Every year, families ask teachers how they can support their children’s learning at home. A few suggestions that benefit across grade levels include: 

• Reading to your children regularly. Discuss the story or non-fiction topic with your child. 
• Playing games together. Card, dice and board games often include elements such as counting, addition/subtraction and probability. Games also provide practice opportunities for social skills such as turn-taking and sportsmanship. 
• Have children help around the house with age-appropriate chores. Matching socks, helping with laundry (T-shirts go here, pants go there) or putting away forks and spoons practice sorting - a foundational math skill! 
• Model and provide times for your children to write – for pleasure or purpose, such as journaling about a family event, making a shopping list or creating a story. 

The Week Ahead: 

Updates and Information: 

OUR School Survey 

Students in Grades 4, 5, & 6 completed the OUR School survey with Mrs. Scott on Friday. This online school perception survey for students is anonymous and voluntary. CBE’s Education Plan prioritizes student voice and well-being in our decision-making processes.  Responses from this survey are used at the system and school level to recognize and improve what is necessary for students to feel safe, welcome, and cared for when at school. 

Conferences 

Parent-Teacher conferences are coming up again on October 24 & 25th. Booking will open on Thursday. Watch for a separate email later this week with instructions on how to book. 

Junior Leaders 

Some of our Grade Six students have been busy working with Mrs. Scott on Junior Leader initiatives. So far, our Leaders have helped with the Terry Fox Run, including being MCs at our assembly and managing the water bottle buckets for classrooms. They are learning how to effectively coach reading and will be spending one of their silent reading times each week reading with younger students. They also have plans to manage our gym equipment room, work on initiatives that give back to our community such as Jacket Racket and run future spirit days for our student population. 

Watch out for more from this dynamic group of students! 

Jacket Racket 

We will be collecting for Jacket Racket this year. If your family has any gently used winter gear that you no longer need, please bring it to the school. We are happy to accept jackets, mittens, hats, scarves, snowpants and boots. These will be re-distributed to Calgary children in need through the Jacket Racket agency. 

If your child(ren) are in need of winter clothing, please let Mrs. Poole know. 

Toys at School 

At school we have plenty of learning tasks and activities for students. We are noticing a trend of toys being brought from home and are asking for your assistance in making sure these toys stay at home as they are often distracting in the learning environment. 

Halloween  

Please do not send your child to school in costume on the 17th. Let’s save the costume debut for 5:30 p.m. during School Council’s family Halloween dance. 

We will communicate our school plans a little closer to the 31st. 

From School Council: 

Halloween dance 

The dance is this Thursday, Oct. 17th and we need more volunteers! This event cannot run without volunteer support. See the Sign-up Genius below to see how you can get involved! 

https://www.signupgenius.com/go/60B0C4DABA929A1FC1-51923620-halloween#/ 

Cookie Dough Fundraiser 

This one and only Riverbend fundraiser is in full swing! Let’s keep the momentum going for the next 2 weeks!  

REMINDERS:  
1. Please do not have your customers send us payments directly. You must collect payments from your customers and send us one payment for all your customer's orders when you are finished selling. 
2. Our e-Transfer email (fundraising@riverbendraccoons.ca) is registered for auto-deposit so please confirm before submitting your payment that it lists the registered name as RIVERBEND ELEMENTARY PARENTS SOCIETY OF CALGARY. If this name is not shown or it is not detected as registered for auto-deposit, then double check the spelling of the email (there are two c's in raccoons!) because otherwise we will not receive your payment. 

 
School Council Meeting 

The next meeting will be on October 24th. This is the same date as our school conferences. Book your conference and pop by the library to see what a Council meeting is all about! All parents of Riverbend students are automatically members of the Council and welcome to attend.