Parent Update February 17 – February 20 – Connect Charter School

Connect Charter Family Weekly Update

February 17 - February 20

Important Updates

🍫 School Council Appreciation

  • Thank you to School Council for the thoughtful chocolates this week.

  • Our staff and bus drivers truly appreciated the kind gesture — it was so thoughtful!


🏫 School Closed – Family Day

  • Family Day (No School) – Monday, February 16


📚 Read-A-Thon Spirit Week

  • Join us for Read-A-Thon Spirit Week from February 17–20!

Theme Days:

  • Book Character Day – Tuesday, February 17
    Dress as your favourite book character.

  • PJ Day – Wednesday, February 18
    Wear your pajamas and bring a favourite book and stuffy.

  • Book Quote Day – Thursday, February 19
    Wear your favourite quote from a book.

  • Genre Day – Friday, February 20
    Dress to match your favourite genre:

    • Mystery – detective, spy

    • Fantasy – wizard, knight, dragon

    • Sci-Fi – alien, astronaut

    • Horror – spooky (school-appropriate)

    • Romance – hearts, pink

    • Historical – from a different time period

    • Sports – jersey, team shirt, uniform


🥪 Fun Lunch & Fundraisers

  • Fun Lunch – Boston Pizza – Tuesday, February 17

  • Hot Dog Lunch – Wednesday, February 18

  • Fun Lunch – Mary Brown’s – Friday, February 20


🚌 Upcoming Events & Reminders

  • Electives (Full Afternoon) – Thursday, February 19 (12:45–3:05 p.m.) – once a term Connect provides a full afternoon for electives for students.

  • 8.2 OE Urban Overnight – February 19 (8:30 a.m.) to February 20 (3:30 p.m.)


Our grade 4 students explored the world through binoculars a few weeks ago.


 Every Page Counts. Every Gift Builds.

With the long weekend ahead, it’s a great chance to log a few extra minutes in your child’s Adventure Passport. Please sign and return it on Tuesday so teachers can update our totals.

If you haven’t yet, this is also a perfect time to share your child’s Readathon link with family or friends. Every minute and every donation moves us closer to our playground.

 

School Council Communications

Save the Date: The topic of our parent learning session during the March 12 Movie Night follows:  

Presenter: Samantha Woods, Founder, Kaizen Education Services

TitleFrom Chaos to Clarity: Empowering Our Children With Executive Functioning Skills

We all rely on our executive functions in our daily lives, from planning out our day, remembering to pack our lunch, or mapping out our next road trip. Unfortunately, adults often take these learned skills for granted, assuming that our children will “naturally learn” how to organize, stay on task, focus, and attend to a boring task while effectively preparing for the week ahead. 

Weaker executive skills can be the root cause of stress, anxiety, shame, and frustration both at home and at school. Youngsters with weak executive skills often exhibit disorganization, forgetfulness, difficulty initiating tasks, challenges with emotional regulation, and a tendency to be easily distracted. For a child with ADHD, the development of these skills is significantly delayed, creating a noticeable gap in social, academic and emotional maturity compared to their peers.  The promising news is that these skills are both teachable and learnable! With patience, practice, persistence, and most importantly, positivity, adults can foster the development of these executive functioning skills in their children and students.

Join Samantha Woods, a former teacher, seasoned executive brain functioning coach, and founder of Kaizen Education Services, as well as a parent to two young men, to learn more about the brain’s self-management system and how parents can help their children practice and develop these essential skills for learning and life.

You will learn:

  • What skills are included in executive functioning?
  • Some key insights from neuroscience include where executive functions reside in the brain and how they develop.
  • Why do all children, but especially students diagnosed with ADHD, need an abundance of support in developing these skills?
  • Learn simple, practical parent-coaching tips that can support the development of executive functioning in children (and adults!) of all ages. No diagnosis required!

 

Fun Lunch Reminders

Please remember to cancel your students lunch five days in advance of these events (including Thrive days) as we are unable to hold class orders in our fridge.  We also do not hold uncollected lunches over long weekends.

 

Volunteers Wanted!!

Do you want to get involved with the school? Have just a little bit of time to share or A LOT of time to share? Interested in only one or two things or EVERYTHING?  No matter what your jam is, our school council is excited to have you come out and be a part of our volunteer community! 

 

Get started by completing our volunteer form and we will be in touch as volunteers are required for specific roles, committees and tasks!  It’s a great time to get involved! CLICK HERE TO GET STARTED! 

 

Bottles to Recycle?

Did you know that you can donate your bottle recycling to Connect Charter School through Skip the Depot and they will even pick them up!!  You can find out more on the Skip the Depot website.

When they pick up don’t forget to label your bag with our Connect School Code:  XZ8L

 

Click HERE or use the QR code to get started!

 

As always, if you have any questions please contact our school council at [email protected].

Have a great week!