February 2015 Virtue: Fairness

In the event of a severe weather emergency, all Catholic Schools will close if the Winnipeg Metro School Divisions close their

schools. Listen for school closures on CBC, CJOB, 99.9 FM, 94.3, 102.3 FM, AND 103 FM. In case of an emergency that requires us to evacuate, students will go to École J.B. Mitchell. E-Blasts will be sent out to all parents in the case of any

school closure or evacuation.

PRINCIPAL’S MESSAGE Dear St. John Brebeuf Families, It’s the halfway point in the school year which is a per-

fect time to reflect on what we as individuals and as a

school community have accomplished thus far, as well as reexamine our goals as we prepare for the remaining

months ahead. An important indicator of achievement for students is the first term report card which was sent

home with students on January 30th. Students are en-

couraged, with help from their parents, to assess where they have excelled or faltered, and make attainable goals

for the second term of this school year. An excellent opportunity for students to

engage in determining their learning and achievement objectives is to attend the

Parent/Student/Teacher conferences

which will take place on Thursday, Febru-ary 19th and on Friday, February 20th. As

in the fall, parents may book conferences by calling Mrs. Gel at 204-928-7450 on or

before February 13th.

Besides our students, there are many

who contribute to making St. John Brebeuf School an outstanding learning

institution. I would like to acknowledge the efforts and sacrifices made by so

many so that St. John Brebeuf School can

continue its mission: Living, Learning and Serving in Christ. I would particularly like to acknowledge our Pastor Father Mark, Teachers, Support Staff, Parents, Parent Council, Parent

Advisory Council, School Board, Knights of Columbus, Finance Committee, Pastoral Council, and all parishioners

that contribute so generously with their time, talent and

resources.

Our Parent Council has been exemplary in their efforts and support of our school via organized hot lunches eve-

ry Thursday, popcorn days, magazine and vegetable fundraisers, Christmas concert receptions, and a delicious

pancake breakfast for the entire school community.

And the year is not over yet! Parent Council along with School Board members also help out with our

Open House by providing snacks and guided tours.

Our Open House will take place on Thursday, February

5th at 7pm. If you know of any families interested in St. John Brebeuf School, please encourage them to attend.

Our best advertising is by word of mouth!

Our celebration of Catholic Schools Week takes place

from February 9 to 12 with the theme “Catholic Schools: Communities of Faith, Knowledge and Service”, three

concepts that are at the heart of Catholic education. An exciting week of events that includes faith activities and

service projects, which together increase our knowledge of our identity as a Catholic school, has been planned.

Some of the highlights include a school

assembly, skating & sledding, and a sock-hop. As well, the grades 7 & 8 will be

downhill skiing at La Riviere while the rest of the school enjoys Voyageur Day.

A complete schedule with details has

been sent home for all these wonderful events. A special thanks to the Catholic

Schools Week and Faith Committees for organizing this year’s activities.

Looking forward, the re-registration pack-

ages for the 2015-16 school year will be

mailed shortly for returning students. A reminder to all parents that the school

has the right to deny a student’s regis-tration at any time in cases where there

are behavioral or academic issues, or if a

move elsewhere is in the best interests of the child in question. Information regarding all fees will

be included with your package. To hold your child’s spot, all forms in the package must be completed fully and

accurately, including the payment schedule form, and

returned to the School Office before March 1, 2015.

The Archdiocese of Winnipeg is celebrating the Centenni-al year of its establishment as an Archdiocese. The cen-

tennial theme is Proclaiming Christ Always. Let us be

grateful for the proclamation of faith over these past 100 years.

Mrs. Laura Carreiro

Principal

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FROM FATHER MARK

Pray, and then pray and then pray some more…

Pope Francis continues to send us pearls

of wisdom. I am in awe of his mind and

his faith, and his comic timing is incredible – makes me want to learn both Spanish

and Italian. Every day when he is in resi-dence, the Holy Father celebrates Mass for

the staff and people in St. Martha’s house. In the past little while he has mentioned a

few times about prayer, and particular

God, the Holy Spirit, in prayer. He said on January 9th, “You can follow thousands of spirituality

courses, thousands of yoga or zen courses and all these things. But none of this will be able to give you the free-

dom as a child (of God). Only the Holy Spirit can prompt

your heart to say ‘Father’.”

This struck me as it is very easy to spiritualize non-Christian and non-God centred practices. We have a rich

tradition within the Christian Church of prayer and pray-ing to God. We have a western tradition, the Latin rite

Church that is very Jesus-centred understanding the real-

ity of his life, his passion and death and resurrection. In the east we have the Byzantine tradition wherein the

mystery of God is faithful to knowing the presence of God the Holy Spirit. In all this we are to know and fall

back on the basic moments of prayers. As we begin the day in our classroom – it should look something like: The

sign of the Cross – in the Name of the Father and of the

Son and of the Holy Spirit – it should lead to some inter-cessory prayers – praying for the Church, the world, our

society and our individual needs, and should conclude with and Our Father, a Hail Mary and a Glory be… If this

is prayed every morning in every class, every day, we will

be tapping into the Holy Father’s concern: that is easy to be part of a closed world.

As we continue in our privileged and comfortable place in

our world, let us be aware of the riches that we have been given by God, and lived out in the Church and let us

continue to hear the words of the disciples on the road to

Emmaus who have realized to whom they were travelling with. “They said to each other, ‘Were not our hearts

burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?’” Luke 24:32

This heart begins to burn when we follow up with our children what we do in school. I invite you to pray with

your children, something as simple as a grace before a

meal, or even the Our Father before bed… then the voice of the Holy Spirit will resound with joy!

Father Mark

PARENT COUNCIL UPDATE

Hi everyone!! Well we got through another very busy

holiday season at school. Wasn't the concert incredible!? The receptions after are always a welcome time for

parents and families to spread Christmas cheer.

They were put together by Mrs. Nicky Louizos and Mrs. Laureen Wilson. Well done!!

The following morning, with The Knights of Columbus pancake

breakfast, Santa and SJB Idol, was

a blast for all too. It wouldn't have been possible without the help

of our wonderful SJB families. Thanks in particular to the organiz-

er of the day Mrs. Danielle Savage as well as volunteer coordinators

Mrs. Marni Kaul and Mrs. Shauna

Filuk. Congratulations to Hayden DeJong (gr.7) for winning SJB Idol

2014 with his talented tap dance routine!

With the thick of winter upon us, Parent Council was thrilled to provide a special day for the entire

school. K-6 enjoyed a fun filled day of activities at the University of Manitoba, and the grades 7 and 8 celebrat-

ed the completion of mid-term exams at Sky Zone.

These days would not be possible without the fundrais-ing efforts of the SJB community. The QSP fundraiser

was a great success, with over $6,500 in sales, and our school receiving commission of approximately

$2,100. We are happy to report that 85% of orders

were placed online, which really reduces the amount of administrative time spent on this fundraiser. Many

thanks to Mrs. Paula Chorney for taking on this huge task.

Mrs. Simone Lambos and Mrs. Shannon Cisneros Parent Council Co-chairs

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PANCAKE BREAKFAST & SJB IDOL

A huge thank you to Mr. Ray Senez, Mr. Mike Garlinski and all of the Knights of Columbus volunteers, as well as school

and parish staff, for helping to make this year’s breakfast and Idol competitions

one of the best yet! What a great array

of talent our students have. It is events like these that represent the wonderful

sense of community that St. John Brebeuf School is all about. Your efforts are much

appreciated.

Mrs. D. Savage,

K of C Pancake Breakfast & SJB Idol Coordinator

Hayden DeJong

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GRAD COMMITTEE

GRAD PIZZA LUNCH GETS SERVED

The 2015 Grad Committee and the

grade 8 students would like to thank all the parents and kids who have ordered lunches towards raising funds to

help support our grade 8 graduation activities this year.

The first Grad Lunch was on Jan. 20th; everything went smoothly and all the kids received their orders without

any problem. We wish to thank Mrs. Gillian Hauser and

Mrs. Darla Christie for their help and for showing us the ropes! We also want to thank all the volunteers who

helped serve the lunches in each class.

Just a reminder the Grad Lunch is every Tuesday from now to the end of February (24th), and then we take a

break for the month of March before resuming again for the month of April (7th) every Tuesday till April 28th.

We will be doing another fundraiser – a wine auction –

in the coming months. Please look for more infor-

mation and details on that in the next newsletter.

GR. 8 FAREWELL - GRAD PHOTOS will be taken on Monday, April 13th. Please mark your calendars.

Thanks for your continued support,

2015 Grad Committee Mr. Anil Kaul, Mrs. Sigrid Duncan, Mr. Rob Lee, Mrs.

Shelley Anderson, Mrs. Bonnie Cadieux

WINNIPEG HARVEST FIELD TRIP On January 12, Miss Viselli’s Grade 5 class spent the

morning volunteering at Winnipeg Harvest. The place

was alive with a real bustle of activity, there were at least

10 other volunteers in the section where they were. The

students were sorting through onions and potatoes, filling

box upon box to be transported to where they would be

needed next. It was a great experience as the students

got to work with some of the regular volunteers and lend

a hand; it was a great example of January’s virtue –

Teamwork/Unity.

OPEN HOUSE

Our annual school Open House will take place on Thurs-

day, February 5th at 7pm. If you know of any families interested in St. John Brebeuf School, please encourage

them to attend this informative evening.

SOCIAL JUSTICE COMMITTEE

Every year, our school helps to support the NEEDS

Centre, which is an organization that provides support and accessible services to immigrant and refugee chil-

dren and their families. Their primary goal is to,

“enhance their integration into Canadian society by providing youth with employment, education and social

recreation programs supported by psycho-social educa-tors.” Among these programs, they have a youth men-

torship program, employment skills training, an intro-duction to Canadian education, youth after school care

and many more.

This is our third year providing support to this wonder-

ful organization. We successfully collected toonies, gifts and food to supply hampers to 12 different families

during the Christmas and holiday season. The Social Justice Committee would like to thank all of the staff,

students, parents, parishioners and volunteers who helped collect, prepare and deliver

these Christmas hampers to the

delighted families. THANK YOU!

The Social Justice Committee

Ms. Craig, Mrs. Hannah, Mr. Suban,

Mrs. McGregor, Mr. Toni

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BOBCAT BEAT

Physical Education

With the advent of the New Year, students from Grades K – 4 have begun their study of manipulation skills. The first skill, ball rolling had students enjoying such games as Monster Ball and Roll You Over. The next unit was ball bounce which had students playing Pirates and Bounce Tag. Near mid February the focus moves to catching skills which includes such games as Prison Ball and Bench Ball. Students in grades 5 – 8 have been learning/developing their skills in the sport of Basketball. This unit will carry over until near the end of this month at which time they will resume their fitness circuit training unit.

Intramurals

Students from grades 2 - 8 are enjoying dodge ball intramurals until mid February, when the grades 2-4 will switch into a Floor Hockey intramural and students in grades 5 - 8 will start Basketball. Students need to remember to walk

down the halls to the gym as well as change quietly before and after their intramural.

Basketball The basketball teams have been selected and the season kicked off in late January. We

have three teams this year (two developmental and one competitive) thanks to our dedicat-

ed staff that put in many hours at lunch, before and after school in order to give our stu-dents the experience of playing on a basketball team. The coaches, Mr. Toni, Ms. Craig, and

Mr. Bueti, wish to extend a thank you to all the players who expressed an interest in this year’s Basketball teams. Congratulations to all athletes!

All of the team’s schedules are listed on the St. John Brebeuf Athletics blog calendar.

Please support our athletes by coming out to watch our Bobcats in action!

Good luck to all teams and have a great season!

Mr. Bueti

Physical Education

Grade 2 Music Haiku

Sound all around us Drumming, dinging, strumming, crash!

Harmony. Freedom.

NOTES FROM THE MUSIC ROOM

The Mass choir will be joining with the St. John Brebeuf choirs to lead the worship for the special Ash Wednesday service on February 18th.

Students in Grades 3-5 will be travelling to hear the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra perform on March 11th . Parents who are interested in volunteering for this event please contact Mrs. Cianflone.

Mark May 7th for the Spring Concert on your calendars! Donations collected at the Spring Concert go equally towards Development & Peace and the Human Kind Academy School in Kenya. Students are beginning to work on selections so please plan to attend and support this worthy cause. Boys’ Choir, Girls’ Choir, Violin Clubs, Guitar Club

and worship groups are rehearsing for spring performances.

Musically speaking, Watch the Music portal for events! Mrs. Cianflone

MASS CHOIR VIOLIN CLUB

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ROOTS OF EMPATHY

Our theme this month is Emotions. Chiaka and Makayla are teaching us that emotions

are a universal first language. All people, everywhere, experience the same four core

emotions of sadness, anger, fear, and happiness, although we experience them

uniquely. Through our baby teachers, we see firsthand that most communication of

emotions is done through non- verbal cues and body language, and this is true no

matter what our age. Students will: understand that emotions need to be expressed,

recognize others’ feelings, take the perspective of another, discuss bullying, and

differentiate among facial expressions and body language of emotions.

ARTISTS IN THE SCHOOL

St. John Brebeuf is fortunate to have received two grants for Artists in the School this year. January 13-16th, the

Kindergarten to Grade 3 classes practiced and performed mimes under the direction of Shannon Guile. January 26-

30th the Grade 4-6 classes were given instruction in performing arts by Megan Mcarton. Thank you to the Parent

Council for helping to sponsor these activities.

CELEBRATE CATHOLIC SCHOOLS WEEK

Activity Reminders:

Monday, Feb. 9 We will kick off our week with a short assembly @ 9:00am

Tuesday, Feb. 10 Skating/Sledding Field Trip to Sir John Franklin Community Club

Wednesday, Feb. 11 Grade 7 & 8 Ski Trip

K-6 Voyageur Day (am) & Sock Hop (pm)

Thursday, Feb. 12 2:00 pm dismissal (After School Care available)

Friday, Feb. 13 In-service Day (no classes)

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SCIENCE FAIR JUDGES NEEDED

The grade 7 & 8 students have finished planning their

topics, and are now at the experimenting phase of their science projects. There are many interesting topics for

this year’s science fair on Thursday, Apr.16th.

If you are not a parent or guardian of a grade 7 or 8 student and are interested in judging our fair during the

morning, from 9:00 - 11:30 am, please contact Mr. Toni

at 204-489-2115 (extentsion 229) or by email at toni@sjbcommunity.ca as soon as possible.

No previous experience judging/teaching science is

necessary to be a judge, just an interest in what our

students are doing! Mr. Toni, Grade 7/8 Teacher

LIBRARY NEWS

I Love to Read Month at the Mabel Skelly Library!

The library will be focusing on helping students choose the right book through the IF CROW Method (Interest,

Familiarity, Comfort, Reason, Others, Want) throughout

the month of February. A new reading program, Passport to Read, for Grade 3 & 4 will be introduced as well as a

Global Fiction Exploration in Grade 5. Grade 6-8 will be exploring Digital Literacy and Global Citizenship in prepa-

ration for the higher standards that project research re-quires in middle school and above. We have also been

busy lining up guest readers to visit the various classes

throughout February. If you know anyone who would be of particular interest to a class and would be willing to be

a guest reader, please contact Ms. Johnson at 204- 489-2115 ext. 239, or email library@sjbcommunity.ca.

Ms. Johnson, Library Tech

HEALTHY SCHOOLS

During the month of January, students

in grades K – 6 had the opportunity to spend the day at the University of Mani-

toba participating in the Mini U program. These field trips centered around being

active, with students engaged in four

different activities during the day. La-crosse, wall climbing, broomball, soccer,

and archery were among the options scheduled for each group. These excur-

sions were generously sponsored by the Parent Council, and organized by the

Healthy Schools’ Committee. Field trips of this nature are

a response to the recently published Healthy Kids, Healthy Futures recommendations from the government

task force on providing more opportunities for physical activity for our children. It is especially important that

our students are encouraged to be active during the win-

ter months, when they are often cooped up indoors for

long stretches of time. Watch for more activity pro-

grams coming in February

and March, also sponsored by our Parent Council, to

promote healthy lifestyles and good habits for our stu-

dents.

The Healthy Schools’ Committee:

Mrs. Campbell, Mr. Bueti, Mr. Polakoff, Mrs. Wolfe

KNIGHTS OF COLUMBUS FREE THROW CHAMPIONSHIP

The K of C St. John Brebeuf Council held their annual youth free throw basketball championship for students

aged 9-14 on January 30th. Approximately 50 students

participated in their respective age divisions, and have the opportunity to progress through local, district and provin-

cial competitions. This rewarding event helps strengthen our school and parish community while providing fun for

both the participants and the volunteers involved.

Thank you! St. John Brebeuf School would like to thank Mrs. Dusanek from the parish office for preparing our newsletter for the

past six years!

Merci beaucoup!

TAX RECEIPTS will be mailed out separately for Tuition, Lunch and BASC at the end of this month.

mailto:toni@sjbcommunity.ca

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CHRISTMAS CONCERTS

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WINTER CLUBS

With winter now upon us, students are enjoying spend-

ing part of their lunch break pursuing their interests in the various Winter Clubs. Here’s a peak at some of the

club activities:

www.sjbschool.ca

The school would like to put a re-

quest out to our SJB community for a gently used wheelchair to have on

hand when students are injured. A donation would be most

appreciated.

FROM THE TECHNOLOGY DEPT. To access a portal, please visit sjbschool.ca and select the grade or specialist area that you wish to

view via the dropdown menu at the top of the page.

Input the school password “bobcats.” http://www.sjbschool.ca/class/kindergarten/ http://www.sjbschool.ca/class/grade-1w/

http://www.sjbschool.ca/class/grade1p/ http://www.sjbschool.ca/class/grade-2/

http://www.sjbschool.ca/class/grade-3/ http://www.sjbschool.ca/class/grade-4m/

http://www.sjbschool.ca/class/grade-4h/

http://www.sjbschool.ca/class/grade-5/ http://www.sjbschool.ca/class/grade-6c/

http://www.sjbschool.ca/class/grade-6k/ http://www.sjbschool.ca/class/grade-7/

http://www.sjbschool.ca/class/grade-8/

http://www.sjbschool.ca/class/library/ http://www.sjbschool.ca/class/french/

http://www.sjbschool.ca/class/music/ http://www.sjbschool.ca/class/phys-ed/

http://www.sjbschool.ca/class/resource/ http://www.sjbschool.ca/class/technology/

Ms. Susan Hill, Technology Teacher

CHESS CLUB

ORIGAMI CLUB - Oscar L.’s (4M) origami crane

KEEP CHRIST IN CHRISTMAS COLOURING CONTEST Congratulations to the following winners of the Knights of

Columbus the Keep Christ in Christmas Colouring Contest:

Categories 1st 2nd 3rd

Kindergarten Michael Kenny Laura Muise Khanh Hoang

Gr. 1 & 2 Gabrielle Beggan Isaac Lavitt Isabel De Klein

Gr. 3 & 4 Adam Cohen Ellie Lee Oscar Lavitt

Gr. 5 & 6 Mia Banmann Alicia McClintock Kaitlyn McDaniel

Gr. 7 & 8 Katrina Stratton Lucien Stratton Breanna Stratton

WRESTLING CLUB

The Debate Club starts later this month...stay tuned!

COLOUR DAYS Colour Days (non-uniform days) in February are:

Tuesday, Feb.10: Students require all outerwear. Skaters require skates and skating helmet in a bag.

K-4 sledders require a helmet.

Wednesday, Feb. 11: Students require all outerwear.

Thursday, Feb. 12: Wear red, pink and white day!