Good Easter Weekend, South Nelson Community! 

One of my personal professional goals for this school year has been to support our intermediate math program in collaboration with classroom teachers.  After trying out a few ideas, we have landed on me taking a group of students each week who have demonstrated mastery in classroom content while other students have more focused time with the classroom teacher to develop deeper understanding of the learning in class.  The main resource my group is using is the University of Waterloo Centre for Education in Mathematics & Computing's 'Problems of the Week' (https://www.cemc.uwaterloo.ca/resources/potw.php).  These sessions have become one of my favourite parts of the week and also lead to really interesting and insightful conversations about how math fits into our lives.  The students are highly engaged and help take our conversations in many directions.  If your grade 4 or 5 child comes home asking you about your internet bill or wants to measure the width of parking lot stalls - or count how many are in a particular parking lot - or asks you how you use math in your work, please let me know!  Along with this, I have started to get more practice with an assessment tool called 'KeyMath' to assess individual students in ten areas of math to see how best they can be supported to gain confidence and overcome specific misconceptions that they have picked up along the way.  Fun stuff!

Thank you to those of you who are sharing podcasts with me.  I love this way of spreading ideas & ways of being that are important to us....and it makes doing the dishes much more enjoyable.  The latest great listen also comes from Brene Brown's 'Dare to Lead' series - Finding Focus and Owning Your Attention with Dr. Amishi Jha (https://brenebrown.com/podcast/finding-focus-and-owning-your-attention/).  I have a few more recommendations in the queue that I will get to in the next little while.

To the details...

• SD8 & South Nelson digital calendar - https://southnelson.sd8.bc.ca/events/calendar.
  • SN PAC Georama plant sale - open now until April 26 through munchalunch.
  • April 22 - Earth Day
  • April 25 - Professional Development Day, no school for students
  • April 27 & 28 - early dismissal at 1:37
  • May 10 - South Nelson Talent Show! at 6:30 - please visit https://southnelson.sd8.bc.ca/events/south-nelson-talent-show  and use the google form to provide sign-up details for your child(ren).
  • June 14 - South Nelson Community Jam Night & BBQ, sponsored by SN PAC - more details to come...
• Information & Registration for Dyslexia Education Education Nights for Parents, Staff, Trustees - https://southnelson.sd8.bc.ca/announcement/dyslexia-education-nights-sd8-parents-staff-and-trustees - note the promo code to attend these for free.
• Online Safety Concern from our Manage of SafeSchools  - Poppy Playtime & Huggy Wuggy
  • Worldwide there have been concerns around children under 12 playing the game “PoppyPlaytime” and the character of “Huggy Wuggy.” The game is meant for youth over the age of 12 and elements of the game have disturbing images andlanguage not appropriate for young children. There is a chance that on yourchild’s YouTube feed, game clips /videos from Poppy Playtime could pop-up ontheir accounts. It is an opportunity for you to monitor your child’s online content and see what games are downloaded on their devices.
  • Poppy Playtime has become a viral issue in England in the past months. I have provided a very thorough website link (pdf) from that country which explains in detail this new viral trend. Also a few YouTube videos that show some of the game/song content. This is not unlike other TikTok and YouTube trends that wehave seen before, but it always disconcerting when it seems to have a negativeinfluence on younger children.
    • https://ineqe.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Online-Safety-Briefing-Poppy-playtime_03122021.pdf
    • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCGQuJPJric
    • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joj3kizsN-0
    • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVENjm3Bjk0
• If you have any concerns please contact your school’s principal.
• Scott Rothermel, Manager of Safe Schools SD8, 250-208-1566/ safe.schools@sd8.bc.ca