Weekly Update: March 6, 2015

Hello everyone! Wowsers! What a super busy week. In addition to all of regular classroom work, the school was buzzing with events this week. The following are a few highlights. **Warning: Long post with lots of pictures . . . items to note for this week are at the bottom of the post, so be sure to scroll all the way down.

We started the week with some exciting news that I have been waiting to share. Wilhauk Beef Jerky (Alberta Meat Packers) donated $1,000 for a TV screen and picture frames for our front foyer. As noted awhile ago, the TV will host our announcements, news items and picture slideshows of events around the school. The special snap in picture frames will be for displaying student art work by class on a rotational basis. A BIG THANK YOU goes out to Trent Wilhauk for making that donation!

Our grade 4s finally got to go skiing on Monday. Check out Mr. Henderson's blog for some great photos . . . http://www.rbespe.blogspot.ca/ .

On Tuesday we had these fabulous guests in for pizza with the principal. Lots of great conversation.

On Wednesday, we had our SPELL-A-THON kickoff assembly. Mrs. Tewitz and Mrs. Forchuk, as organizers of the event, shared how the spell-a-thon will work and showed and shared all of the prizes that can be won. The test will be on March 19th. There is still lots of time to practice and get your sponsors! Money will be due on Monday, March 23.

An extra special thank you goes out to Dairy Queen for donating an ice cream party to the winning class, Tim Horton's for donating a free donut, cookie or muffin to each student who gets 100% plus five $5.00 gift cards, Florida Pizza for donating 2 large pizzas, Subway for donating seven $10.00 gift cards and Home Hardware for donating outside play items.

Thank you ladies for getting this organized! It is a huge undertaking and is very much appreciated. The above photo shows all the prizes and all the local businesses and how they are supporting this event.

On Thursday was our Family Dance and Cake Walk. Oh what fun was had by all. Thank you to all the volunteers who worked hard to make this event happen. It was a wonderful community event and a great fundraiser for both the grade 4 Drumheller trip and our school. Enjoy the following pictures!

Google Summit:

Three of our Grade 4 students got the chance of a lifetime to attend a student Google Summit conference on their day off. We all learned so much and can't wait to teach others what we have learned. Thanks for a great day Kiara, Riley and James!

And last but certainly not least was our RBES Grade 4 girls floor hockey tournament. We hosted other schools and had two teams of our own. Congratulations to the gold team who won the Bronze Medal and the Blue team who won the Gold Medal. Both teams played their hearts out and there were a few very close exciting games. Thank you again to all the volunteers that came out to help to make events like this possible. A couple of extra special thank yous to: Mr. G for reffing - nice to see you back; Mr. Henderson and Mr. Beck for coaching the girls and Mr. Henderson for organizing the tournament;  as well as all the staff who baked and donated goods for the concession. Last but not least I'd like to thank Mrs. Horrocks, her daughter and my 3 children. They put in tremendously long hours in concession prep on Friday and worked all day Saturday. We couldn't have done it without your help!

What to know for this week:

• Klondike Relay and Grade 3/4 Boys Floor Hockey practices start.
• Short assembly on Friday: Student of the Week and one class presentation.
• Bantam B Hockey Game on Friday for a few classes.
• Magical Munsch School Tour on Friday at 1:30. All parents are welcome to attend.

PRE-K and KINDERGARTEN for 2015-16

More information will be coming out soon regarding PK and K meetings for next year. Registration forms are available in the office. PK is $800 for the year and K is $110. Black Gold will be doing online fee payment this year with the option to pay $80 per month for PK. A request for fees will be sent out in April. Registration preference spots will be given to those whose fees are paid. This is a new policy across the district. In order to determine accurate class numbers and planning for next year, please get your registrations in as soon as possible. If you have any questions, please call the office or send me an email.

POWER ANNOUNCER

We have a new addition to the Power School portal. It is called Power Announcer. Attendance phone calls will be sent out immediately by the system via automated voice messaging and text messaging.

Next week we will be accessing the email feature and all office emails will be sent out through Power Announcer. This system also allows us to send out emergency info, bus cancellations etc to all parents in less than a couple of minutes to your phone, SMS and email

**It is very important to keep your information updated in the office. If you have phone number changes or email address changes, please let the office know asap. Thank you for helping to keep our communication system accurate.

More information items to follow very shortly by email.

Have a great week,