Principal: Mr. Propp

Vice Principal: Ms. Burrell

Phone: 780-923-2898

Website: www.landingtrailschool.ca

Principal’s Message

December is already upon us! Where does the time go? As I have been reviewing the students’ progress I’ve reflected on all the hard work and commitment to learning at Landing Trail. I encourage parents/guardians to spend time discussing with your child his/her next steps for future growth as well as recognizing and celebrating area of success.

Thank you to our parents for scheduling and attending an interview with your child’s teacher. It is very important that we continue to work together as a team to support your child in achieving many successes throughout his/her Headstart—Gr. 4 school experience. We also look forward to seeing you at our annual concert where students get to show off their other talents and skills. They have been working very hard on preparing for this event, and I am sure you will be delighted with the outcome.

As the winter break approaches and we come to the end of 2017, I want to thank our parents/guardians for supporting their child(ren) and the staff each and every day.

I hope that you feel a sense of peace in our school community. I wish all our Landing trail families a safe and healthy holiday!

Christmas Concert Reminders ECS and Headstart Concert—Tuesday, December 12th at 5:30 pm (doors open at 5:00 pm – no tickets required)

Grades 1-4 present “Ring those Christmas Bells” Thursday, December 14th

Performance times are: 1:00 pm (doors open at 12:30 pm—tickets required)

7:00 pm (doors open at 6:30 pm—tickets required)

We will be accepting Food Bank donations and a Silver Collection at all performances.

Please remember that due to fire regulations, every infant, child and adult MUST present a ticket at the door to obtain entry.

Parents are asked to remain in the gym until after all classes have performed. After your child performs he/ she will return to the classroom until the end of the evening. Students will remain in the classroom for pick up at the end of the concert. If you must pick up your child prior to the end of the concert, please report to the office not the classroom. We will arrange to have your child meet you in the office.

Concert Dress: Christmas concert dress this year is “Dress Your Best”. All students may wear their fancy clothes for the performances. If your child does not have such an outfit, then something slightly more dressed up than their regular school clothes will be just fine. Students are welcome to bring a change of clothes if their attire is not to be worn outside.

Dates To Remember

December 1-15 Bottle Drive

December 1 Hot Lunch - Panago Pizza

December 1-14 Christmas Food Bank Collection

December 5 Logos Christmas Fieldtrip

December 5 Logos Meeting @ 3:30 pm @ LT

December 8 PD Day - No classes

December 11-15 Candy Cane Sales

December 12 Headstart & Kindergarten

Christmas Concert @5:30 pm

December 14 Grades 1-4 Christmas Concert

@ 1 pm & 7 pm

December 15 Hot Lunch - Chili/Bun/Milk

December 21 PJ’s, Pancakes & Caroling Day

Dec. 23 - Jan. 7 Christmas Break - No Classes

January 8 Classes Resume

This year we will be raffling off 2 front row seats for each of our Christmas concert performances. This will include the Kindergarten/ Headstart concert on Tuesday, December 12th and both performances for the Grade 1 – 4 concert on Thursday, December 14th. At a cost of $2 per entry, you will get a chance to have 2 of your seats upgraded to the best seats in the house. Tickets will only be available at the door, with the draw taking place, 5 minutes prior to show time.

Thursday, December 21st

Pancake Lunch and Pajama Day

Thank you to our P.I.A.

Landing Trail School’s Food Bank Drive

Landing Trail School, in an effort to help those who are less fortunate, will again be collecting items for the Gibbons-Bon Accord Food Bank. During the past few Christmas seasons the generosity of the students, parents and staff of Landing Trail School has been amazing with the school collecting thousands of items. The students, staff and parents are asked to again demonstrate their generosity by donating a new toy, game or non-perishable food item to the Food Bank. The items will be collected from Wednesday, December 1 to Thursday December 14th. Thank you to Dr. Singh from Gibbons Dental who will be providing a Pizza Party to the classroom who brings in the most donations. Thank you in advance for supporting this worthwhile cause and please remember that you are more than welcome to make a donation for a teen as well. Please note, we will also be accepting donations at each of the Christmas concert performances. A silver collection will also be available.

Candy Cane Sales

From Dec 11th to 15th the Grade 4 Leadership team will be having a candy cane sale. Candy Canes will be sold for $0.50 each at the morning recess. Dec 11th - Kindergarten Dec 12th - Grade 1/Kindergarten Dec 13th - Grade 4 Dec 14th - Grade 3 Dec 15th - Grade 2/ missed shoppers

Hot Lunch

December 1 Panago Pizza

December 15 Chili

If your child did not order lunch on the above dates they will need to bring a lunch. Also remember to send a healthy snack with all students daily.

Counsellors Corner

The Christmas season is upon us and with it shopping, parties, family traditions, colder weather and shorter days. While many of us strive for the perfect Christmas we can often become overwhelmed with the endless list of to do’s and events. Here are six tips for keeping the holiday season enjoyable and stress free. 1. Keep it simple: We have a tendency to want to fit every Christmas activity and party into the holiday. Sit down with your family and decide what you are going to do or participate in before the season gets started. Keep it simple. 2. Remember routines: This is really important for parents with smaller children. When their routines are continuously broken, they can get stressed out. Both the child and parent! Try your best to keep that routine going as much as possible. 3. Meal Time: This is an important one! Family meal time is important for reconnecting with each other but during Christmas season it’s even more so. It’s a time to unwind at the end of the day and reconnect with each other. 4. Hang on to those family traditions: Every family has some sort of holiday traditions. These traditions can make children feel comforted and secure. They know what to expect. One word of warning though. If your Christmas tradition is actually adding more stress to your family’s life then maybe you need to consider letting it go.

5. Share: Help children to learn the real meaning of Christmas and that it’s not all about getting, but giving. Our children can become stressed just seeing all the commercials and ads telling them they MUST have a certain item to be “ok”. Find ways with your children that your family can give back.

6. Laugh & Relax: I can’t stress this one enough. Find time this Christmas season to relax with your family. Enjoy family game night, watching Christmas classic shows and just being together.

https://www.drgreene.com/perspectives/8-tips-for-keeping-your-children-stress-free-this-Christmas-season/

Bottle Drive

Landing Trail School will be collecting bottles from Nov 30th to Dec 15th. Proceeds from the bottle drive will go towards supplying Christmas Hampers for families in need.

The Health Champions Team are collecting EMPTY Windex Spray bottles (with the sprayer) as well as EMPTY, non-squished 4L milk cartons with the lid for a special event in the new year. We are looking for 40 Windex Bottles and

2 milk cartons. Thank-you!

Congratulations to the following grade 4 students for their diligence is fulfilling

their duties in Safety Patrol. Thanks for keeping our sidewalks safe!

Taylor, Keegan & Jason

Scholastic Book Fair: Thank you to everyone that supported and helped out with our November Book Fair. The support of our staff, students, and parents brings continued success to the book fair. We sold over $ 3000 in books which has given us almost $1400 in new books for our library and 60% back in credits to purchase other materials for our school! Congratulations Parker Worts, our winner of the draw during the Book Fair! Both Parker and his teacher, Mrs. Sikora received $25 worth of books from the fair. Watch for our next Book Fair in March 2018! Library Update: All books are due December 8, 2017. Students can resume taking out books when we return in January.

www.landingtrailschool.ca Page 6

2017-2018 SCHOOL FEES

The 2017-2018 School fees are as follows:

Student Agenda (Grade 1-4) $8.00

Additional Fees that may be applicable:

Grade 3 Recorder $10.00

Grade 4 Swim Program $45.00

Logos Fee $15.00

Headstart Fieldtrip Fee $100.00

Kindergarten Fieldtrip Fee $100.00

All Cheques payable to Landing Trail School

Reminder:

The absentee check is an automated callout system. Student absentee checks are done daily. Please notify the office of your child’s absence @780-923-2898. If your calling after hours, please be sure to leave a message including your child’s name, class and reason for the absence.

Medical Alerts We would like to remind parents that we have a number of children who suffer from peanut allergies. For this reason we are asking you to please NOT INCLUDE peanut butter or items that contain nuts in snacks or lunches that are being sent to school. We appreciate your efforts in helping us to keep all of our students healthy!

Please ensure that all winter clothing including mittens, toques, boots and extra clothing are labelled clearly with your child’s name.

STUDENT SAFETY

For your child’s safety please use designated sidewalks, and look both ways before crossing the street. If your child will be riding a bike, please remind them to dismount their bike and walk their bike across the road using the cross-walks. If you are dropping children off, please do not do so in the Staff Parking lot immediately to the west of the building. This is a tremendous safety concern. Parents are welcome to park in the gravel parking lot to the west of the building.

Walking/Town

Parents are asked to ensure students do not arrive any earlier than 8:25 a.m.

Healthy Interactions

Healthy Interactions - Do you have a question /concern? Not sure whom you should talk to? We hope that the following chart will provide some guidance.

As a General Rule: Approach the person closest to the concern first.

Classroom Issue or Child Progress: Child’s teacher

Program Issue: Person in charge of program

Playground Student Issue: Supervisor (wear blue or orange vests)

Parent Issue: Child’s teacher (to raise awareness) Mr. Propp or Ms. Burrell

Bus Ride Issue: Child’s bus driver

Bus Stop Issue: Transportation office (Donna or Sherry @ 780-939-4341)

Nutrition Program

Our Nutrition Program provides students with healthy snacks and lunches throughout the year. Fresh fruits and veggies, yogurt, cheese and other nutritious snacks and lunch items will be available to students when needed. Once again an immeasurable Thank You to all parents, businesses and staff that helped to make sure our program was a success last year. The continued success of this program will rely heavily on donations. We hope that we will continue with our old partnerships and form many new ones as well. Tax receipts will be issued for any donations of $25.00 and over.

Thank you for your continued support!

POWER SCHOOL PARENT PORTAL

PowerSchool has recently made some exciting

updates to their platform that includes enhancements

for teacher gradebooks that will affect Sturgeon

Public School Division schools. Teachers will transi-

tion to the updated gradebook over the course of the

2017/2018 and 2018/2019 school year. During the

transition, we anticipate no changes to what parents

and students see in the PowerSchool Parent Por-

tal. To support your continued navigation and use of

the PowerSchool Parent Portal, an updated User

Guide will be shared in the coming months. Thank

you.

End of Day Dismissal

Often at the end of the day, there is a lot of confusion in the front of the school as we are trying to figure out who is on the busses and who we need to account for. If you are picking your children up after school, we are to ask that you wait in the foyer or at their dismissal door until the second dismissal bell goes. Please, do not wait outside the classroom. When the town student dismissal bell goes, students will be directed to go to the foyer, or you may go to the classroom to pick them up.

From the Transportation Department:

Winter is coming and with it the chance that the buses may not run on time or not at all. Sign up for our email alerts that lets you know when your child’s bus is running late or not running at all.

The following link will take you to the Sturgeon Public School Division webpage that informs parents about the sta-tus of their children’s bus. http://www.sturgeon.ab.ca/Bus%20Status.php

At the bottom of that page is a notice that reads Receive Transportation Update by Email.

Select the bus number or numbers that your children ride on and then enter your email address.

Once that is completed select the subscribe button.

Inclement Weather

Recess

The school staff encourages students to be outside during morning and noon recesses (unless the temperature is colder than -20ºC with wind chill). Parents are responsible to ensure that children come dressed appropriately for the weather. Hats, toques, head-bands, ski-pants, gloves or mitts and snow boots are essential for outdoor activities. Please label all outerwear including boots and mitts.

Transportation

Parents are encouraged to ensure that their children who are riding the school bus are properly dressed for the weather conditions. School bus service may be cancelled due to inclement weather, which includes:

· A weather forecast temperature indicating that the temperature is equal to or less than -40 degrees Celsius, as forecasted at the Morinville weather station.

· A school bus operator determines that, in his/her opinion, road or climatic conditions in his/her area of service would make operation of the school bus unsafe.

Not Sure if your child’s bus is running?

Check out the Transportation website at: http://www.sturgeon.ab.ca/Bus%20Status.php

Sacrament Preparation classes for the

Gibbons/Bon Accord area.

This includes First Communion and

Reconciliation with the Roman Catholic

Sacred Heart Parish in Gibbons.

Please contact Shawna Stelfox for more

details at: 780-923-3346

Classes will start in February

Bon Accord & Gibbons Food Bank cutoff date for Christmas Hamper requests will be November 30th. Please call 780-923-2344 before this date to ensure you are on the list. Christmas hampers will be distributed on De-cember 16, 2017 starting at 9:30 am.

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