production. Many of our students seem to have a natural ability when it comes to acting. They had a blast with the shadow acting. In social studies we continue to work on the Iroquois Confederacy and Democracy. We will compare this to Athenian democracy as well as have a council meeting using the idea of consensus to solve issues. Our student teacher , Ms Imbery has done a great job creating wonderful activities to help with understanding this topic. In language arts, students are working on spelling, grammar, phonics and writing newspaper articles. They have a book report due by the end of the month and have chosen their method of celebrating the book they read. The students have created longhouses in makerspace and wampum belts using lego to go along with the social unit.
April has come really fast! Grade 5/6 are both doing the probability unit in Math. In Science we are continuing with our Crime and Investigation Unit. We have done some activities on fingerprints and footprints. We are excited for all of the hands-on activities in this unit. We have also incorporated art projects within the Science unit. Gym we are doing a mixture of activities, from playing kickball outside to different team building activities in the gym.
On April 22, we will celebrate Earth Day. This is the day we stop and think of ways that we can care for the Earth. If the weather cooperates, we will go around Botha and pick up any garbage or trash from the winter. A permission form will be sent out soon.
With the mild weather, comes mud and mud puddles. Please make sure your child is wearing rubber boots, splash pants and send extra socks and mittens to school.
Again, thank you for all the support that has been given to our wonderful school. Remember to continue to monitor your children and keep them home when they are ill. It is greatly appreciated.
Mrs. P. Martin