St. James Catholic School. December 2017

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1 St. James Catholic School 70 Wellington Street Eganville, Ontario K0J 1T Principal Maureen Enright December 2017 Advent Advent is a Latin word that actually means coming. In the Christian church, advent is time of preparation and waiting for the birth of Jesus. Advent officially begins four Sundays before Christmas. So how can you celebrate Advent? One way is to buy or make an Advent wreath to lay on your table. An Advent wreath typically consists of greenery with four candles, three purple and one pink. Each candle on the Advent Wreath has a specific meaning: Candle one (purple) represents hope. Candle two (purple) represents peace. Candle three (pink) represents joy. Candle four (purple) represents love. We will be marking each week of Advent during our Monday morning prayer assemblies. We thank Fr. Ken and St. James the Less Parish for purchasing Advent resources for each class. We pray that this is a holy and peaceful time for all as we prepare for celebration of the birth of Jesus. Upcoming Dates Sunday, December 3 - First Sunday of Advent Monday, December 4 - Valley Heritage Radio here to record our students singing Christmas Carols Thursday, December 14 - Sacrament of Reconciliation 1:30 pm; Mrs. Hermans ⅚ class to perform their play at Fairfields Tuesday, December 19 - Christmas Concert at 6:30 pm Wednesday, December 20 - Subway Lunch Thursday, December 21 - School Mass at 2:00 pm Friday, December 22 - Christmas Sweater/Red and Green Day School Mass Our school mass will be held at St. James the Less Parish on Thursday, December 21st at 2:00 pm. Mrs. Dick s class will be leading our mass this month. Please join us if your schedule allows. Virtues Awards Each month, our school community focuses on a different virtue. During the month of November we focused on the virtue of Peace. We saw many students and staff members demonstrate this virtue throughout the month. Each teacher will choose two students to receive a certificate and a ribbon during our prayer service on Monday December 4th. We will include their names in our January newsletter. Our focus for the month of December is Charity and we look forward to seeing this demonstrated in our school throughout the month. Christmas Concert Our Christmas concert will be held on Tuesday, December 19th at 6:30 pm. We will have a Matinee performance at 1:30 pm that same day. If the weather does not cooperate, our concert and

2 matinee will be held on Wednesday, December 20th at the same times. We are thrilled to be having a concert! It is a lot of work for all involved, but it really gets to the heart of the true meaning of Christmas. Our theme for this year is Charity. We will be collecting items for the food bank that evening if you wish to contribute to our collection. School Council Our next School Council meeting will be held on Monday, January 22nd at 6:00 pm in the staff room. We will have a potluck supper at this meeting for those who wish to attend. As always, new members are very welcome to join at any and/or every meeting. School Council Raffle Our School Council is hosting a Christmas raffle. All of the prizes have been very generously donated. We thank Canadian Security Team, Goldie Mohr Ltd. and George and Leah Pezoulas for their donations to our raffle. All funds raised will be put towards the costs associated with building an outdoor classroom/shade structure which we hope to do in the spring of We thank you for your support of this raffle and wish you the best of luck! Healthy Snack Thanks to everyone who has been contributing to make sure our students are receiving Healthy Snacks throughout the week. Our students had a variety of snack (and lunch!) items this month thanks to Mrs. Regier, Mrs. Wanda Tracey, Ms. Levesque and Mrs. Jolicoeur. Your help is very appreciated! Valley Heritage Radio Recording You will want to tune in to Valley Heritage Radio during the month of December as you may hear our students singing carols! VHR will be here to record the students on Monday morning. Many thanks to the teachers for preparing the students and to Julie Baillie who will be playing the piano for our classes. This is a great way to bring the Christmas spirit to St. James! Spirit Activities For the first time, we will be hosting a game, called the Reindeer Hunt. This game will take place during the week of December 4th - 8th. Students will be paired up and they will have to try to catch each other by pinning a clothespin on the person they have been paired with. Students will be paired with similarly aged students. We are looking forward to trying this out as it has been done successfully at a number of schools. Our classes will also participate in Elfing during the week of December Classes will choose a class to do a kind deed for and that class will, in turn, perform a kind deed for another class. Thank you to Mrs. Regier and Mrs. Dick for working hard to create these opportunities for our students. Spirit Day Our next Spirit day will take place on Friday, December 22. Students and staff are asked to wear their best Christmas outfit to earn points for their Spirit teams. Grade 5 and 6 Students to Perform at Fairfields Following the Sacrament of Reconciliation on December 14, the grade 5 and 6 students will perform their play "The Least of These" and sing some songs for the residents of Fairfields. Thank you to Mrs. Hermans for organizing this experience that is sure to be enjoyed by students and residents! Parental Safe Schools Survey All parents are invited and encouraged to complete the RCCDSB School Climate survey. A link has been

3 posted on the St. James facebook page or you can type in the following URL to complete the survey. nlvhs8w5gjr9keyibib1ff8kkvyfg54jsojdpt0qw/viewfor m?usp=sf_link Subway Lunch Our next Subway lunch will take place on Wednesday, December 20th. Volleyball Congratulations and thank you to all parents who accepted the challenge and came to play against our volleyball teams! It was a very fun afternoon and all of our students loved the entertaining and friendly competition. Thank you to Mr. Cavanagh and Mrs. Dick who coached our teams and took them to their respective tournaments on Wednesday, November 22nd. Both teams played well and showed determination against some tough competition. The Golden Garbage Can Award In order to help our students recognize their responsibilities in the classroom and to encourage them to look after their belongings and learning spaces, we have implemented the Golden Garbage Can Award. Each month, the class who has, most consistently, taken the best care of their classroom is presented with the Golden Garbage Can and a treat for each student. Mr. Lehto, one of our amazing custodians, chooses the winning classroom. We have seen a great improvement in the condition of the rooms and we look forward to seeing this continue! Mr. Cavanagh s grade 7/8 class were our first winners and Mrs. Hart s grade 4 class have most recently held the trophy. Our next winning class will be announced on Monday. Kids' Fish Art Contest We had a number of students who successfully completed submissions to this annual contest Congratulations to Helen, Colin, Aydan, Logan, Owen, Mark, and John. And thank you to Mrs. Hermans for organizing the submissions. CPAN - Operation Snowsuit Many thanks for your overwhelming support of our snowsuit drive. One large shipment has already been collected. Your generosity is heartwarming! A Message From the RCJTC School Bus Cancellations and or Delays Student safety is our utmost concern. As such, there may be times during the school year when it is necessary to cancel student transportation services due to bad weather (i.e. snow, freezing rain, floods, emergency road closures, etc.). Transportation to and from school is provided by the Renfrew County Joint Transportation Consortium (RCJTC). RCJTC will provide information on bus cancellations and/or delays via: Website ( Twitter (@RCJTC_Trans) Facebook (RCJTC) itunes with iphone App (verify with RCJTC ) Google Play with Android App (verify with RCJTC ) to parents who subscribe for notifications (confirmation sent within 3min) In a situation where school buses are cancelled schools remain open to students. Reminders

4 During the colder months, it is important that students are dressed appropriately for the weather. We do go outside each recess unless the temperature is below -20 Celsius. If you need assistance with winter wear - we are more than happy to help - please give us a call. If your child is at school, it is expected that they are well enough to go outside for recess Please check your child s head regularly for nits/lice. If you do find any evidence, please use a treatment and let us know. We will be doing a school check next week. For safe schools reasons, parents and visitors are asked to use our main entrance and wait at the office for their child(ren) when picking up throughout the day and parents are asked to refrain from going onto the yard and playground during the school day. Thank you for your ongoing cooperation with all of these items. If you have concerns or questions, please feel free to call to discuss. Dec :15 P.M. Bonnechere Valley Recreation Dec :15 P.M. Country Store O come, O come, Emmanuel And ransom captive Israel That mourns in lonely exile here Until the Son of God appear Rejoice, rejoice, O Israel addresses In an effort to save some paper and to try to ensure that more newsletters are getting into the hands of parents, we are asking for you to share your addresses with us if you so choose. You can simply write the address in your child s agenda or call the school with your information. We also have a facebook page and we re on twitter if you want to have a look for us in those ways. We thank you for your help with this! Eganville arena Public Skating for the Month of December Thank you to the generous sponsors! Dec 3 3-4:15P.M. Signature Realty

5 We wish each of you a very Merry Christmas and all of the blessings of the holy season!