Dear Parents and Guardians,

On Monday, September 25, Elder Frank Turning Robe came in and taught how to bless the drums. Ms. Gartshore and eight students participated in the ritual, and the drums are now blessed and ready to use. There are 30 drums in the school that can be used to sing and drum with our students. Last year, Chantal Stormsong Changnon came in and gifted Bowcroft School with 14 songs to sing with Bowcroft students. Bowcroft Videos

Tree Planting on September 25, 2023

Eleven trees were delivered and planted. A special Thank You goes to Michelle Edworthy and her husband for digging the deep holes and showing Leadership Students in gr 5/6 how to plant trees. The excitement of the students seeing trees planted was huge!!! Michelle Edworthy also wrote the $1000 grant for the trees, which allowed the purchase of the trees. Jordi Allen, horticulture technician from facilities and environmental services from the CBE had met with BPAC and administration to discuss  where trees could be planted. She also shared the list of ‘good trees to purchase’. Jordi (CBE) was also able to donate large watering bags for each tree, which CBE Grounds installed on Thursday. It took almost a year, many meetings and dedication to get these trees planted. Thank you to everyone who supported it!!!

We have a visual ‘calendar’ of all our events in the front hallway this year. If you pick up or drop off your child, if you are curious, take a peak! You can find it just to the left of the office!

Terry Fox Run

Bowcroft School raised just over $400.00. $300 was donated online and $100 were donated in twoonies.

Pedestrian Safety for Children (information from the website below)

Injuries to pedestrians can be serious and lead to long-term physical and mental damage. It’s important to teach your child the skills they need to keep them safe as a pedestrian.

Parents

• Walk with your child often and role model safe pedestrian behaviour.
• Teach your child to recognize traffic safety signals and the signals of a crossing guard.
• Be sure that your child walks on the sidewalk or as far away from the road as possible, facing traffic.
• Make it a rule to cross the street at pedestrian crosswalks or corners only, and to cross railway tracks at designated crossings only.
• Help your child to remember pedestrian safety tips. For example, you can teach your child to:
• POINT across the road with your arm to tell drivers that you are ready to cross.
• PAUSE until all vehicles stop and you have made eye contact with drivers.
• PROCEED with your arm out and keep looking both ways as you cross.
• Make sure that your child knows that he or she must never play on the street or around or between parked cars.
• Talk to your child about being a distracted pedestrian. It is not safe to listen to music, text, or talk to friends while crossing the street
• Make sure that your child can show you that they know how to cross the road safely before you let them walk alone to school or around your neighbourhood.

https://myhealth.alberta.ca/Alberta/Pages/pedestrian-safety-for-children.aspx

Ballroom Dance Residency: November 27 to Winter Break

I met with the instructor Martin L. He liked our gym and our speaker set up and was impressed that we even have special lights!

• Kindergarten and Grade 1 will be learning the Merengue
• Grade 2/3 will learn the Tango
• Grade 4 and Grade 5 will learn the Waltz
• And the German 5/6 and English Grade 6 will learn Swing!

Please make sure that you have no plans for the night of the winter celebration in December!

Warm Regards,

Meike Thomsen
Principal/Schulleiterin

BPAC News

Join us on Monday, October 2nd,  at 6:30pm in the Learning Commons for our October School Council Meeting and BPAC AGM. The meeting will run the same as it normally does. During the BPAC part of the meeting, we will vote in our executive team for the 2023/24 school year!

Here are the positions and who currently fills them:

***If it doesn't say vacant beside it, this person plans to seek the job for another year***

President - Brittany Fraser
Vice President - Wayne Jackson
Secretary - Nicole Walker
Treasurer - Krystina Edwards
Volunteer Coordinator - VACANT (Becky Franklin is in her last year at Bowcroft and would like to pass the torch on)
Fundraising Coordinator - VACANT (April Renn would be open to teaming up with someone to take on this role this year)
Casino Chair Person - Nicole Walker

Job descriptions for the open positions

Volunteer Coordinator - this person would work with the other executive members to establish what volunteering is needed for each event. They would then create a signup genius and manage that signup to ensure we have enough volunteers. Events include, Book Fair, summer watering schedule, popcorn sales, etc. This person would also help with the recruitment of volunteers for the casino in fall 2024

Fundraising Coordinator - this person would work with the other executive members to create a fundraising schedule for the year. They person could do this job solo, or pair up with our current Fundraising Coordinator. All fundraising ideas will be filtered through the Fundraising Coordinator, who will then present the viable options at a BPAC meeting; each fundraiser must be discussed and then voted on by all members at a BPAC meeting. Once the green light is given this person will arrange volunteers needed with the Volunteer Coordinator.

Please reach out, if you are interested in stepping into one of these roles!!

Wow! We had our busiest Book Fair ever at Bowcroft!

Big THANK YOU to all the volunteers! Thank you to all the parents and teachers who supported us, by purchasing books and bringing down their classes!

We raised $2900!

We were able to purchase all the books left in each teacher’s wishlist, which were delivered to classrooms yesterday! Ms Moya also shopped the shelves of the bookfair and picked out well over 100 of the most popular books that will be on our library shelves in the coming weeks! The money leftover will be used to purchase even more books and supplies for the library and classrooms this year.

Our next Book Fair will be in March during our spring Parent-Teacher Conferences

Important Dates

October 2: School Council, in person, 6:30pm
October 6: Free Clothing shopping event
October 9: No school; Thanksgiving
October 12: Grade 6 vaccinations
October 13: Saa'kokoto with students in morning and adults in PM
October 16-19: Jackie Soppit, Hoop Dancing
November 2: Picture retakes
November 6: School council, 6:30pm
November 6-8: Metis week
November 9: No School, professional development
November 10-14: FALL BREAK, no school
November 15: Classes resume
November 17: Saint Martins festivities in classrooms, no assembly
November 23: Parent-Teacher Conferences #2, 4:15 to 8:00 pm
November 24: No school, Parent-Teacher Conferences 8:00 – 1:00pm