Community Afterschool Programs

Principal’s Report Where does the time go? I have to say the first part of this school year has progressed in the blink of an eye. Part of that is the pace in which our lives move with all of the de-mands of careers, family, activities, and other commitments. It is certainly no different here at Pitt River. There has been a flurry of activity here over the past month and that pace will continue right up until Spring Break.

One of the great things going on has been our Leadership fundraising efforts. Leader-ship has been running several campaigns over the past month to raise money for a pro-ject in Kenya. Thanks to Mme. Chapell and her Leadership students we had a school wide coin drive that took place from February 3-6, followed by a bake sale February 10-13, and wrapped up with a Movie day on Friday the 13th. The purpose of these fundrais-ing efforts was to purchase goats to help families in Kenya support themselves. One of our students, Sara Parker, will have the opportunity to go to Kenya this summer for 3 weeks to experience a direct impact in that part of the world. Not only will Sara have an opportunity to make a difference through her actions, but she has the amazing privilege of being challenged to learn and grow from her interactions with people from another part of the world. If you would like to support Sara directly, the link is https://fundraise.metowe.com/c/sara-parkers/#/ . While the final fundraising numbers have not been completely tallied up, it appears as though as a community we have raised close to $2000.00. Something to be very proud of!

As well this month, our students have been working hard on their public speaking abili-ties. I have had the privilege of walking into classes and listening to some very creative and well delivered speeches. Speaking and listening are major components of the Eng-lish Language Arts curriculum and public speaking is a great way to demonstrate lan-guage ability. It is amazing to see how well students have done with this and I look for-ward to listening to the school finalists at our public speaking assembly on Friday, Feb-ruary 27th.

Basketball season is wrapping up and we have all of our teams participating in District tournaments this week. Thanks to all of our teachers who stepped up to provide another great opportunity for our students. We have some very talented athletes in this building! We are also busy raising our school spirit and having some fun. Thanks to Ms. Ternan and the Spirit Squad we celebrated all of the awesomeness that makes up Pitt River in our Pep Rally that was held on Wednesday the 25th with a teacher versus student basket-ball game. The energy was great and we had a blast! A reminder as well that our teach-ers are in the middle of writing term 2 reports and that report cards are being sent home on the last day before the break.

Our 30-day challenge for February was finding the “Joy”. With so many great things happening in this community, it is not hard to find things that are joyful and worthy of recognition and celebration. Enjoy the upcoming Spring Break! I hope that you are able to get some quality time in with your children over the two weeks.

Mr. Roos Principal

Home of the Mighty Voyageurs

FEBRUARY 26, 2015

CALENDAR REMINDER FOR MARCH

March 4 - Gr. 5 Parent Night, 6:30-7:30 pm

March 6 - Term 2 Reports Home

March 6 - Last day before Spring Break

March 9-20—SPRING BREAK—NO SCHOOL IN SESSION

March 21 - 28 - Quebec Trip March 23 - School reopens

Coordinator - Heather Roemer Programmer - Dasha Belskaya

Phone : 604-942-0267 Phone - 604-464-0207

Email - hroemer@sd43.bc.ca - dbelskaya@sd43.bc.ca

Principal - Steve Roos Vice Principal - Lindsay Goodridge

Phone - 604-942-0267

Fax - 604—937—8048 Email - sd43.bc.ca/pittriver

Pitt River Middle School 2070 Tyner Street Port Coquitlam, B.C. V3C 2Z1

Inside this issue…….. Calendar Reminder

From the Principal

Team Numbers

Exploration News

School Happenings

Neighbourhood Happenings

TEAM NEWS

T he Grizzlies team is in French speech mode! Students worked very hard drafting their speeches and presentations have begun. They have selected an

array of interesting topics and have been working very hard on their presentations. Students participated in a translink presentation and learned about climate change as well as small steps they can take to increase their own health as well as the health of our planet. The Grizz are also working on a human rights unit in Sciences Humaines. Themes being examined include: Residential Schools, The Holocaust and Japanese internment camps. The Grizz continue to work on positivity and continued to add to the team AWESOME wall. It’s important to notice all the little ‘awesomes’ in life. In Fitness Friday students tried a new game called ‘Clue,’ it was a big hit! Term two was a success and the Grizz students always participate enthusiastically in team activities. Way to go Grizz! You make your teach-ers proud! All the best in term 3!

C ongratulations to the Grade 8 Math Challengers team that re-cently competed in the Competition at the University of the Fraser

Valley. The Pitt River teams consisted of Josh Caldwell, Tobi Bobb, Daveen Yang, Nicole Yen, Divya Muniyappan, Kristian George, and An-drew Wang. The full day competition consisted on two rounds of indi-vidual questions, one team cooperative round, and a face-off competi-tion amongst the top ten students, including Pitt River's own Kristian

George (8th) and Josh Caldwell (9th). Next up is the Provincial Champions at SFU on April 11th. We are very proud of these math students and how well they are representing Pitt River! Thank you to Cooper's Foods in Port Coquitlam and PriceSmart Foods in Coquitlam for generously donating thousands of treats for a special Valentine's RAK. Pitt River students had some fun with a Valentine's piñata (see below) in their Rendezvous classes which was made possible largely thanks to our local business' sup-port.    

E xplorations 8 Eagles just finished their term. Drama 8 with Mr. Driedger pre-sented “Cinderella wore Army Boots” to Mr. Lambert's music class and then

the next day Guitar Music 8 students presented their end of term projects and songs to Ms. Primeau's and Mr Driedger's Grade 8 classes. It was a fantastic two days. n Digital Literacy, with Ms. Dziwak, students presented their “Choose Your Own Ad-venture Project” which included a wide variety of technological pursuits to highlight their Multiple Intelligences: iMovies, layering popular songs to produce mashups, learning to blog, making video games using Scratch, learning code, performing and editing videos, and much more. It was a very creative and enthusiastic bunch! This term new students in Eagles Explorations will embark on the same musical, dramatical, technological and culinary journeys.

LEADERSHIP NEWS

T his year, the Pitt River Leadership Team has planned multiple campaigns to support our Alternative Income campaign for Kenya with Free the Children! We introduced all these campaigns to the school at our Mini We-Day which took place on Feb-

ruary 7th, and we present to you the following dates and campaigns so you’ll know when you can help out by bringing some money to school! We just wrapped up our We Create Change campaign which ran from February 8th to February 13th. It began with classes pitched against each other to bring in as many coins as possible for four days, which was a huge success! If your opposing class won, they would choose something that you had to do for them, so everyone brought in as much change as they could so they could win! Mme Blackburn’s class took the grand prize of a pizza party with a total of $333.19! The next Monday we began our We Bake for Change Bake sale with RV Café, where we served delicious home-baked treats to students in exchange for a couple dollars. We ended our We Create Change fundraiser with a school wide movie day where students picked whichever movie they wanted to watch and ditched their block 5-7 classes to watch it! Along with the concession in the multi-purpose room, it was really fun! The money collected from the campaigns will go to Free the Children to buy goats for Kenyan families in need. Each goat costs $50, and from the We Create Change campaign we were able to buy over 31 goats! A goat can help a family support themselves and break the cycle of poverty by offering them financial stability and alternative income. The opportunities offered by the goat are endless, and will help take one more family out from poverty by sending their children to school or giving them milk and cheese to bring down malnourishment. The goats are the real superheroes here! As well as fundraising for goats, 15% of the proceeds will go to fellow Voyageur Sara Parker, who is traveling to Kenya this up-coming summer with Free the Children and Me to We! She will see how the money is helping firsthand, and report back to the school once she returns. She will get her hands dirty while living in a rural village on the Maasai Mara, and live the life of the local people for three weeks. We are super excited for Sara and for the students of Pitt River to have a personal connection to our fund-raisers! If you would like to support Sara directly, please visit https://fundraise.metowe.com/c/sara-parkers/#/ to donate! Written by: Sara Parker

TEAM NEWS../cont’d.

BAND NEWS On Wednesday, April 29th, our Grade 6 Band students, along with other Grade 6 Middle School band students, will perform at

Pitt River in the gym as we will be hosting the Annual District Band 6 Festival. This event starts at 8:00am and ends at 2:55 pm. These students will be showing off their musical skills.

On Friday April 24th, Grade 7/8 Band students will travel to Summit Middle School to participate in the annual District Advanced

Band Festival. More details to follow. Remember to support our local music stores to buy all your musical supplies. Maestro Lambert Music Teacher Extraordinaire

A REQUEST FROM HOME ARTS

Ms. Primeau, our Home Arts teacher, is asking for donations of extra thread, buttons, craft felt, yarn, knitting needles, grey fleece fabric – polar fleece or sweatshirt fleece, as well as carpet squares in any colour. Any donations would be greatly appreciated. Please bring or send them to the office.

SCHOOL HAPPENINGS

Satisfaction Survey 2014/2015 The Provincial Satisfaction Survey is unique in its scope, size and usefulness to schools. It gathers infor-mation from parents, teachers and students on topics related to school environment, safety, and achievement. The information is used for planning in individual schools and provides a district and provincial perspective. Early in 2015 the Satisfaction Survey will be administered to students in grades 7, their parents, and all school staff. We encourage parents to participate in this survey, as the results are important in identifying and celebrating current strengths, as well as determining where the school needs to focus improvement. The surveys contain standard questions for the Province – in addition, questions from the school and/or district that focus on local conditions or issues may be included. The survey can be completed electronically and can be accessed by parents on the Internet at

https://www.awinfosys.com/surveyfull1/central/main/ParentSurvey.asp

Any computer with an Internet connection can be used, and access to the e-survey is simple and secure. All that is required is a logon number that the school will provide to participants. Provincial, District and School Reports for previous years can be viewed at the same site, without a logon number. For parents who do not have computers in the home, local public library computers may be another option. The e-survey site will be open until April 30, 2015.

“HAPPINESS

WALL”

CREATED BY

THE

STUDENTS IN

THE SKILLS

DEVELOPMENT

CLASS

WELL DONE! !!

SCHOOL HAPPENINGS

OPEN GYM- FREE! Participants have the chance to play a variety of games & activities, regardless of skill or fitness lev-el. These FREE or low cost programs are open to all youth grades 5-8. Each program has a different activity focus, so connect with the school directly or Youth Services for additional information 604-927-7962 or 604-927-7938.

NOTE: Starts on September 20th. Program will not run on District wide Pro-D Days, statutory holi-days & are subject to cancellation due to school functions.

Fridays 3-4:45p m Pitt River Middle

In partnership with Step-by-Step, the United Way, and the School District, Port Coquitlam Youth Ser-vices provides fun, FREE, safe, and supervised activities in various schools throughout the communi-ty. All programs strive to incorporate leadership, mentorship, skill development, as well as communi-ty & environmental projects.

Spring Break Lego® Camps Bricks 4 Kidz, an SD43 Community Schools Community Partner, is offering some great ways to entertain your children for Spring Break. Please view the variety of Lego® Camps and activities that we are offering for Spring Break and more at: www.bricks4kidz.com/coquitlam . .

LOST & FOUND ITEMS

Tomorrow, Friday 26th, will definitely be the last day that lost and found items will be available for parents and stu-dents to claim items. These items are located just outside the gym. On Monday, March 2, all of the items will be bagged and sent to charity. Also, in the office, we have a collection of cell phones, iPods, earphones, keys, glasses, jewellery, watches, and knick knacks that have never been claimed. Please stop by or send your child(ren) to the office to have a look.

KidSport Tri-Cities Spring Used Equipment Sale KidSport Tri-Cities is holding their much anticipated Annual Spring Used Sporting Goods Sale, Presented by Westminster Savings: Saturday, March 28th, from 10am until 1pm Riverside Secondary School, 2215 Reeve Street, Port Coquitlam Admission is by donation or item for the Food Bank Open to everyone! If you or your family is in to sports, we will save you money! A huge variety of High Quality used sporting goods at incredible prices. Everything from bikes and hockey gear to fitness equipment and wetsuits and everything in between. You can outfit a child for hockey (including skates and a helmet) for $100. Lacrosse (including a stick and helmet) for $90. Plus, there’s no tax. All proceeds go to subsidize registration fees for kids from lower income families. More than 1,400 people attended last year…YOU DON’T WANT TO MISS THIS SALE! To make this event a huge success KidSport needs equipment! Families are encouraged to do-nate and drop off their used sporting goods of any kind from March 18 - March 27 at the fol-lowing locations: Port Coquitlam Rec Centre Port Moody Rec Centre Poirier Sport and Leisure Complex Riverside Secondary Thriftopolis - D-2579 Lougheed Hwy, Port Coquitlam If you have used equipment taking up space in your garage or basement, this is a great opportuni-ty to free up some space, donate the equipment (including bikes) and make a great contribution to our community. Please remember to also come by the sale for some amazing deals! FOR MORE INFORMATION, CONTACT: Chris Wilson, KidSport Tri-Cities Phone: 604-341-0241 Email: cwilson630@gmail.com www.kidsporttricities.ca

NEIGHBOURHOOD HAPPENINGS

NEIGHBOURHOOD HAPPENINGS…/cont’d.

NEIGHBOURHOOD HAPPENINGS…/cont’d.

MARCH 9 - 20

WELCOME BACK MARCH 23