January 2018 Principal: Mr. B. Stoikos Vice-Principal: Ms K. Lee Superintendent: Ms M. Campbell Trustee: Mr. Chris Glover [email protected] PRINCIPAL’S MESSAGE Welcome back! I hope everyone had a wonderful, restful Holiday Season and a Happy New Year! It is great to see so many happy, smiling faces to start the New Year. Staff and students are back at it with clubs, teams and special events being planned. Despite the cold and wintery weather we had a great turnout for our Holly-Days Concert. Each year our vocal, strings, band and keyboard students prepare from September to December to make the evening come alive. A special thank you to: Ms. Riddell, Ms. Kepowitz, Ms. Cnossen and Mr. Estrin for their commitment and dedication to the Hollycrest music program and to our students for their hard work and dedication. I can’t wait until the Spring Concert. I’d like to thank all of the Hollycrest families for their generosity during the Holiday Season. Families contributed to our gift basket raffle; donated food items for the Daily Bread Food Bank collection; and donated clothes to Rm. 17’s clothing drive. A big congratlaations must go out to our Sr. Girls Basketball team. The Hawks finished 2nd in the city, losing a close final to Bliss Carmen. Congratulations, girls! Way to represent. In the next few months we will be taking part in Winterlude, basketball and volleyball, various field trips and other exciting events. We would like to encourage students to take part in the many extracurricular activities offered, and in the afterschool help that is offered in the HIT Centre on a nightly basis. Let’s make 2018 an exciting year at Hollycrest Middle School. Mr. Boris Stoikos Principal

GIFT BASKETS The Parent Council and the Hollycrest Grade 8’s would like to thank the Hollycrest community for donating so many wonderful baskets. Without your support the raffle would not have been such a huge success. Thank you for your support. STUDENT ABSENCES If your child is going to be absent or late for school, please call our Attendance Line at (416) 394-6431 (option 1) before 9am of the absence. Your message

can be recorded on the answering machine any time of the day or night. Safety of our students is of the utmost importance. If you have a scheduled appointment, celebrating a holy day or going on vacation, you can call or e-mail in advance. PLEASE REMEMBER TO CALL OR YOU CAN E-MAIL: [email protected] “HOLLYDAYS” CONCERT … THANK YOU! Hollycrest would like to congratulate all the performers that took part in the “Hollyday” Concert on their excellent performance. Your hard work and dedication paid off. A special thanks to Ms Riddell, Ms Cnossen, Ms Kepowicz, and Mr. Estrin for their time and commitment to our students. We would also like to thank parents and guardians for their support of Hollycrest students and the music program. We had a wonderful turnout and we hope you enjoyed the concert! GRAD PHOTOS Grad Photos will be taken on Thursday, January 18th. More information will be sent home. WINTERLUDE

We are looking forward to Winterlude, our annual winter activity day, on Tuesday, February 27th. Students will be able to choose to go to Snow Valley for skiing, snowboarding or snow tubing, or they will be able to choose to go bowling at Planet Bowl and then skating at Celebration Square. If your child is not planning on participating in Winterlude or coming to school that day, please inform the school. Forms will be sent home soon.

ROOM 7- 8B NEWS Happy New Year to all! 8B is now back into the swing of things! In language, we are now beginning our third novel study. Students have selected one of four books. The focus for this novel study will be on examining guiding themes, how plots are developed, and authors' message. Students will be focusing on responding to the readings through essay writing. In writing, we are focusing on thoroughly examining the writing process. Students will discover the important relationships between planning, drafting, revising, editing, and publishing their work and how good writers are constantly revisiting each phase in the process. Students will also learn about concise writing by learning that word selection makes a difference when communicating thoughts and ideas clearly. In math, we are onto Geometry and Measurement. Students will be looking at nets and rendering 2D images in 3D. We will also be examining 3D shapes and calculating surface and volumes. In science, we are now beginning our cells unit that will wrap up by mid-February. Aside from learning important vocabulary and about cell components and systems students will also be completing a research report about cancer and create a hands-on model of a plant or animal cell. In geography, we are examining the economic, political and environmental factors that drive indicators related to quality of life and the Human Development Index. This study will provide students with the opportunity to gain a better perspective about the inequality that exists throughout the world and ways that we can perhaps create change. These are interesting times in 8B! Stay tuned! - Mr. Kozaris COURSE SELECTION FOR GRADE 8 STUDENTS

"Happy New Year! We are quickly moving toward course selection time. Course selection will need to be completed using myBlueprint. A signed copy of the myBlueprint form will need to be submitted to Guidance no later than Feb. 23rd. Earlier submissions are always appreciated and can easily be completed for those students moving into their feeder high school. All course descriptions are provided on myBlueprint. Stay tuned for more information that will be given to your son/daughter. As always, feel free to reach out to me at the school should you have any questions." Suzanne Gumbs-Fleming Elementary Itinerant Counsellor (EIC)

"TDSB videos are available to support transitioning to high school. You can access them using this link: http://www.tdsb.on.ca/High-School/Going-toHigh-School/Beyond-8 Also, Grade 8 students should be sure to accept the invitation to join my google classroom. Information is shared here and it's a great place to ask any questions." Thanks. Suzanne Gumbs-Fleming Elementary Itinerant Counsellor (EIC) Learning Centre 1, Learning Network 3 Bloordale MS Hollycrest MS North Kipling JMS