Hello families,

Welcome to a new week! I can’t believe October is rolling by quickly and here we are already at mid-month. At this time of the year, it’s great to see classrooms settling in, building community, and moving forward with some great learning

Last week’s highlights include:

• District Cross Country run was a big hit! Our students had a great showing and did fantastic! Big thanks to Ms. Douglas for organizing.
• Outdoor learning continues for many of our classes with weekly forest days (for now, though, staying close in the school yard), walking days, and exploring the local environment.
• Environmental education continues for many classes. Students are engaged in projects on biomes, life cycles, seasonal changes, and local and global impacts. Wildsafe BC visited the Gr. 4/5s last week and will be returning this week for other classes
• Food cycling is well underway, as is our recycling initiative
• Classes are beginning to work on our school wide literacy goal of improving student writing. Students are engaging in story workshops, word studies, real- life writing, and personal reflections. Often writing is tied to class experiences, such as Mrs. Bonikowsky’s class workshop scenes from Cottonwood Lake.
• Mrs. Spark’s class is working on a calendar contest along the theme of “What does community mean to you”?
• Mrs. DeSousa’s class welcomed Nelson Leaf’s players to the classroom to support literacy, math and play some floor hockey. This will be a regular occurrence for the next few weeks
• Gr. 2/3 students made popsicle stick bridges

A few pieces of information/reminders for you:

1. Our efforts to be bear aware – As you know, the Grizzlies are still in the area, and this is a significant concern. We do have apple trees on the property, and to mitigate the attractant these are to bears every year, we will be removing them. Thanks to families and community members who have come to help pick the apples this fall. Please let me know if you have any questions about this.
2. Emergency Preparedness – October is emergency preparedness month. We will be practicing various drills to ensure safety around the school. See this blog post for more information on the upcoming drills: https://southnelson.sd8.bc.ca/blog/upcoming-emergency-drills
3. Halloween is coming! This will be a fun day for all and it is always exciting to see the fun costumes. As you discuss and plan your child’s costume, please keep these expectations in mind: https://southnelson.sd8.bc.ca/blog/halloween-expectations-0  
4. Scholastic book orders were sent home in some classes – please return by the due date
5. Purdy’s chocolate orders were sent home last week. Due date Nov. 20: https://southnelson.sd8.bc.ca/announcements

Some upcoming dates (you can also find these posted on our calendar: https://southnelson.sd8.bc.ca/events/calendar)

1. Oct. 18 – Indigenous Guest/storyteller: Dan Nanamkin. Parents welcome to attend!
2. Oct. 20 – ProD day NO SCHOOL
3. Oct. 26 – 6-7pm (zoom) Online parent engagement night “Mental Health in Schools” (https://www.sd8.bc.ca/events/online-parent-engagement-session-2)

Family learning resources:

Here are some resources to help you support the learning at home this week:

1. The Great Shake Out - This week we will be having an earthquake drill. You may want to review as a family how to be earthquake prepared: https://www.shakeoutbc.ca/media-resources/general-preparedness-information/

That’s it for today!

Enjoy your week,

Mrs. Snell