News

Grade 1 Kilometre Club is starting on Tuesday, September 20 and will run for 4 weeks until Tuesday, October 11. 

Grade 1 students are invited to meet every Tuesday after school for a quick warm-up in Room 103, followed by laps around the yard. Students will be dismissed around 3:45pm. 

Permission forms are due back on Tuesday. Please see Ms. Bell or Ms. Cochrane for more info.

We need YOU! Garden Avenue School Council has 6 elected positions and we are looking for candidates for 3 of them for the 2016-2017 school year. 

• Treasurer
• Voluteer Coordinator
• Communications Coordinator

You can read more about all of our elected positions here.

Our first Council Meeting is on Thursday, September 22 in the school gym at 6:30pm. Childcare is provided! 

We will elect our new Council at the first meeting and review all of the volunteer opportunities for the year.

Every parent at Garden is a member of Council. Please come out on September 22nd and learn more about what we do and how you can help!

Welcome back everyone!!!! I really hope that everyone had a wonderful, relaxing summer and enjoyed the sticky hot weather.

We have had a busy summer of construction and clean up. The Sunnyside Daycare in room 107 and 108 has become a new Pre-School and Toddler area. We have had our TDSB workers in and out of our building throughout the summer putting in countless hours and weekends to ensure that our new day care space was ready to go for the first day of school. The rooms look just beautiful with new cabinets, and new floors, new bathrooms and even a brand new office space for our Sunnyside Daycare.

Also during the summer all of our pillars and windows in the front of the building received a bit of a facelift with a new coat of painted. Thank you to Mr. Morris and Mr. Tamrakar who have worked tirelessly cleaning classrooms and hallways to make our school shine for this upcoming year.

We welcome our new families to Garden! Ms. Cundari will be replacing Ms. Swail until she returns from parental leave in March of 2017. Ms. Bowman will be coming in for the interim in Room 106. We are pleased to welcome back both teachers to Garden.

In our lunchroom we will be returning to a one lunch sitting for all grades. This will allow all students a little more time to eat their lunch. However for the first day of school only the grade 1/2 classes will be eating in the lunchroom in order to support them with learning the new lunchroom rules/routines. All other classes will be eating outside weather permitting

Looking forward to seeing everyone this week!! Enjoy the wonderful long weekend.

Ms. Hardy

"That you may retain your self-respect, it is better to displease the people by doing what you know is right, than to temporarily please them by doing what you know is wrong."
William J. H. Boetcker

Well we are into our last week of the school year.  Parents please note that report cards will be sent home on Tuesday June 28th. This year there may still be staffing changes over the summer months. To that end we have decided as a Staff to only put the room numbers of the classroom which students will be moving into in the Fall. We feel that this is the most equitable way to deal with the changes that may occur. If you have any concerns please feel free to speak to the office.

This weekend construction will be beginning on the new Daycare toddler area. To that end the parking lot will be off limits. This is in order to make room for all of the trucks that need to drop of materials. Please remind people that park in our lot over the weekend that they will be tagged and towed if they are there past 6:00 AM. It also means that our gym will be off limits for the last week of school. Let’s hope for lots of sunshine so that we can continue to enjoy our outdoor lunches. 

Please remind your children to look in the lost and found to recover their items. There are many wonderful sweatshirts, t-shirts etc. that make their way into our lost and found and it would be nice to have them reconnected with their owners before summer begins. All left over items will be sent to Good Will.

As this is my last week at a glance for this 2015/2016 school year I want to say thank you to everyone for making this year, my first year as a principal, so memorable. Thank you for being so supportive and caring and I look forward to working together with everyone again in the 2016/2017 school year. Have a wonderful, restful summer sharing time with your families and loved ones. See you in September!!

Ms. Hardy

“Rivers know this: there is no hurry. We shall get there some day.”
― A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh

A strong school community creates the foundation for our children to learn and thrive. The School Council* plays an important role bringing together school staff, administration and interested parents to create a place for discussion, idea sharing and planning of initiatives.

The school council operates with a Council Executive (elected roles) and interested parents who participate in monthly meetings over the course of the school year.

Each school year in September, all Council Executive roles are open for election however each year there are certain roles that have no incumbent. This year the Council Chair role has no incumbent. In addition we have added two important new elected positions to the Council Executive: "Director of Parent Engagement" and "Director of Communications".

In the file below, the Council Executive roles, their approximate time commitment and responsibilities. Please consider how you can make a difference for your child(ren) and community by volunteering for one of these important roles.

Interested parents - please identify yourself to Ms. Hardy or one of the current council members or by emailing gardenavenews@gmail.com

Our Grade 4-6 Students will be participating in the Blanket Exercise on Monday June 13th in the afternoon. This Blanket Exercise is a teaching tool that shares the historic and contemporary relationship between indigenous and non-indigenous peoples in Canada.  The KAIROS Blanket Exercise is an interactive learning experience that teaches the Indigenous rights history we’re rarely taught. Developed in response to the 1996 Report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples—which recommended education on Canadian-Indigenous history as one of the key steps to reconciliation, the Blanket Exercise covers over 500 years of history in a one and a half hour participatory workshop. Thank you to Ms. Umezawa for organizing.  We are all looking forward to a thoughtful experience.

We would like to welcome all Parents to our Book Fair on Wednesday evening from 3:30 -6:00 PM. Please join us in the library and pick up some great reading materials for your children for the summer months. Feel free to stay for our last School Council meeting beginning at 6:30PM. Babysitting will be provided.

Have a wonderful weekend. 

Ms. Hardy

"Rivers know this: there is no hurry. We shall get there some day."
― A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh

Letters about upcoming EQAO assessments were sent home with students in Grades 3 and 6 this week.

EQAO is the Education Quality and Assessment Office, an independent agency of the Government of Ontario that creates and administers assessments to measure student achievement in reading, writing and math.

This past Tuesday, on the hottest day of the year, more than 50 Garden Avenue athletes made their way to Birchmount Stadium to run, jump, and throw their hearts out at the TDESSA South Conference track-and-field meet.

Not surprisingly, their many weeks of hard training and dedication paid off with a hugely successful day.

We saw amazing competitive performances, more than a few ribbons, and we were definitely the loudest team in the stands — Garden Avenue spirit is alive and well.

Many, many thanks to the coaching team led by Mr. Goetz, and the tireless efforts of the parent volunteers and teachers who contributed to another great year of Garden Avenue athletics.

Well I may still be waterlogged after the numerous (more times than I could count) dunkings this past weekend but…I want to extend a huge thank you to the entire Fun Fair team for organizing such a fantastic event.  Even though the weather was grey we made it so sunny inside with laughs and smiles of joy all around.  We still do not know the exact total of the money raised but we do know that fun was had by all.  Looking forward to next year when we hope it is 90 degrees and sunnyJ.

This past Wednesday, 61 avid readers from Garden went to Harbourfront Centre for the Festival of Trees celebration, in connection with our Silver Birch reading programs.  Thank you to all the amazing parent volunteers who came on the trip. Thank you to Ms. Cox for taking the lead on the entire event and to Ms. Childs, Ms. Baum, and Ms. Baigent for helping Ms. Cox organize and facilitate the Silver Birch reading program at school.  The trip was a big success.  It is always so wonderful to see students getting so excited about reading!

The Girls' Soccer team did a wonderful job of representing Garden at a tournament held at Ryerson P.S. on Thursday. The girls worked hard during practices to develop their soccer skills and they played their hearts out during the four tournament games. The girls demonstrated great team spirit and sportsmanship throughout. A great big thank you to Ms. Child’s for coaching the team and an extra special thanks to our fantastic parent coach, Amanda Cooper, as well as to Jen Alefounder and Kim Huffman for their support.  Way to go, girls!

Attention all Eco Club members: our final three week session for Eco Club, on Gardening, will be postponed by one week and will start on Thursday June 2nd after school.  Eco Club is cancelled for Thursday May 26th.

Ms. Hardy

"Integrity is doing the right thing, even when no one is watching."
- C. S. Lewis

The Jump Rope for Heart event scheduled for this Friday has been postponed.
 

The 2016 Garden P.S. Fun Fair is looking for a team lead for the BBQ!

Our long-serving BBQ team is out of the school this year. We are looking for someone who can take on a lead position to organize the BBQ supplies and volunteers.

The ask: 4-6 hours between now and Saturday, May 14 to plan how much food to buy, event set-up, volunteer schedule + 4-6 hours on the day of the Fun Fair (the Fun Fair runs from 10am-3pm - we have lots of volunteers but you will oversee the action).

If you are interested, email gardenavenews@gmail.com