Victoria Village P.S., 88 Sweeney Dr., North York, M4A 1T7, 416-397-2930, Principal: L. Miklasevics, Superintendent: Curtis Ennis, Trustee: Ken Lister

Principal’s Message: Liga Miklasevics It is hard to believe that we are nearly at the end of Term 1. We have been very fortunate with this amazing weather. Hopefully, we will miss the rainy season and instead of rain be blanketed with snow. It has been a very busy November with preparation for the Remembrance Day Assembly, School Trip to Young People’s Theatre to watch Seussical, and Taste of Victoria Village (International Language classes performance and the sharing of foods evening). We have much to be proud of at Victoria Village P.S.. Our reading achievement has been noted and I was invited to share what we do at Victoria Village P.S., to raise reading and writing scores. There is no magic formula. It is based on teacher and student hard work (with parent support) and on focused teaching of guided reading and oral language and reasoning skills through rhymes, poetry and carefully chosen literature. We need to continue to focus on supporting our students with inferring and making connections skills especially with non-fiction and other genres such as poetry. In math, we are looking at consolidating basic numeracy skills. We are finding that with the problem solving approach the lack of fluency in numeracy skills is deterring achievement in mathematics. We have our work cut out for us next term! We are grateful to our Kindergarten team for creating an outdoor classroom in the courtyard. We are also proud of our Grade 5 students who have been trained to be “Playground Activity Leaders” to support and teach cooperative games at recesses.

Be a Future Ace We are a Future Ace School, which means that we reinforce good character traits and respectful behaviours. Each month we focus on being the best we can be. We look for students who are acting like Future Aces by cooperating and working together, solving problems using words and accepting help when needed. Parents are warmly welcomed to our monthly Future Ace Assemblies.

November Future Aces- This month we focussed on Empathy! We encouraged the children to show empathy by being a good friend, caring about others and understanding how others might be feeling.

Congratulations to : Conor, Harrison, Mikaela, Leeya, Shakti, Homa, Zhasmin, Gabrielle, Samara, Cheyanne, Ariela, Bala, Tristiaan, Terry, Sitara, Fatema, Meram, Heba, Cindy, Kira, Naomi, Lavanya, Sydney, Brandon, Calista, Lucy, Mustanir, Myra and Amine.

Intramural Floor Hockey Intramural floor hockey is well underway for students in Grades 4 and 5 on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday mornings at 8 :00 in the morning. Games will continue until mid January.

Kindergarten Self-Portraits The SK students in room 101 have been working on their self-portraits. The process begins with looking at ourselves in a mirror to make a line drawing and ends with framing our portraits in a pleasing manner. Students must work with a variety of materials and techniques to create their masterpiece. Over the years parents have remarked that this is a most special piece of work and worth keeping.

Mrs. Thomas’ Class The children in Room 102 are learning all about shapes (squares, triangles, circles, rectangles, trapezoids). To help them remember all the attributes of each shape, they learned a song that they shared with us at our November Future Aces Assembly.

Remembrance Day Victoria Village celebrated Remembrance Day with an assembly of students, staff and parents. Our focus this year was on peace and remembering the sacrifices of others.

Jazz at Victoria Village

The Jazz Performance and Education Centre's Music in the Schools Program sent Aaron Lightstone and Rakesh Tewari to share the history of Jazz music and play for us. The Grade 3, 4 and 5 students were quite entertained by both their knowledge and their skill.

Seussical! Seussical is a play based on the works of Dr. Seuss, a very, very famous children’s author. We, as a school, went to see the play at the Young People’s Theatre in downtown Toronto and we had a fabulous time. The children were entertained by the set, costumes and skilled actors portraying our favourite Dr. Seuss stories right on the stage in front of us. To prepare for seeing the play, we read many of Dr. Seuss’ stories like One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish, The Jungle of Nool, The Lorax, Horton Hears a Who, Horton Hatches an Egg, The Cat in the Hat, Yertle the Turtle and The Grinch Who Stole Christmas. Here are some responses to our readings:

“Oh, the thinks you can think!” Dr. Seuss

Math at Victoria Village is AMAZING and FUN!

3 PART MATH LESSON Part 1: During the Minds On Phase, students are given a question or problem that focuses them on the

math to come. Part 2: During the Action Phase, students work on the problem in groups, recording their solutions and

methods. Part 3: During the Consolidation Phase, students share key solutions and strategies they used to solve

the problem. During math time, students are engaged and have a great time learning the math expectations. They enjoy taking on leadership roles as they share the strategies used to solve the problem. Math has never been this much fun! Halloween in Room 204 wasn’t just about trick-or-treating, it was all about MATH! As a class, we created a piñata a few days before Halloween. Mrs. Remtulla filled it with lots of treats and on Halloween day we opened it up. There were too many goodies to figure out how many each of us would get so we had to put on our thinking caps and do some Math. We sorted the goodies, worked

in groups to count how many of each item we had and then we had to figure out how we could divide the items fairly. Since we have 25 students in our class, it was all about counting by 25’s. We learned that in order for each of us to get 1 of an item we needed at least 25, to get 2 we needed 50, to get 3 we needed 75, to get 4 we needed 100 and to get 5 we needed 125. We had to subtract to figure out the leftovers. Then, we added all the remaining items together and figured out that we could each get 3 more items. Math was full of tricks and treats!

Fire Safety Visits Fire fighter Angela came for a visit to teach all the students about fire safety and fire prevention. Some students had a chance to try on her bunker gear!!! Public Health Visits Victoria Village Our public health nurse, Mrs. Barr, visited Victoria village this month. She taught the kindergartens, grade ones and twos about how quickly germs can spread and how to properly wash our hands. The grade threes learned about stress and how to manage it. The junior classes

played a trivia game as they learned about proper hygiene.

ECO Club The ECO Club will be doing an energy audit each month in our classrooms. They are looking to see that we have our blinds open to let in the sunlight which means we will use less energy and electricity light. They want to see that we have good airflow through our vents and that our vents are not covered with wet mittens and socks. They will also be checking our recycling and garbage to make sure that we are not throwing away things that we can reuse or recycle. We are also strongly encouraged to bring litterless lunches. This means that our lunches contain no garbage (tinfoil, wrappers, paper, or baggies). We need to be using reusable containers and water bottles. Junior Choir Our Junior Choir, led by our Music Teacher, Mrs. Fulton, performed for us for the first time at our Future Aces Assembly. They sang so beautifully that we were all mesmerized. The song was very difficult as it had 3 part harmonies. It was called "Sesere eeye " and is a traditional song from the Torres Strait. The song is about the kingfisher bird that dives into the water and emerges with a fish in its beak. The island of the Torres Straits has a long tradition of welcoming those seeking shelter from from war and uncertainty. Helping those in need is a wonderful expression of empathy, our November character trait.

Dates to Remember: P. A. Day- Friday, December 2, No School for Students! Parents are welcome to join teachers at the Toronto Congress Centre to hear Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speak. Parent Council Meeting- Tuesday, December 6, 6:00 pm Pizza Lunch- Friday, December 9 Raffle Basket Items due (see email sent November 30 and December 4)- Tuesday, December 13 Craft Night- Thursday, December 15, 6:00 pm Future Aces Assembly- Thursday, December 22, 10:30 am, Parents Welcome! Sing a long- Friday, December 23 9:00 am Parents Welcome! Winter Break- Monday, December 26- Friday, January 6, 2017