Thursday 29 January 2015

Crazy By Design - Understanding The Teenage Brain


Centennial High School Parent Information Evening

When: Wednesday, February 4
Time: 6:30 pm to 7:30 pm  
Place: Midsun School, Gymnasium

Parents are invited to attend an information session presented by staff from Centennial High School on Wednesday, February 4.  Topics will include registration and programming.  The session will be held in the gymnasium at Midsun from 6:30 pm to 7:30 pm.   

Monday 26 January 2015

MidSun Annual Charity Basketball Game & Laker Pride Day

THURSDAY JANUARY 29TH

Basketball Game Information

This year's charity basketball game will happen on January 29th starting at lunch.  Students, come cheer on our very own MidSun Laker Senior teams as they go head to head in a game against the Mount Royal Cougar basketball team players.

This is one of our signature MidSun events!! 3 point shot and slam dunk competition show will happen at the halftime.

MidSun Charity Basketball Game tickets will be on sale in the atrium at lunch. $2 per ticket or $4 with a set of bang sticks. All students who pre-purchase tickets before next Wednesday will be entered into a draw at the game for some great prizes. All proceeds raised for the basketball game will be donated towards our FREE THE CHILDREN effort to raise $10000 to build a school. Come on out to the basketball game, it is for a great cause and it is a must see event of the year!


Laker Pride Day Information
TA Challenge is also happening on Thursday Jan 29th. Come dressed in your Laker colors : Gold and BLUE! Show your school pride on the day of our charity Basketball Game! 10 points for showing your school colors, 20 points for being a fanatic LAKER!

Wednesday 21 January 2015

Happening Tomorrow - Fine Arts Night!

 

 

 

 

The Complementary subjects at MidSun School will be hosting our 2015 Fine and Practical Arts Evening. The  grand event will take place  tomorrow  (Thursday January 22nd 2015) from 6.30 to 8.00pm in the Drama Room, Atrium, and Atrium Balcony at MidSun School.

 

This event will showcase our students' award winning talents in Art, Drama, Dance, Construction, Foods, Fashion, Jazz Band, French, CTF Technology Studies and more!

 

Admission is free to this amazing event. The event is open to the public. We hope to see you then!

 

Regards,

 

MidSun Complementary Team

 

 

Tuesday 20 January 2015

Happening This Week - Fine Arts Night!

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The Complementary subjects at MidSun School will be hosting our 2015 Fine and Practical Arts Evening. The grand event will take place on Thursday January 22nd 2015 from 6.30 to 8.00pm in the Drama Room, Atrium and Atrium Balcony at MidSun School.

This event will showcase our students' award winning talents in Art, Drama, Dance, Construction, Foods, Fashion, Jazz Band, French, CTF Technology Studies and more!

Admission is free to this amazing event. The event is open to the public. We hope to see you then!

Regards,

MidSun Complementary Team

Fundraising Reminders from School Council


Midsun  Grocery Gift Card orders are due Thursday January 22nd.

Credit & Debit card orders will be accepted in the office on the following days: Wednesday January 21st between 3:30p.m-4:30p.m. & during Fine Arts Night, Thursday January 22nd between 6:30p.m-7:30p.m.

Order forms can be found on line or at the school office.
We appreciate your orders.  Proceeds from previous orders have paid for items such as Chrome books, computer software, updated equipment for option classes, guest speakers.
 
COBS BREAD FUNDRAISER 
Cobs Breads at Willow Park has now included MidSun School in their "Dough Raising" program.
Next time you are ordering any items at Cobs Willow Park (130th Ave location is also part of this program) please mention that you would like to have the order credited to MidSun School and you will, at no cost to you, be making a donation to MidSun School.
Thank you for your support 
 


Monday 19 January 2015

JEANS for TEENS - TA Challenge

Monday Jan 21 - Wednesday Feb 11th

Did you know that in Canada, 1 in 5 people experiencing homelessness is under the age of 25?

MidSun is running a gently used clean jean drive to help those less fortunate and are launching a 3 week campaign to collect jeans for Teens ….bring in your old jeans that no longer fit you to your TA and get 10 TA points per pair. Time to purge that closet and help the homeless teens in the city of Calgary.
Teachers will be collecting jeans in TAs over this time.

This is run through DoSomething.org and Aeropostale - for more information to inspire your students visit https://canada.dosomething.org/campaigns/teens-jeans

Every pair of jeans we donate enters us into a chance to win a huge grant!
Thank you for your support

Monday 12 January 2015

Semester one is coming to a close!

January 12, 2015
Semester one celebrations

We have had a very busy and productive first semester at MidSun School and we have lots to celebrate!  Our annual Fine Arts evening will be held on January 22, 2015 at 6:30 with presentations and displays of student work.  It is always a wonderful evening and a great opportunity to celebrate the amazing work of our students. Everyone is welcome.
Students are busy finishing up their large projects and will be using our RTI period this Wednesday to focus on work completion.  Students who are up to date with all their work will be able to practice their Physical Education social dance outcomes at the Last Chance Dance being held On Wednesday January 14th in the afternoon.  This should be a fun way to celebrate our end of semester while practising some great life skills.
We will also be holding a Celebration of Learning Assembly for our students on Wednesday January 28, 2015.  There will be student presentations, speeches and announcements.

Awards
Our Awards program has changed with a focus on recognizing the work of more students.  Each month we select a student who has demonstrated outstanding citizenship and character and award them the Laker of the Month Award. This is a certificate and free subway sandwich from the Midnapore Subway.  I would like to congratulate our semester one winners:

Grade 7: Hailie Marie L., Melise P., Jenna K., and Jacob P.
Grade 8: Sarah S., Alyssa I., Matthew N., and Holly T.
Grade 9: Adam S., Miranda W., Nathan T., and Sophia C.

On February 11, 2015, we will be holding our first Spirit Heart Legacy Breakfast where each teacher will invite a student for outstanding work in semester one to attend a catered breakfast with their teacher at school. Students can only be recognized once per year for this award.  Our honour role has changed as well with students who qualify now applying for the Excellence in Learning Award or the Proficiency of Learning Award.  Information about these awards and application forms are available in our student handbook or at http://googl/RyoLgb  Students must apply for these awards by February 6, 2015 in order to be recognized.

Basketball this week
MidSun is pleased to host Basketball this week and will have games Monday-Thursday in our Lakerdome.  Monday is Junior Girls, Tuesday is Junior Boys, Wednesday is Senior Girls and Thursday is Senior Boys. Come out from 4pm-8pm to check out some great basketball action. 

Accountability Pillar Survey
As an annual check-up on the education system, the Accountability Pillar provides an opportunity for Alberta Education and school authorities to ensure that we are equipping students for success.

The Accountability Pillar uses a set of 16 indicators consisting of surveys of students, parents and teachers on various aspects of quality; student outcomes such as dropout and high school completion rates; and provincial assessments of student learning.

From January to the end of February, Alberta Education will be conducting the annual Accountability Pillar Survey.  In January, parents of students in grade 7 will receive a survey from Alberta Education.  In February, all teachers will be completing their surveys online at school. 

All surveys are anonymous and ask questions about experiences with the school.  In addition to English and French, the parent survey is available in Chinese, Punjabi, Arabic, Blackfoot, Cree, Korean, Spanish, Tagalog and Urdu.

Your participation in the survey helps provide important information on the quality of education your child is receiving, so we encourage you to return your survey promptly.

Survey results will be available to school authorities in May 2015, and will be reported publicly as part of their 3-Year Education Plans and Annual Education Results Reports.

Homework
We are often asked what students should be doing for homework.  If no homework is assigned, we encourage students to read for pleasure and do some work each evening on the Mathletics program.  This is a great way to reinforce literacy and numeracy skills in our students.

January 16, 2015 is a non student day to allow teachers time to prepare report cards which come home on Thursday January 29, 2014.  January 30, 2015 is a professional development day. Staff will be working on student assessment and task design.

School Council is on Thursday Jan 15, 2015 at 7 pm in the Library Commons. Our principal, Ms. Saretsky, and our Learning Leader for Language Arts and social studies, Ms. Hayden-Issak, will be on hand to answer any of your questions. We hope to see you there.

Friday 9 January 2015

Mark Your Calendars - Fine Arts Night!



The Complementary subjects at Midsun School will be hosting our 2015 Fine and Practical Arts Evening. The  grand event will take place  on Thursday January 22, 2015 from 6.30 to 8.00 pm in the Atrium and Atrium Balcony at MidSun School.

This event will showcase our students' breath-taking talents in art, drama, dance, construction, foods, fashion, jazz band, French, technology studies and more!

Admission is free to this amazing event, and is open to the public!

Regards,

Mr. Tailor


WANTED - OLD CALENDARS


Are you wondering how to reuse your 2014 calendars?
You can donate your old calendars to the art room. Miss Kaminski uses pictures for art ideas with the students. So if you have calendars of animals, landscapes, cartoons, food, please donate them to the Art program.
Please send them with your child and Miss Kaminski would be very appreciative. 
Thanks

Monday 5 January 2015

LA & Social Studies MidTerms


We will be administering midterm exams this year again for both LA and Social Studies.  

(Exams are not given in Math and Science as those subjects do regular cumulative tests already, and it was felt four midterms for the reasons below was unnecessary.)

These will be multiple choice exams and will be administered first thing in the morning.  

Each exam is expected to take about an hour.

Language Arts will be administered on Tuesday, January 20th, 2015.

Social will be on Wednesday 21st, 2015.

 These exams serve the following functions:
 For students:

 1.  They provide students an opportunity to learn and practice study strategies to prepare for larger scale summative-style exams.

2.  This also means they won’t be attempting review of materials from September for the first time, come June.

3.  These exams provide students a dress rehearsal for final exams so that they will experience less anxiety about them and stress in June.

4.  They will gain valuable experience in test-taking so that with other large scale exams in the near future they will be less intimidated due to their experience. 

 For teachers:
 5.  This will provide teachers with a final item of assessment to add to the body of knowledge that informs our report card decisions.  As we are putting emphasis on recent work- this will be the most recent at the time of reporting.  (These will NOT be high stakes tests.  This will be a valid assessment at the end of the term though, and may help to pull kids to higher levels of assessed achievement in some areas.)

To prepare for these tests:

Students should review any notes or materials they have from September on.  Making index study cards or highlighting key points in notes are both good ways to study. Study Guides are also available and students will be given these by LA and Social teachers, as well as direction as to how to prepare for tests.  Further, there will be RTI sessions available to help students who wish more direction for these tests.