Monthly Archives: December 2014

Happy holidays (& an update)

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Thank you to all the families who donated to Hillcrest’s food drive! Our school raised hundreds of cans and boxes of food for Share, as well as $200 from the sugar cookies sale hosted by our Me to We club.

Grade 6 students wrapped up a HACE unit on behaviour, and students will be graduating from the associated unit’s ‘detective school’ tomorrow. Congrats!

Hillcrest’s Spirit Squad also hosted a turkey lunch for its members & their guests. A fun time was had by all; thank you, Spirit Squad!

Tara, in grade 8, did what no other student has done before: she used every single white board marker colour that Ms. Ruhr had in order to illustrate her solution to a math question. Take a look at this beauty:

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To wrap up our Grade 7 unit on Judaism (as part of our World Religions unit), students have been asked to either try the dreidel game with friends and/or family, and/or to make latkes at home. Kids were sent home with instructions for the game and a recipe for latkes, but Edder’s family has also shared their own latke recipe with us (thank you)!

Avidan-Shavit Latkes Recipe:

  • 6 potatoes
  • 1 onion
  • 2 eggs
  • 1/2 cup flour
  • 1/2 tsp salt

Peel and grate the potatoes, and squeeze out any excess liquid. “Smoosh” the potatoes and the onion together.
Add eggs, flour, and salt. Mix until smooth.
Bring about 2 cm of oil to a boil in a large plan. Using a spoon, take from the mix, and place gently in the boiling oil and flatten. Turn over when brown. Place on a paper tower to remove excess oil.
Serve with apple sauce and sour cream on the side. Enjoy!
Happy Hanukkah!

Continuing with our World Religions theme, please take a moment to enjoy a performance of ‘The Dreidel Song,’ as performed by many of our grade 7 students by clicking here. Move over, Glee!

Grade 8 parents, please ask your kids about Buddhism or Hinduism, as they covered these eastern religions these past couple of weeks!

On behalf of Ms. Ruhr, Mr. Wiskar, Ms. Brown (who has been in for Ms. Abbot), and Ms. Abbot, we wish you and your families safe & joyful holidays with those you care about! See you all in the new year!

First week of December!

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The first few months of the school year have been flying by! It’s been a whirlwind of class building and assignments and field trips and all sorts of other fun things! The holidays are just a couple of weeks away, and we have more than enough to keep us busy leading up to them.

In the past couple of weeks…

  • Our MACC team concluded The Grey Area Science/Language Arts unit, which had us conducting experiments, hypothesizing, making observations and coming up with educated conclusions.
  • We decorated our classrooms in preparation for the Christmas and Hanukkah holidays (even Mr. Wiskar couldn’t stop his students from infusing his class with holiday cheer)! 😉

    Mr. Wiskar's daughter doing her part to decorate our classrooms.

    Mr. Wiskar’s daughter doing her part to decorate our classrooms.

  • The whole school participated in Wonder Day in celebration of R.J. Palacio’s wonderful book on the power of kindness.
  • Our school did an amazing job of collecting canned and boxed food items for our local Share food drive. We also collected items for Hillcrest’s Pet Tree and Angel Tree so that animals and families in need can enjoy some holiday cheer this Christmas.
  • Ms. Ruhr’s class learned about the different parts of speech and participated (unknowingly, at first) in creating a story using this mad lib. The words we chose fit the story rather well (for the most part)! I am including this just in case you want to try this out with your family and/or friends (at the request of Division 13). 🙂
  • Term 1 report cards are being sent home today.

Also, Random Acts of Kindness continue to occur on a pretty regular basis. I am humbled by the kindness and generosity of spirit that so many of our students are demonstrating daily.

Have a great weekend!