December 19 , 2013 Published Weekly / Issue - 15

Principal: Jeff Crane Vice-Principals: Kurt Chin, Shari Green-Brown

Office Administrator: Raj Dhanota Secretaries: Esther Ching, Cathy Giannopoulos, Dawn Hazel,

Jane Sauer

Superintendent: Kathleen Garner Trustee: Gerri Gershon SAC Chair: Ossama El Sarraff SAC Vice-Chair: Mariam Afzaal

www.tdsb.on.ca CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT ATTRIBUTE December: Kindness & Caring

TPPS-ON-LINE

Please visit the Thorncliffe Park Public School Website at:

schools.tdsb.on.ca/thorncliffepark/ You will find resources for parents and students, teacher’s blogs and websites,

community links, Parent Council meeting agendas and minutes, weather reports and lots

more information!

The Safe Arrival Program is in place to help ensure the safety of Thorncliffe Park

students. This is a 24-hour call-in system where parents can leave a message to let the

school know that their child/children will be absent. Here is how it works:

416-396-2460 Press 1 for Safe Arrival

Press option 1, if your child is in grade 1

Press option 2, if your child is in grade 2 or 3

Press option 3, if your child is in grade 4 or 5

Date Time Details

Monday, January 6 1:00p.m-3.25p.m. 3:25p.m-4:25p.m.

Grade 3 – Skating (Armus 3I) Boys Basketball Club Gym B/C

Tuesday, January 7 8:15a.m.-8:45a.m. ALL DAY

11:40a.m-12:30p.m 12:45p.m-3:15p.m

Grade 4 - Curling Club (Gym A&B) Grade 4 – Toronto Botanical Garden (Hoover) Junior Choir Rehearsal Grade 3 – Skating (Da Cruz 3H))

Wednesday, January 8 7:45a.m-10:00a.m. ALL DAY

Grade 4 – UCC Partnership (Nicholls) Grade 4 – Toronto Botanical Garden (Kelly)

Thursday, January 9

8:15a.m.-8:45a.m. 8:45a.m-11:15a.m

Grade 5 – Curling Club (Gym A&B) Grade 3 – Skating (Chong 3J)

Friday, January 10

Dear Thorncliffe Park School Parents, We would like to extend our greetings and wishes for a peaceful and a happy holiday to you and to your family. Also, we would always like to hear from you and communicate with you through our e-mail address (info@tpsac.ca). You can visit our school council website and provide us with your feedback so that we can improve. Also, if you have any idea(s) or useful link(s) that would benefit our children and other parents, please let us know so that we can share it with the rest of our parents through our website (http://www.tpsac.ca). Regards, Ossama El Sarraff Chair, TPC, Thorncliffe Park School Council. Please join us for our upcoming meetings. The dates are: January 15th, 2014 February 19th, 2014 March 19th, 2014 April 16th, 2014 May 21st, 2014 June 18th, 2014

IMPORTANT SAFETY

INFORMATION

We are asking ALL parents and visitors to our school to enter the building through the FRONT DOORS and SIGN IN at the OFFICE. Please DO NOT enter the school from Door 5, 6, or 7 at the back of the school. Thank you for your cooperation.

On November 8th, 2013 one of the largest typhoons ever recorded ripped through the Philippines. 12 million lives are at risk and over 4 million children are in danger. These children and families need help! Ms. Hoover challenged her grade 4 class to fill the big box full of food to give locally, and to raise over $100.00. Ms. Hoover promised to die her hair a rainbow and sing O' Canada over the P.A. if they were successful and reached their goal. Mustafa from 4F gets special mention for his family's donation of $100.00 on the first day of the drive. Together we have raised over $139.00 and filled a few boxes of food. Together we can and did!!!!!

Student Buddies

On Friday December 13th Ms. Beretta’s Grade 4 class and Ms. Hozy’s Grade 2 class celebrated their successful Buddy Partnership together and made some holiday crafts.

The Thorncliffe Park Library Update Our school library is a very busy place. This term we’ve hosted a book fair, a storyteller and celebrated our very own student illustrator! Thank you to all of our students, parents and volunteers who helped to make our Fall Scholastic Book Fair, the most successful yet! For every two books sold, we were able to purchase a new

title for our own school library! The Thorncliffe School library is one of the most current and diverse in our school

board. Our goal is to keep students reading with the titles they are most interested in and with resources that support their learning.

This month in the library, our grade one students were treated to a day of stories told by Storyteller Cheryl Thornton.

Students heard and helped to act out such winter folktales as The Mitten and Stone Soup. We look forward to more performances in the New Year.

Congratulations to Tooba Rahim for having her illustrations published in a real live picture book! Tooba, a grade four student, has been working for over a year with author Nicole Lunstead and her mentor Mr. Haemel to create illustrations for Ms. Lunstaed's latest book "Max the Master Chef". Tooba presented the story and discussed the process of illustrating to Ms. Hopkins' grade four class and Mrs. Salerno's grade three class. Tooba even autographed a copy of "Max the Master Chef" and donated it to our library!

Adina Selvananthan (grade 4) and Shabnam Ali Sabry (Grade 3) have both won a book prize from the TDSB's Just Read It! site. Both girls were randomly selected for simply sharing their thoughts about their favourite book. Just Read It is an online forum for students, teachers and TDSB families to engage in the joy of reading and share reading experiences with one another. Have you read any good books lately?

Do you have a favourite title to share? Click the link and make your submission. You could be next month's winner! http://www.tdsb.on.ca/AboutUs/Innovation/JustReadIt.aspx The holidays are here. What a perfect time to curl up with a great book!

TPPS STAFF AND STUDENTS GIVE BACK!!

This month our school has been involved in a Holiday Giving Drive. We decided to aim high and focus on giving locally, globally AND environmentally. Giving LOCALLY to our own Thorncliffe families in need was important to us so we collected food items for the neighbourhood food bank. So much was collected that we needed two separate pick up days! Giving GLOBALLY was our attempt at helping people in need in the Philippines after November's devastating typhoon. We made money contributions which will be donated to the Red Cross. (Stay tuned for the total amount collected.) Giving ENVIRONMENTALLY was our attempt to address our responsibility to the Earth and doing our part to care for and protect this beautiful planet we call "home". Children were asked to write down and share a "promise" they felt in their hearts. Some examples were: "I will walk to school," "I will turn off lights when I am not in the room," "I will stop wasting paper. I will reuse it first," and "I won't step on worms." What great ideas! This is definitely the season for giving and sharing and we at Thorncliffe have done just that. Thank you to our students and families for contributing to our Holiday Giving Drive.

We had a wonderful staff luncheon last week and the Thorncliffe Staff donated over 85 new unwrapped toys for the CTV Toy Mountain drive and delivered it to the Marshall's-on-Laird drop off center.

Look What’s Happening in Our AMAZING SCHOOL!!

Our Trees Students in the Eco Art Club participate in earth friendly art activities. We re-use different types of scrap materials to create works of art. These works of art are always connected to nature and we are always learning about ways that we can respect and care for our world. During the fall months some of our grade 2 students along with students from Ms. Biback’s class, worked enthusiastically on a big bulletin board display about Thorncliffe Park’s trees.

Inspired by “The Giving Tree” By: Shel Silverstein and all our wonderful trees! Shel Silverstein wrote a beautiful and touching story about a boy and a tree. The story is called, “The Giving Tree”. This story made us think about our own trees, the trees that grow all around our school and courtyards. In our Eco Art Club, we had an opportunity to walk through the school grounds and courtyards getting to know the trees. We learned about the different kinds of trees and their names. In our school we are very fortunate to have outdoor spaces where we can appreciate nature and all the amazing trees. In warm weather our trees give us a pleasant place to read our books or to be inspired to paint and draw pictures. We can sit back and listen to the chattering of birds and squirrels who make their homes among the trees’ leafy boughs. Now that the weather is changing, our trees have lost their leaves. Their branches are bare, and they are quietly preparing for a long winter’s sleep. When springtime comes again, buds will appear and green leaves will cover Thorncliffe Park’s beautiful trees! Eco Art teachers: Ms. Therien, Ms. Ball, Ms. Reese

Dear Thorncliffe Park Parents,

We are working on teaching our students NEW and BETTER ways to say things! When we find a better way to describe or say a word we use every-day we call that new word a “Million Dollar Word”. Our students are then encouraged to use and find that word in other classes, at home, in books and when they speak and write. For example: A million dollar word for ‘nice’ would be ‘fantastic’. A million dollar word for ‘big’ would be ‘gigantic’. Mr. Crane is making million dollar words too! He is giving each grade a new million dollar word to define and use each week. This week Mr. Crane’s million dollar words are: Grade 1 and 2 – Joy Grade 3- Peacefulness Grade 4 and 5 – Tranquility Listen for your children to use them at home! Talk with your children about what the words mean and how you say them in your first language! Encourage your children to use them at home and you try to use them too! That way we can all develop million dollar vocabularies! Here are the Million Dollar Words we used for the last 2 weeks. Week #1 Grade 1 and 2 – Kindness Grade 3- Responsibility Grade 4 and 5 – Empathy Week #2 Grade 1 and 2 – Excited Grade 3- Respect Grade 4 and 5 – Acceptance

Thorncliffe Park’s Holiday

Sing-a-Long On Wednesday, December 18th the Music Department organized a

seasonal school holiday sing-a-long. All our students and staff had a

wonderful time singing Holiday songs and some participated in cultural

dances.

In Mr. Chong’s grade 3 class, students were asked to working

in groups to discuss and make informed estimates on the

capacity of each labeled container.

Using anchor charts to help them with their

estimates, students discussed their thinking

and took their own initiative to construct a

t-chart to organize and record their answers.

Group work is an essential skill to have in Mr.

Chong’s class. Students learn to actively listen,

converse, and negotiate their ideas to come up

with their solutions.

Afterwards, their thinking is recorded on paper

to be orally shared with the rest of the class. Different strategies

that are learned in class were used during the group work portion of

the activity. Some may have drawn pictures, while others might have

used charts to organize their ideas. At the same time, many

students also used straight arithmetic to come to a final solution.

Different strategies that make the most sense to students

are encouraged to show the rest of the class that there are

many different ways to attain a right answer in math.

Once completed, estimates that were

made for each container from each

group were recorded on the white

board. Comparisons were made

between containers and group

answers.

Afterwards, as a class we measured the capacity of each

container using water and a graduated

cylinder. We then discussed when it is

most appropriate to use mL and L depending on what object

we are measuring. All in all, Mr. Chong’s class had a

wonderfully wet time sharing our love of math by working

together and having fun. Great job everyone!

En Route to Employment

Are you a person with lived experience of poverty, homelessness, mental health issues, domestic violence and/or

immigration issues?

Are you interested in getting back into the workforce?

If you are interested in work in food services, horticulture or social services, En Route to Employment may be an

opportunity for you.

YOU GET:

12 weeks of intensive training that will prepare you to enter the workforce

Training in communication, leadership, conflict resolution, facilitation and in diversity issues

A small cash honorarium of $60 per week for participating

A TTC Metropass

A hearty lunch on the days you are training

A connection to others who have similar experiences and a desire for change

A possible connection to employment in the social enterprise sector

YOU GIVE:

Your time (3 days a week) between 10:00 am and 3:00 pm from January 22nd

to April 16th

2013

An ability to work well with others and a respect for diversity

Your commitment to finding employment

If you have a desire to work and be engaged in your community, please submit a letter (legibly written or typed)

detailing why you would like to be a part of En-route to Employment, how long you have been unemployed, what

type of work are you are interested in and any volunteer or community involvements you have had. Letters should

be submitted by December 18th

2013 to:

WORKING FOR CHANGE

1499 QUEEN STREET WEST, Suite #203

TORONTO, ON M6R 1A3

FAX: 416 504-8063

E-MAIL: dawnmarie@workingforchange.ca

An Information Session will be held on January 7th

2014 at 1:30 pm at the Working for Change (1499 Queen Street

West, Suite 203). Attendance at this session is encouraged, but not mandatory. TTC tokens will be available.

Funded by the City of Toronto

Here are Some Educational Websites to Try Over The Holiday

http://www.hzsd.ca/c%26i/Learning%20Resources/Math%20Resources/Grade%203%20Math%20Websites

http://ca.ixl.com/math/grade-3

http://www.mathplayground.com/

http://www.coolmath-games.com/

http://www.nelson.com/mathfocus/grade3/student/tryout.html#ch1

http://www.aaamath.com/g3_12bx1.htm

http://www.mathgoodies.com/lessons/vol1/perimeter.html

http://www.linktolearning.com

http://www.funbrain.com/index.html

http://www.amathsdictionaryforkids.com/

Events To Look Forward To:

Monday, January 6th – First day back to School!