December 2015

Arts

To celebrate the arrival of the winter break, a school dance was held for intermediate students. The gym was decorated with many snowflakes, made by students, and the music was student lead, an eighth grader being the “dj”.

Another exciting event were lip syncs, a dance that was created was lip synced to by grade 7 and 8 students. Scores were given to each dance, the teachers being the judges, and the top 3 scores were announced at the end, the groups going to the front of the room so a photo could be taken of the top groups. A total of 5 groups and 1 soloist were in the photo. It was an event that ran through the whole day and had the whole school buzzing!

Sports

This month in sports, plenty of new seasons started and some of them ended. Basketball and Girls Volleyball had their tryouts and their first practices. The Boys Volleyball team, in their final game, a championship, came very close to winning, but fell short by just a bit.

The sports scene is always active here at JWB! Looking forwards to seeing what comes of our sports scene in January!

Leadership

December was a very busy month at J.W.B., many initiatives were taken up by the school just in time for the holiday season. Peppermint and cherry flavoured candy canes were sold throughout one week, cherry being the clear school favourite. A giving tree was set up in the front foyer, with gifts written on paper ornaments that were hung on the tree. These paper ornaments would also serve as a gift tag for the item that was bought. Many gifts were brought in and multiple times the tree was found bare, with no gift tags left as they had all been taken by students. Finally, our school was involved in a Me to We campaign, which was selling rafikis. Student leaders went around during both breaks on Tuesdays and Thursdays over the duration of 2 weeks to sell rafikis to the rest of the school. More than once our leadership team was sold out of the rafikis, showing just how much our school helped out. Way to go J.W.B.!

Learning

Although usually people think of December as a “relaxed, laid-back, get-nothing-done” month, we still did plenty of learning at JWB! One of the major projects we did in December was our English “Book of Awesome” project for the Grade 8’s. This project is just about taking a small, quick and enjoyable moment in your life and to write about it - to appreciate every single thing and sometimes, to just take a deep breath and slow down.

Science Fair and Data Fair were also introduced to Grades 7 and 8’s in Science and Math class. Science Fair is to be handed in at February, and the best projects from our school will progress onto the regional Science Fair, BASEF. Data Fair is due in January and is mostly a data management project.

The last bit of December was mostly dedicated to fun - caroling, parties, completing projects in class, and the dreaded report cards.

Anyways, that’s all. See you in January!

Giving Back

December is the times of year when we all have fun with our families, relax and receive. However, one major thing missing from that was the giving. A large thing that we do here to give back is our Giving Tree initiative. Gifts were brought in by students and were taken to a hospital. Our tree was found many times bare because we had so many gifts coming and going. We are so happy to see these kinds of initiatives at our school. Way to go!

Special Events

In December, our school was a very busy place in terms of special events. First of all, we had our three school concerts, kindergarten, grade 1 and grade 2-3. These concerts were a big success and are always big highlight of the year. We are so happy and proud to see our younger students performing so well. We have so much talent here at JWB! Secondly, on the Friday before the winter break, we had a Christmas caroling assembly! This is an annual tradition at our school that we partake in each year. On the last day before the break, all the students and staff of the school gather together to sing carols and celebrate the Holiday season. It is a very exciting time of year for everyone, and here at JWB we like to spread the festive cheer.