The Huron Eco-Team is organizing a Winter Walk to School Day on Wednesday February 26th.  Walk to school and bring your own mug for a free Hot Chocolate when you get here (or on sale for $1.00 if you don’t bring your own cup).  Hot chocolate will be available beginning at 8:30am at the front of the school.  Remember if you live too far away to walk all the way you can park a few blocks away from the school and walk the rest.  We look forward to seeing you outside and walking on February 26th.

Mark your calendars for Thursday February 27th, when we’re having our annual Dance-A-Thon fundraiser!  Pledge forms and envelopes have been sent home and we’re looking forward to having lots of fun together that day. We’ll send out the schedule for the day shortly – parents/caregivers are welcome and encouraged to join us and boogie.

We are raising money for two great causes; a SMARTBoard for our Library which will complete the set-up we’ve been working on for our technology lab (which includes a laptop computer, projector, speakers … and now the SMARTBoard) and we’re also fundraising for S.T.E.M. resources (resources to support the teaching of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) across all grade levels.

Please remember to check Lost and Found frequently – and the students are regularly reminded to make sure ‘found’ items get to the Lost and Found.  We will be donating all items in Lost and Found to charity again at March Break.

If anyone has an old skating helmet at home that you don’t need any longer we are looking for donations to the collection we have here at the school.  As you know, we have our Skate Days starting next week and there are always students who need to borrow a helmet in order to participate.

If you have any helmets in good condition that you could donate to the school we would be very grateful!  Please bring them to the school office or directly to Mr. D’Onofrio in the gym.

And although the need for skates isn’t quite as great as our need for helmets, we would also be happy for any donations of old pairs of skates.

Beginning next week, Room 4 is going to have some construction done in it as we start to make the transition towards having the Full Day Kindergarten program here at Huron Street Jr. P.S. next year.  There is going to be a washroom added, as well the cubby area is going to be retrofitted to meet the standards for a Kindergarten classroom.

During this time Room 4 will be completely off limits to students, and a plan is in place for the staff, students and programs that usually use Room 4 to move to alternate spaces.

A huge THANK YOU to all families who have donated DVDs, books, games, and other items for use in our lunchroom program.  Those items are invaluable – especially when the students have to stay indoors at lunchtime. Please do continue to keep this in mind – we are always happy to take donations.

All Primary students (Kindergarten to Grade 3) have started the Blue Spruce Forest of Reading program.  They will be read the books by their teachers, discuss them in class and written responses will be done answering a comprehension question and/or drawing of favourite character or part of the story.  Everyone is very excited to be starting this 10 week program which has been set up and will be supported by our school Teacher/Librarian, Mrs. Summers.  We will be voting for our favourite book in April during a culminating activity.  Yeah…Blue Spruce!!

The Forest of Reading® is Canada’s largest recreational reading program! This initiative of the Ontario Library Association (OLA) offers reading programs to encourage a love of reading in people of all ages. The Forest® helps celebrate Canadian books, publishers, authors and illustrators. More than 250,000 readers participate annually from their school and/or Public Library. For more information please check out the website: www.accessola.org