Highlights of the 2016-17 School Year: Garden Buddies Share Their Bounty!

To sum up our final months of Garden Buddies, this parent shared her family’s experience with us . . .
"Our child has loved, loved, loved this whole gardening experience! We have had so much information on the process of planting and harvesting, the progress of the group’s vegetables, the challenges of the trellis, the making of the “keep out” signs, etc. And yesterday was clearly the best day of all!  We enjoyed the butter on bread at dinner last night, and are looking forward to picking up some radishes and baguette so that we can experience (with some trepidation!) a French breakfast!  Thanks for providing the students with this rich learning experience – a great combination of group work, problem solving, self-reliance and sustainability."

A Time to Share . . .

On Thursday, February 23rd, ICS held its annual Student-Led Conferences. This is a much celebrated event at our school as our students have the opportunity to share their learning with parents. The students demonstrate their understandings, skills, and knowledge through hands on activities, written work, and reading. This year, each of our students had the opportunity to teach his/her parents about our school “Be-Attitudes” by posting ideas about how to live out the following tenets:

Be safe
Be respectful
Be responsible
Be like Jesus

What do parents have to say about student-led conferences?

“I was happy to see my son present his most excellent work.  This was to be expected. What wasn’t expected was him showing us a piece of his ‘underperforming’ work.  The point was to explain how he has made efforts going forward to make his work better.”

“I learnt that children at ICS immerse themselves profoundly in specific topics and analyze these topics from the perspective of all their different subjects. This in-depth study is done as opposed to gleaning many different topics in each individual subject rather superficially. The intent of this method is that kids will learn how to research and dissect a topic from multiple viewpoints and have a more meaningful understanding in the end. Personally, I can see as a result of this method, my son has a new appreciation for a topic he previously thought very little of. I’m happy he is learning to see things from different points of view- a great life skill!”

“We LOVE the student-led conference.  Our son gets an opportunity to teach and show us what he has learned in the term.   He is always so excited and proud of his accomplishments, and we enjoy listening to him as he walks us through the subjects.  It is just him and us.  This is such an important day for increasing our son’s confidence in himself and his abilities.” 

What do students have to say about student-led conferences?

“Student-led conferences are important because it gives your parents a hands-on experience of what you have been doing in class, such as the enchanted forest, you can describe it but it is better if they can see it for themselves.”

“I think my parents enjoyed observing how many ‘in the field’ projects we really have been doing and how that helps us learn. . .”

“I really like student-led conferences because I love to see how interested and happy my parents are with my school work.”

“I enjoyed seeing my grandma walk around the class and look at everything. It made me feel proud of what I did.”

“I think student-led conferences are important because it’s good for your parent(s) to know what’s going on, what you are learning, and how you're doing in school (plus they won’t nail you with questions at the end of the day!)”

The Annual ICS Christmas Fair

Many of our neighbours and friends joined us for our famous Old Fashioned Christmas Fair this Saturday from 8:30 am to 1 pm, and experienced one of the best attended events in Vancouver.

The Fair started with an amazing pancake breakfast with Santa at 8:30 am, followed by a plant sale, kids games, craft room, bake sale, silent auction and much more…

Thank you to everyone who purchased a ticket(s) for our Christmas Fair Raffle (BC Gaming event licence# 87951) and for supporting our school!  

Parent Appreciation Tea

“Thank You Thank You” Performed by Kindergarten

“Together We Are Canada” A Poem performed by Grade Three

“Hey Jude” . . . Performed by Grade Six

On Wednesday, May 25th, the ICS staff and students held a tea for the parents of our school community. The tea was to show our great appreciation for our parents who contribute so much to our little blue school, we wouldn’t be able to do all the great things we do in our school and parish community without them. The parents were treated with tea, coffee, and yummy pastries baked by the staff and served by the Grade Seven students. Throughout the tea, each grade performed for the group of parents with a song, a poem, or another fun way to show gratitude. There was also a slideshow with pictures of school events and other school privileges that the parents of Immaculate Conception School students make possible. Our school is very grateful for the great contribution that the parents make, we hope that they enjoyed the tea and that they feel appreciated.

Grade Four School Gardeners!

Last week, we harvested our lettuce to make salad. We shared our salads with the school. We harvested arugula, head lettuce, carrots, kale, basil, pea shoots, and kohlrabi for our salads. The classes thought our salad was amazing!

Many students asked for seconds and one student asked for our dressing recipe. One girl said she didn’t like salad before she tried ours, but now she does now.

We also learned about bolting. Bolting is when the plant gets too hot or too dry and it thinks it might die, so it makes seeds. Sometimes bolting makes the vegetable taste different.

We had a fun time in the garden and making salads. We are really grateful to our garden buddies who volunteer to garden with us.

Written by Grade Four Students

Grade Four Garden Buddies

The Grade Four students have taken on the great responsibility of planting and tending to the ICS gardens over the course of this school year. Several times a month they meet with a group of Master Gardeners and gardening enthusiasts to learn about the fine art of planning, planting, tending to, and harvesting vegetables and flowers.  It has been a wonderful experience in which they have involved the rest of the school community in the areas of composting and taste testing. They have harvested and tasted many micro-greens and the most recent and deliciously crunchy harvest was radish. Thank you Grade Four for your dedication and hard work with our gardens!

The following excerpts were written by two Grade Four students:

Garden buddies are people that come to work with us when we garden.  They help us plant seeds in the garden.  The garden is in the back of the school.  Our buddies come every other Tuesday.  I feel happy and excited to work with our Garden Buddies.

This picture is about a group of students building a trellis to support the peas they’re about to plant. They’re going to plant Arugula. I chose this because they used teamwork to build the trellis. Each student is trying to do his or her best. I really like my garden buddy because she’s really nice and she tries to help when we need help.

1… 2… Chow & Cha Cha

On Saturday night we held our annual Chow & Cha Cha – an evening filled with good food, live music, much laughter and dancing.  It was another great school community event that highlighted how much we value our wonderful families.  After a delicious pasta dinner we screened the world premier  of “A Day in the Life of ICS”.  This short movie, created by a talented group of Grade 5 and Grade 6 students,  illustrated how the funds we have raised over the last few years have been used for our children’s benefit (and also to support local and international outreach – the list is long!). Some serious square dancing and socializing followed the movie…

Thank you to all who helped make this another fantastic event!

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas…

Our annual old fashioned Christmas Fair, held on the 29th November 2014 was our biggest fundraiser to date!  Over 400 people attended to enjoy the pancake breakfast, photos with Santa, live plant sale, Christmas wreath sale, bake sale, children’s crafts and games with prizes, our Christmas Choir, and of course, the stunning lineup of silent auction items.  Much fun was had by all.

A huge THANK YOU to our school and parish community for your enthusiastic support of the ICS Christmas Fair on November 29th. It was a great success again this year, raising funds for playground and gym improvements. Just as important as the financial aspect was the Fair’s success as a community event, bringing together students, parents, staff, parishioners and neighbours.