Friday, November 2^nd, 2012

Dear Parents/Guardians,

How quickly the second month of school has passed us by!  We would like to thank all parents and community members for your volunteer hours in the month of October and the support for our school in so many ways.  It was wonderful to see the spirit of volunteers at our school during costume parades, classroom activities, floats through the canteen, lunch orders, Helping Hands program, gym days, Student Leadership Club, PAC organized fundraisers/events, sports teams and the book fair.  We could not provide all these great opportunities for students without the continued support of all the volunteers.  We look forward to seeing all of you in the coming months, whether it is through volunteering or participating in some of the activities around the corner.  Please find some updates on upcoming activities as well as reports from October events.

Scholastic Book Fair:  Thank you for supporting our Scholastic Book Fair.  It was extremely successful raising $2231.00 in profit to our school.  This will be used to provide our school with books and material for our library and classrooms.  We appreciate this support and the students as well as our library directly benefit from these materials.

Strong Start/Early Learning Programs Calendars: Calendars for Strong Start and other early learning programs for November can be found at: http://www.earlylearning.prn.bc.ca.  These calendars are posted in the entrances of our school.  If you have children 0-5 years old, Strong Start is a wonderful opportunity for your child/children to be involved in early learning.  This program offers gym time along with centers, snack, stories and resources for parents to use with their children.  Gym times are offered on Tuesday and Friday mornings.

School Photo Retakes:  Mountain West will be in our school on November 15^th for retakes.  This will be done for students who missed the first picture day along with students who would like a retake.  Order forms can be picked up at the office and must be completed prior to retake day.

Dieleman Fundraising:  We will be collecting all orders for the Dieleman Fundraiser from now until November 14^th.  We thank you for your support in this fundraiser.  Proceeds from Dieleman go directly into activities and materials for students.  Proceeds will be supporting the residency of singer/songwriter Paul Hann, who arrives in our school on December 4^th for an 8day stay in our school.

Tumble Books Library:  The school has purchased a two-year license for tumble books on line library.  Families are free to access this website using the Robert Ogilvie login.  If you have a computer or have access to a computer, please log in to www.TumbleBookLibrary.com.   Our username is robertogilvie and our password is books.  You will find a great selection of picture books, chapter books, non-fiction, game/puzzles and National Geographic film clips.  Students will be learning how to use this resource at school in our lab as well.  There really is something for every member of your family, including toddlers, at this site.  We hope that you take advantage of this on-line library.

Outside/Inside Days:  As the weather gets colder, the school would like to remind families of the policy around inclement weather.  Students will remain outside until the weather drops to -15 with or without the wind chill factor.  Many students are complaining that they are cold.  Please remind your children to dress appropriately for outside times.  We encourage students to wear mitts, gloves and boots, as the weather gets colder.  We will be signing out snowshoes at lunchtime on a rotational classroom basis starting on Monday.  This is a great way for the students to get some extra exercise, particularly with all that fluffy white stuff out there.

Parking Issues:  Totem Pre-School has brought to our attention that many vehicles are parking behind their staff parking at the end of the day.  This is blocking in the staff at the pre-school and causing issues for the staff who need to leave for a variety of reasons.  Please be cognizant of the parking area as we work together to provide safe parking practices for our school and Totem Pre-School.  We also ask that driver remember that we are an idle-free zone.  Many of our students and staff have respiratory problems and the fumes from vehicle idling are entering the building and irritating the lungs.

Upcoming Dates To Remember:

Friday, November 9^th:  Remembrance Day assembly at 11:00 a.m.

Monday, November 12^th:  School Closed for Remembrance Day

Wednesday, November 28^th: Early Dismissal Day – school dismisses at 1:41 p.m.

Thursday, November 29^th:  Early Dismissal Day – school dismisses at 1:41 p.m.

Friday, November 30^th:  School closed – parent teacher interviews

Sincerely,

Mrs. Kathy Scheck - Principal

Mr. Karl Peterson – Vice Principal

Robert Ogilvie Elementary

Calendar of Events

Robert Ogilvie Elementary School

November 2012

November PAC News

We have had a busy exciting start to our year!  Thank you to everyone that attended the magic show.  It was absolutely an awesome show and was great to work with John and his crew again this year!  We would like to send a very special thank you to School District #60 Maintenance Department, as we know they are extremely busy but they installed a needed plug in for the show to happen.  The electrician spent the day before rigging up the special power outlet that we needed!  There are also many people that were involved in making this happen.  We couldn’t have done it without each and every one of you.  Thank you to Danial Dowe and Shayne Dool for being our volunteers for the guillotine part of the show ~ you were great!  Thanks to Chris & Amy Plemel for doing up the power point presentation again this year!  Thanks to Leigh-Ann Burgher for getting us the portable screen to be used at the shows and to Systems by Trail for their services!  Thanks to the following volunteers that were there on the day of the shows helping out: Chris & Amy Plemel, Brandy Utz, Brandy MacDonald, Natasha Dowe, Candace Attfield, Karla Stafford, Lynnett Rotlissberger, Logan Fischer, and Sheridan & Bonnie Anderson.  Thank you to the students that were helping out with the show: Ryan Whimp, Mason MacDonald, Noah MacDonald, Hayden Alyward, Rylan Utz, Jayden Utz, Avalon Plemel, Charlotte Plemel, Xavier Plemel, Joshua Anderson, and Rebekah Anderson.  Past students that came to help us out were: Dylan Rotlissberger, Katelynn Rotlissberger, Gage King, and Annilee Anderson.   We raised a profit of $3500.00J.  Thanks to T&T Communications as they sponsored the cost of our magician with their sponsorship of $2500.00 and Totem Mall looked after the hotels for our special guests by donating $250.00 to our show!  Thank you to Panago Pizza as they donated our two door prizes worth $100.00 and also their donations to our volunteers at the event.  These will be handed out at the next assembly on Monday, November 19^th so if you can be here for this that would be awesome.  We are closer to replacing our Wooden Structure but still have funds to raise!  Thanks so much for supporting us in this playground project!

Our Privileged Parking Spot was purchased and announced the night of the magic show so congratulations to the Plemel Family & Stafford Family!  Parents please be aware of where this spot is as it is along the fence beside the handicapped parking space so please be courteous and leave these parking spots available for these families.

Our next fundraiser happening is our Home Based Business & Craft Bazaar being held Saturday, November 17 from 9:00 – 4:00.  If you would like a table you can contact Amy Plemel through our email at robertogilviepac@gmail.com.  Come and shop for the holidays on this day, as everything is under one roof!  We are also having a bake sale and are looking for parents to donate baking for this event.  We need a list of ingredients on all baking items and if it could be brought ready to sell that would be appreciated.  We are also going to be having door prizes, balloon making, raffle draws, canteen with the feature being taco in a bag and so much more!  If you can come and help out by doing a shift at this event we would appreciate any help either on the day of the Bazaar or Friday after school for the setup of the tables and chairs.

We are having a hot lunch program beginning in November and the PAC hot lunch order form will be coming home shortly – we will be doing chili in a bun this month!  If you are interested in helping out please email us at robertogilviepac@gmail.com or let the office know you are interested and they will get you in touch with one of us.

Our next PAC meeting is being held on Tuesday November 6^th, 2012 at 7:00PM in the library and babysitting is provided – we would love to see you there!

Hope you have an awesome November and enjoy the beautiful white snow.  With our mild weather we have been having we can get out and enjoy our snow – after the shovelling is done of course!

Helping Hands

RO’s newest program is off to a wonderful start! I would like to thank all the parents; Holly R, Karla S, Jerry-Lynn P, Brandy U, Anna L and Amber N. who have volunteered their time to help our primary students during the lunch hour.

Helping Hands is always accepting new volunteers for the lunch hour program. With winter already showing it’s ugly face, the younger students could really use a helping hand getting ready to go outside.

For More information about the program or if you would like to become a volunteer please contact Brittany Mycock  at:  mycockbrittany@gmail.com or (250)329-9060).