Important Date Changes Christmas Activities Christmas Gift Ideas

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1 2015/2016 She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins. - Matthew 1: 21 Christmas is definitely around the corner as we hear Christmas carols around us and see decorations and trees being put up on display. Children are eagerly preparing their wish lists and the chatter is all about what Christmas will bring. Our first advent celebration has started our advent journey at St. Martha and we prepare our hearts for Christ s coming. As is our tradition, we remember those less fortunate with our food hamper collections which will be distributed through Good Shepherd Parish. We challenged our students this advent season to consider a different kind of advent calendar. While we all know of the various advent calendars of chocolate treats, we encouraged students to do one good deed for someone each day until Christmas Day. The simple acts of kindness and giving brings much joy to all of those around us and reflect a true spirit of the season! Thank you to all of you who attended our Demonstration of Learning. We had a wonderful turnout and could see the pride in your children s faces as they shared what they knew and have done so far. We hope that you had a chance to view our various Flex-time projects and Genius Hour learning. Included in this issue: Important Date Changes Christmas Activities Christmas Gift Ideas And much, much more!

2 Ms. J. Hertlein Principal Mr. D. Alba Assistant Principal Report cards were released electronically again, so if you have not accessed them or are having trouble accessing them through PowerSchool, please go to the PowerSchool website ( public/) and at the bottom of the screen, under Support, click on Contact Us for help in setting up or accessing your account. We also want to take this time to wish you and yours the merriest of Christmases. May your time be filled with family and friends in the fellowship of the Christmas season. Many blessings and prosperity is wished for you in Important Date and Time Changes for ALL St. Martha s Students A reminder of the following class changes in December: Thursday, 17 December is a FULL DAY of classes for grades 1 to 6 students. Kindergarten and 100 Voices will have school on Thursday, 17 December Friday, 18 December is EARLY DISMISSAL for grades 1 to 6. Kindergarten and 100 Voices have NO school on Friday, 18 December. School Resumes for all students on Monday, 4 January STUDENT SAFETY We continue to have concerns with parking around our school. We can appreciate that parking is limited, however, safety is very important to us. The City of Edmonton has clearly marked the crosswalk area. Parking within 5 metres of the cross walk is NOT allowed. We have had to cancel our patrollers program due to cars continuing to park in this area. Pedestrians using the crosswalk are also put in danger because they are not easily seen by traffic as well. Please note that we also have a clearly marked bus zone. Please do not park in this area so that buses can safely drop off and pick up students. With the winter weather now upon us, we are asking that people please remove their footwear upon entering our school. Water that pools on the floor from melted snow is a safety hazard as we have had a number of slips and falls by both students and staff.

3 With the recent events in the news, we are all concerned about our children s safety and must be aware of who is entering the building. Therefore, for the safety of all children in our school, we are requesting that parents please use their child s door to ENTER and EXIT the school. This will allow teachers to monitor visitors in the school. If you are coming in to volunteer, please check into the office so that we are aware for safety reasons who is helping us. Thank you for practicing safety in our school. Office Closure and Online Payments through PowerSchool Please note that the office will be closed on Thursday, 3 December 2015 at 1:00 pm for a staff function. The office will reopen at its usual time on Friday morning. Please note that the office will be closing for the Christmas holidays at 1:00 pm on Friday, 18 December Our office will reopen at 8:30 on Monday, 4 January Have you paid your school fees yet? St. Martha now has a new option of paying fees online through PowerSchool. Instructions have been ed out with our version of the newsletter. If you did not receive a copy, please see our website ( for more information. Lunch with Admin Congratulations to Jeffrey, who was October s winner of Lunch with Admin. Jeffrey correctly identified that the 13th Annual Literacy and Learning Day is a free conference on Saturday, October 24. Please look to the back page for this month s trivia question and a chance to win lunch or snack!

4 Christmas Activities Early Learning (100 Voices and Kindergarten) will be hosting a family evening for the Christmas season on Wednesday, 9 December Families are invited to The Festival of Lights at the Valley Zoo from 5:30 to 7:30. The entrance fee is $5 with proceeds going to the promote awareness and ensure development of the Edmonton Valley Zoo. The festival offers a variety of entertainment, free hot chocolate, skating, crafts, a maze and the EVZ Igloo. The festival runs for ten days from December 4th to 13th for all interested families. The grades 3/4, 4, 5, and 6 will be sharing their musical talents in our annual Christmas Concert on Thursday, 3 December Our dress rehearsal is at 9:30 am and is open to the public to view with the rest of the school. Our evening concert begins at 7:00 pm. Because of fire regulations, the evening performance is by ticket entrance only. Doors will open at 6:30 pm (not prior) with students asked to be at the school by 6:45 pm NEW Registrations St. Martha will start accepting new registrations for the school year in mid-january. Our program guidelines are: 100 Voices: Children must be 3 years of age by 30 September All children will go through a screening process for placement and funding purposes. Kindergarten: Children must be 5 years of age BEFORE 1 March A reminder that while we try our best to accommodate time preferences for families in our programs, we do not guarantee morning or afternoon placements. Our students are placed according to need and ensuring a balanced class. Upcoming Celebrations Children will be preparing the way for Jesus birth throughout the month of December. Our first Advent celebration was held with Fr. Carlos on Monday, 30 November. Our next two celebrations will be held in the classrooms with the teachers leading. We invite families to join us at 1:00 pm on Thursday, 17 December 2015 for our final Advent Celebration and the blessing of our hampers.

5 THANK YOU! Thank you to all those who contributed to our book fair during the last week of November. Adrienne Arnott Remily Brown Colleen Buzenus Kevin Kraglund Leni Racine Roowena Ritzen Kelly Robinson Thank you! We also would like to take this opportunity to thank the SAC who, once again, will be providing the turkeys for our annual hamper drive. We thank those volunteers who have agreed to help to transport the hampers to their collection point at St. FX High School. Solaro Electronic Study Aid with EPL Edmonton Public Libraries has renewed their contract with Solaro until October Solaro is an electronic study aid produced by Castlerock. There are materials for students from grades 3 12 in an interactive online platform. Any student with an EPL library card can access Solaro from home or school or in any Edmonton Public Library. Here is the link and below is the write up they have on the EPL site... *************************************************************************** Solaro Solaro provides the same great Alberta specific curriculum information you find in their Keys and SNAP publications. You can take a quick quiz or create a Solaro account and work through course lessons, reviews and quizzes. If you create an account your lesson progress and results will be tracked to help you. Covers grade 3 through grade 12 Alberta curriculum. School Advisory Council Council Meeting Our next meeting is on Monday, January 18, 2016, in the staff room at 6:30 p.m. Everyone is welcome to join us. There will be no meeting in December. Family Dance Mark your Calendars! February 5 th is our Family Dance Night at school. The theme is Summer Fun Night. More information will be coming home in the New Year. Please make sure you purchase your tickets prior to the event as we will not be able to sell at the night of the dance. Silent Auction and Pasta Night On May 6, 2016, we will be hosting our 5 th Annual Silent Auction and Pasta Night at Good Shepherd

6 Church. Tickets will be $10 each and we will be asking parents to help us get donations of items for the event. More information to come home in the month of January along with our donation letter to ask companies for donations. Please note that we will be only selling 240 tickets. The Committee has decided that all funds raised will go towards reinvesting back into our school (examples are gym equipment and technology). We will also be reserving 25% as a Pop Fund during the year for things that pop up and for activities that may require financial assistance (example performances or field trips). Mundare Sausage A huge thank you to all families for taking part in the Mundare Sausage fundraiser. If you made an order, please remember that Wednesday, December 2, 2015 from 2:00 6:00 pm will be pick up of your Mundare Sausage. Draw is still to take place for school supplies in January. T-shirts The St. Martha gear will be delivered to the school in December. The order was delayed to allow us time to meet the minimum order requirements. Thank you to H.E. Beriault, our feeder Junior High School, for allowing us to use their T-Shirt company to get a discounted rate. Boston Pizza Receipts If you have any Boston Pizza Receipts for Operation Education, they are due by January 30, Please feel free to send them with your child. All sales within our school will receive 10% back to our school. Good Shepherd Parish To help Good Shepherd Parish to become prepared to meet Christ whenever that may be, we have decided to do a teaching series on the Mass. The Mass is one of the most awesome and profound ways we all prepare ourselves and our lives to meet Christ in this life and in the next. So over the next 4 Sundays of Advent we will go more deeply into how the Mass does this. Our hope is that you will learn how to let the Mass prepare you and form you to meet Christ for the rest of your life. Nov 30 The Opening Rites How we prepare to come together and worship and encounter Christ Dec 6 The Liturgy of the Word Listening to the Scriptures to encounter Christ and be like Him Dec 13 The Liturgy of the Eucharist Encountering and receiving the loving sacrifice of Christ s Love Dec 20 The Sending forth Rites We are commissioned to bring Christ to others Share Christmas 2015: A project among 3 West End Churches to share Christmas dinner with needy families is getting under way. [This is where St. Martha School hampers are sent to.] The tree for hamper donations will be in the Gathering Area of the Church Dec 5/6. Christmas Hampers must be dropped off in the morning of Sun, Dec 20 at St. Francis Xavier School in order to be delivered the

7 same day. If you would like to volunteer please sign up at the Share Christmas table. We will need volunteers for sorting & checking hampers as well as delivery drivers. Students who need volunteer hours will be provided with a letter that can be turned in for volunteer hour credits. Good Shepherd Parish welcomes you to join them at one of the Christmas masses this Christmas season. Christmas Eve: 5:00 pm (Parish Hall), 5:15 pm, 7:00 pm, 9:30 pm and Midnight Christmas Day: 10:30 am and 12:30 pm The most up-to-date information can be found at Spearmint Dental Halloween Candy Drive Congratulations to our students who participated in our local dentist s candy drive! For every pound of candy students brought in on 1 November 2015, students were paid $1. Names were also entered into a draw and one of our lucky students won a new ipad!! St. Martha also received a monetary donation to go towards some of our initiatives. Thank you to all those that participated and to Spearmint Dental for a wonderful Halloween promotion! Laudato Si - Chapter 2: The Gospel of Creation Pope Francis addresses this document to all people, not just Catholics; however, he dedicates this chapter to an understanding of the relationship between humanity and nature from a Judeo-Christian perspective. He does this intentionally, in order to show that science and religion, with their distinctive approaches to understanding reality, can enter into an intense dialogue fruitful for both (#62). He states that all of us, as members of the human family, are moved to care for the environment of which we are a part. Even more so, as Christians, we are called to respect the dignity and beauty of all creation. The Old Testament texts, especially the creation accounts, suggest that human life is grounded in three fundamental and closely intertwined relationships: with God, with our neighbor and with the earth itself (#66). Although some interpret our relationship with nature as one of dominion and power over creation, this is not the intention of the creation accounts according to Pope Francis and the Catholic Church. He makes it clear that our responsibility is one of stewardship and care for creation not domination over creation.

8 If we acknowledge the value and the fragility of nature and, at the same time, our God-given abilities, we can finally leave behind the modern myth of unlimited material progress. (#78) The Holy Father expresses a relationship between humanity and creation which is specifically Christian. He says that we, as intelligent beings, capable of love, are called to lead all creatures back to their Creator. Jesus, in taking on human form, lived in full harmony with creation. This was demonstrated throughout his ministry, and even before his ministry when he worked with his hands as a carpenter. In the Christian understanding of the world, the destiny of all creation is bound up with the mystery of Christ, present from the beginning: All things have been created through him and for him [Col 1:16]. (#99) How can we apply this to our lives here and now? When we are in dialogue with our non-christian or non -believing sisters and brothers, we can clearly and effectively express our care for creation. Our Catholic responsibility to take care of the world around us does not conflict, in any way, with the scientific community that is imploring us to do the same. Pope Francis asks us to focus on our common goal care for our common home so that we can work together with all of humanity in order to make our world a cleaner, healthier, and safer home for all. Ed Jean Secondary Religious Education Consultant

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20 The December/January Newsletter is now online at Read your copy now!! This month s question for a chance to win lunch or snack with the administration is: Students have a FULL day of classes on Thursday, December and a HALF day on Friday, December. 100 Voices and Kindergarten will have regularly scheduled classes on and NO class on. Name: Grade: