120 Napa Valley Avenue, Woodbridge, On L4H 1L1 (905) 893-1631 www.eldersmills.ps.yrdsb.edu.on.ca (905) 893-7371 Fax Final June 2013 Final

Principal: Micheline Joseph  Superintendent of Schools: Susan Logue Tel: 905‐764‐6830  Trustee: Anna DeBartolo  Tel: 905‐727‐0022 Ext 2829 

School Priorities: Literacy:  Reading Comprehension  Assessment  for Learning  

Parental & Community Engagement:   Supporting Student Learning at Home in our Changing  Community  

Effective Schools: Creating a Safe and Supportive  School 

PRINCIPAL’S MESSAGE What an exciting year we’ve had and how quickly it has flown by. Now we need to bid farewell for another summer. As you read your child’s Term 2 report card, we hope you will note the next step recommenda-tions to help your children continue their learning throughout the summer months so they are well prepared for September. This is the time when we thank all the staff, parents and community members who have helped us this year. Thank you to our parent volun-teers, and School Council who have worked diligently throughout the year to support both our staff and our students. Your contributions are an integral part of our school and very much appreciated. A big thank you for your efforts to organize another successful Community BBQ earlier this month, despite the rain, everyone had a fabulous time jumping in the Jumping Castles and dancing to the DJ’s music. This is also the time of year when we bid farewell to our departing staff and students who are leaving our school. Thank you to those staff mem-bers that will be moving and welcome to new staff who will be joining us next year. This year in particular is very memorable as we say good bye to all our English track students and families as well. Thank you for your contributions to our school and your friendship. Together we have grown strong in our commitment to diversity and bilingualism. Farewell to the fine staff members who are moving on to other schools, Mr. Babin, Ms. Rain, Ms. Beckles, Mr. Adjei-Dapaah, Ms. Miraglia, Ms. Colacci, Ms. Novielli, Ms. Balgobin, Mlle. Esmailzadeh, Ms. de Silva, Ms. Massaro and Ms. Fulton. They have all left their own special impression on our students, parents and colleagues. We wish them all the best and much success in their future endeavors. Next year, we will be welcoming back Mme. Bergeron from maternity leave, as well as a Mlle. Colonna to our FI team. We look forward to having them become part of the Elder’s Mills community. Welcome! Bienvenue! To our Grade 8 students who are graduating and moving onto High School this year, we wish you all the best with your future schooling. We hope you have good memories of your time at Elder’s Mills. In closing, I would like to extend best wishes to all of the families in our community. I am honoured to be part of such a warm and vibrant school community and I look forward to continuing our work together with those returning in September. I wish you all a safe and happy summer. Respectfully yours, Mme. Joseph, Principal

SCHOOL OFFICE Our School office closes for the summer on Friday June 28, 2013. It will reopen on Monday August 26, 2013. Any questions over the summer can be referred to the area office at 905-764-6830 We would like to wish you all a safe and happy summer!

Mrs. Hintz and Mrs. Consiglio

Page 2 The Elder’s Mills Outlook Final June 2013

Once an Eagle, Always an Eagle... What has always made Elder’s Mills such a special place is the true sense of community which transcends the school. Our staff value the importance of character education and these character traits are embedded in everything that we do. Our students demonstrate these traits in how they care about each other and interact with their teachers and visitors to the school. Elder’s Mills is a welcoming and inclusive place thanks to the positive climate created by its students, staff and parent community. We are so proud of how tight knit our students and staff are and how we have built a school with many cultures and two languages of instruction but one heart! This, along with our focus on academic excellence makes Elder’s Mills a wonderful school community. It is with regret that we will be saying good-bye to our English track students and families at the end of this year who will be moving on to join Lorna Jackson P.S. as well as other school and many of our teachers who will be moving on to other schools. Our staff and families have taken on this transition with courage and opti-mism. We know that we will continue to be connected as close neighbours and look forward to continuing our friendship with all our former students and staff. On June 18th, as part of our transition plans, our English track went to visit their new school Lorna Jackson P.S. They were welcomed with open arms by Principal Collins and all the staff and students. I was happy to see our students look around and begin making new friends, coming back happy and looking forward to next year in their new building. Our School Council also honoured our students at our Community BBQ with a special presentation of our donated tree and plaque in honour of all our departing friends. At the BBQ, we also had the unveiling of our park benches housed in our foyer, painted with the hand prints of all our students and staff as a lasting memento of all those who graced our halls. We thank you all! As our motto has been this year, Once an Eagle, always an Eagle!!

Our Community BBQ Bash was so

much fun!

Thank you to Beveridge Tree Farms for donating our new tree!

Page 3 The Elder’s Mills Outlook Final June 2013

Each year at Elder's Mills we celebrate Peace Tree Day where we come together as a school to celebrate cultural peace and diversity. Based on the film The Peace Tree, Mitra Sen founded Peace Tree Day, stating that it is important to celebrate all cultures and faiths together. Our Peace Tree Day began with a presentation from singer, Jasmine Richards who spoke about the importance of believing in yourself. Through-out the day we had all our students rotate through 11 diverse and exciting workshops, from yoga, to henna painting, to belly dancing, to a Russian circus and many more experiences from our different cultures. Finally, we enjoyed the many talents of our students who performed for our ever popu-lar Student Talent Show, wowing us all with everything from acrobatics, dancing,

piano, a Chinese harp and so much more. We also had a fashion show, featuring different cultural clothing from all around the world. Colour and fabric turned and whirled as students got to show off their different clothing. At the end of the day, everyone went home remembering what a fun little festival we had, where families and friends from all our diverse cultures learned about and celebrated each other's cultures, traditions, beliefs and festivals on Peace Tree Day. Way to go Elder’s Mills!

Promoting Literacy at Elder’s Mills! Primary FI Spelling Bees! On June 22, students from our Grade 1-3 French Immersion Primary Division competed in our Spelling Bee. Representatives from all classrooms worked hard to prepare for this competition. It was very exciting to see the abilities from every grade and every class. Bravo to all participants! Congratulations to Sparsh Gr.3Z in first place, Sehar Gr.1Y in second place and Julia P. Gr. 2Z in third place. Thank you to all the parents who attended as well.

Primary FI SPELLING BEE!

Peace Tree Day and Talent Show

Page 4 The Elder’s Mills Outlook Final June 2013

ECO CORNER This school year, Elder's Mills P.S. was granted a silver award from the Ontario Eco

Schools program for all of the Eco initiatives the students created and participated in. The Ontario EcoSchools is an environmental education and certification program for grades K-12 that helps school communities develop both ecological literacy and environmental practices to become environmentally responsible citizens and reduce the ecological footprint of schools. Congratulations to the members of the 2012-2013 Eco Team for all your hard work and

to the students of Elder's Mills for your support and efforts towards reducing our negative impacts on the environment.

Keep on RRRollin’ with our Eco-Challenge! During this season of spring cleaning and hosting summer outdoor events, we encourage you and your families to keep the Elder’s Mills ECO momentum by practicing the 3Rs. Practicing the 3Rs keeps materials useful, reduces waste and helps the environment. Whenever we save materials from going to waste, it is good for the environment. The 3Rs Reducing means paying attention to the things we get – careful shopping is one way to reduce waste. It also means trying to avoid things we will want to throw away later, like packaging. Reusing reminds us that things can be used over and over again and doing this means we create less waste. If we reuse half-used paper we save trees and forests and animals’ homes. When we bring a reusable shopping bag to the store, we don’t get a plastic bag to throw away. When we package lunch in reusable containers we save a lot of wrapping materials. Toys and books can be reused by giving them away when we no longer need them. In this way they don’t need to be thrown into the garbage. Recycling is a way to sort paper, cardboard and newspaper, and packaging made of glass, plastic or aluminum so that it can be re-manufactured into new things. Recycling saves lots of materials from being wasted, but uses lots of energy. We will continue our Eco school initiatives next year! Thank you for your support. Special thanks to our caretakers for their ongoing work of weeding and maintaining our school grounds! Thanks to Mr. Babin and the Eco Club for all their work to promote awareness this year!

BUSSING Did you know that students’ bussing eligibility changes throughout their school career?

Your son/daughter’s eligibility to ride the school bus may change according to their grade and dis-tance from home to school. Below are the provisions for eligibility identified in the Board’s Trans-

portation policy #680:

All YRDSB students in Grades JK-3 who live within 1.2 km of their school are not eligible for transportation.

All YRDSB students in Grades 4-8 who live within 1.6 km of their school are not eligible for transportation.

All YRDSB students in Grades 9-12 who live within a transit served area are not eligible for transportation. To view Board Policy #680 Student transportation, please visit www.yrdsb.edu.on.ca. For more information about bus transportation and to determine your son/daughter’s eligibility, please visit www.schoolbuscity.com For Bus Route information or to enquire about your child’s transportation eligibility for the 2013/2014 school year, please go to www.schoolbuscity.com. All new routes will be posted on this website by the end of August.

Page 5 The Elder’s Mills Outlook Final June 2013

Class Placements and First Day of School

We are working hard to create balanced classes for next year. We take much into consideration when we make our decisions for our classes and thank you for your understanding. Reorganizations may occur in September if enrolment changes occur over the summer. Due to confidentiality laws we cannot post class lists on school windows. On September 3rd, teachers will meet all students at 8:30 a.m. in the back school yard. Students are to congregate by their grade sign. Teachers will call out class lists and divide them into classes before going into the school. Teachers will be identified by grade level. New Grade 1 French Immersion students will meet in the gym to divide into classes from there. Parents will be asked to say good bye to their children before they enter the school. In the event of rain, class divisions will happen inside the school.

Elder’s Mills Sports... Track & Field Congratulations to Elder’s Regional Track athletes…...Leighyana, Nana, Amelia, Chloe and Dhruv for representing our school at the Regionals on Wednesday June 19. Leighyana finished in 4th place in the 100m. Nana finished 3rd place in Ball Throw, Chloe came in 6th place for Running Long Jump and Amelia came in 3rd place in the 400m and 1st in the Running Long Jump. Way to Go!!!

  

 Please  remember  to  pick  up  any medication  or  epipens  from  the school office. 

Congratulations to our Grade 8 Graduates! We want to wish our Grade 8 graduates much success as you move onto high school and continue your life adventures. We hope you have good memories of your time with us at Elder’s Mills! We will miss you! Watching our Eagles Soar...

School Registration over the Summer for the 2013/2014 year

Monday to Thursday 9:00 a.m.-3:00 p.m.

1st week of July until 2nd week of August Community Education Centre-West 36 Stornoway Crescent, Thornhill

905-764-6830

Staff Appreciation!

Our School Council sponsored a wonderful Staff Appreciated luncheon for all our staff this month. Parents volunteered their culinary expertise and we enjoyed a delicious lunch together. Our students took the opportunity to thank their teachers as well with cards and kind sentiments. We especially appreciated this beautiful poem written by Bianca and Rianna!! Thank you! Merci! We love you too! Have a safe and happy summer! Elder’s Mills staff

Page 6 The Elder’s Mills Outlook Final June 2013

June’s Focus: Optimism

We encourage our students to display positive character traits always and we celebrate their efforts at our monthly Character Assemblies. Respect Honesty Fairness Perseverance Courage Responsibility Empathy Initiative Integrity Optimism

Character Matters!

CharacterAssembly:June’sCharacterTraitRecipientsfor“Optimism”

JK/SK-Ms. Fancy Nour, Chloe, Lily-Rose 1FI-Mme. Yususf Aariz, Seher

1-Ms. Balgobin

Patrick, Carmelo, Lily 1FI-Mme. Trivedi Kar, Chantal

2/3-Ms. Colacci Aryan, Niru 2FI-Mlle. Au Hasan, Mikaela

4/5-Mr. Adjei-Dapaah Alessia, Marko, Logan, Sierra

2/3FI-Mme. Zuccaro Julia, Noah

5/6-Mr. Babin Jacob 3/4FI-Mme. Alberga Nana, Bianca

7/8-Ms. Beckles Sophia, Vince, Rachel, Govinda

3FI-Mlle. Joachim Paige, Brandon, Jessica

1FI-Mme. Hendricks Brandon 4FI-Mme. Esposito Monisha, Lleyton, Myra

1FI-Mme. Sampogna Austin GOLDEN DUSTPIN AWARD (2nd Floor)

Ms. Miraglia

1FI-Mr. Thompson Vivian, Luca GOLDEN DUSTIPIN AWARD (1st Floor)

Ms. Rain

3/4-Ms. Novielli John Michael, Mi-chael, Joseph

2FI-Mme. Bianchi Matthew, Liam