International Dot Day!

   

Tuesday, September 15

The Busy Bees have joined over 21 million children and adults around the globe in 196 countries to celebrate International Dot Day – a grass roots “creativity and courage” movement, started in 2009 by a teacher in Iowa. Inspired by New York Times best-selling author/illustrator Peter H. Reynolds’ classic storybook for all ages The Dot. Exploring the themes of creativity, bravery and self-expression, The Dot is a story of a perceptive and caring teacher who reaches a reluctant student who thinks she can’t draw by encouraging her be brave enough to “just make a mark and see where it takes you.” What begins with a small dot on a piece of paper becomes a breakthrough in confidence and courage, igniting a journey of self-discovery and sharing, which has gone on to inspire countless children and adults around the globe to just give something a try.

Today, we celebrated The Dot by reading the story and discussing the author's message. Then we went on to make our mark and created our own dots to show how we are all unique and special. It is ok to try your best and your best is all we are asking for! This has been our message as we start Grade 1; a growth mindset with our Cupcake Work and continuing to try our best with positivity and risk taking in what we attempt to do as we learn.

The author also created a little song to go along with the book and we listened while we worked.

Here are some of our own dots from our activity!

Let's all give it a go and try our best in Grade 1!

You never know what may happen from just a little dot!

September's Reading Room

Here is our September virtual reading room! This contains some great books with themes we will be focusing on in September in our Busy Bee class:

• Back to School
• Growth Mindset
• Fall (Seasons)
• Respect

Click on the pdf with interactive links on the books to enjoy! 

Last Day of School Excitement!

What a great way to spend the last day of Grade 1/2 with some fun math, awards and gifts! We certainly were excited to finish up with a bee movie with a theme of ‘beeing’ yourself! Thank you to the families that sent in some surprise treats today as well! They were enjoyed with the movie! 

Have the best summer break, Busy Bees!

Summer Break Wishes From Mrs. Herbert

   

Wishing all the Grade 1/2 Busy Bee families a wonderful, safe, healthy, and rejuvenating summer break!! 

Thank you for all the wonderful work and support from home to build these little learners! It takes a village to raise such amazing little people! They have grown so much and in so many ways! You should be proud of your little one! 

To our 2025-2026 Busy Bees...Congratulations! You did it! I wish each and every one of you the very best and continued success next year!! Thank you for letting me be your teacher and learning with me. I am proud of you for all you have learned to do this school year and the wonderful character traits you are instilling in yourselves. I just know you will go on to do great things, when you put your mind to it! Have a great summer!! 

We welcome all our little learners back to school on Tuesday, September 8, 2026 for a fresh start to a new year!!

SPCS Play Day!

The weather cooperated so perfectly so we could participate in our school wide Play Day!! It was warm but we got to cool down with some great games organized by Mrs. Hobson and Mrs. Boyd with our 7/8 class to run stations and our 6/7 class as the team leaders. 

Also, we enjoyed a school wide picnic with a hot dog and cake lunch organized by School Council! Thank you to those wonderful parents that helped make that happen! 

We had a blast and finished up with some freezies as a treat! What a great way to end the day and prepare us for our last day of school tomorrow!

Learning Buddies Year End Celebration!

Today, we celebrated the end of the school year with our learning buddies! We wanted to say thank you to them with a special card we made and indulged in a little 'make your own' ice cream sundae party. 

We so greatly appreciate all the learning buddies have helped us do this year! We are a bunch of smarties thanks to them! 

Have a great summer to Mr. Glover & Mr. Steinmann's Grade 5/6 class!  

Penpal Video Conference Meet & Greet

Today, we had the pleasure of meeting our penpals from Little Falls Public School. We have been writing back and forth since Christmas time and having a blast getting mail from our new friends. We invited them to a video conference so we could see them in real life! We sent them a care package to open today with a treat for each of them! And we got a special delivery to have to open as well from them! It was fun to see our penpals and maybe one day we will get to meet in person! Thank you to Mrs. Brodhagen's 1B class for working with us to be better writers and make a friend along the way. 

South Perth's Steps for Seniors

We braved the wet weather to put some Steps in for Seniors!

ONE CARE provides a range of supportive care services that enable seniors and people with disabilities to enjoy better quality of life as they age at home. ONE CARE Home & Community Support Services is a community based, charitable, not-for-profit health organization providing supportive care to families in Huron and Perth Counties and surrounding area. All of the money you raise as part of Steps for Seniors 2026 will help raise funds to support the purchase of new vehicles for our transportation program in Huron and Perth Counties.

There is still time to donate to this link to contribute to a great cause! Thanks for all your support!

A little wind and rain didn't get our spirits down knowing we are helping those in our community!

Camp Bimini Year End Class Field Trip!

We had so much fun on our adventure to Camp Bimini! So much to see, do and explore! This really was a great trip for Busy Bees that like to see, touch and do! 

Thank you to the parent volunteers for coming along! We really appreciate having that support to makes these trips possible. And we also want to thank School Council funds to make this a much more cost effective trip for each of little Busy Bees! 

Here are a few pictures from our trip...

CNE Free Children's Pass

 

The CNE has provided our board with a Kids School Pass for the 2026 season!

This pass offers free grounds admission to the 2026 CNE for children aged 13 and under. This pass can be downloaded and scanned on a smartphone at the gate or printed.

The CNE will take place from August 21 to September 7, 2026.

Click here to get the pass.

Choose Not To Use Challenge Wrap Up Day

This past month, the whole school had been challenged to 'choose not to use' as part of way to understand how to positively support our mental health and wellbeing. The school's Mental Health and Wellbeing Team challenged each class to take the pledge and choose not to use devices (as much) as it impacts our body in many different ways. We learned some pretty interesting facts on how screen time impacts our heart, lungs, eyes and brain! We made a commitment and hope at home, we can be held to our promise to reduce the amount of time on devices. We discussed other ways to spend our time and engaged in some really great activities at electives and with some activities planned and ran by the school's Mental Health and Wellbeing group. 

Today, we wrapped up our month long challenge and enjoyed some outside time together as a whole school with some additional play time and a treat! What a beautiful day to enjoy our successes with our challenge! We challenge you to keep it up and make a conscious effort to continue to choose other activities that are better for your mind and body than screens! 

 

Forest of Reading Wrap Up!

 

The Forest of Reading is Canada’s largest recreational reading program! This initiative offers ten reading programs to encourage a love of reading in people of all ages. The Forest helps celebrate Canadian books, publishers, authors and illustrators. More than 270,000 readers participate annually from their school and/or public library.

Our class, participated in the Blue Spruce reading program which we read 10 fictional stories from Canadian authors and illustrators. We each got to vote for our favourite and sent our results in with those that also participated at South Perth! We love a chance to read new, exciting stories! 

The winner this year was just announced this past week and the winner of the Blue Spruce award was: 

This book certainly won the hearts of many of our Busy Bee readers who voted for this as their favourite! Congratulations to all the nominees on their wonderful books! 

To celebrate, we had a little ice cream sandwich party on Friday afternoon! Thanks to School Council fundraising to help get these books into the lives of our little readers and get the opportunity to participate and have their say to instill the love of reading! 

Tree Planting!

Today, students were planting trees and shrubs on the school property with the help from the Upper Thames River Conservation Authority and our learning buddies! Thanks to Mr. Glover and his class for leading this initiative with getting the donation of the trees and organizing the opportunity for everyone to lead to this school property beautification process! Students are thrilled to be part of this and know their hard work will lead to great things for the school for years to come!

Mis-Matched Spirit Day

 

Dairy Educator Presentation

  

We welcomed Ms. Garrett today to share with us about the concepts of liquids and solids with relation to dairy products. We had so much fun talking about dairy products and even participated in a cool experiment where we took cream (a liquid) and turned it into butter (a solid) with some hard work! We even got to sample our results! Ms. Garrett was so great about answering all our questions about her dairy cows and all the dairy products! What a great, hands on learning experience! Thanks for coming, Ms. Garrett!  

Pizza Party!

Today we were very fortunate to have a surprise pizza party from donations that we had planned back in December! But here we are getting to enjoy them now and oh boy, were students happy with their surprise lunch. Thank you to our wonderful community to put the smiles on these kiddos faces with a little pizza and milk!! 

Easter Egg Hunt for Ronald McDonald House!

 

We are so excited to say that our Easter Egg Hunt for Ronald McDonald House was a great success!! 

We made the treat bags for all the participants, prepared posters to advertise in the school and created announcements to share. The students were so excited to help hide the eggs, pass out treats and go on our own hunt as well. 

Donations rolled in this past week and helped us reach over our goal. We raised just over $320! We are very happy with the amount we are donating to the Ronald McDonald House! 

A BIG thank you to the volunteers, Kendra Eckel, Pam Ford, Heather Elgie, Joanne Carr and Michele Ivanouski that volunteered to help run the event! 

We might have a small school but we have really BIG hearts and it shows when we put our efforts in to share with those in our community! 

Thank you to everyone for making it a big success!!!

Wishing you all an amazing Easter weekend!

Easter Egg Hunt Preparations!

The Grade 1/2 Busy Bees have started preparing for the school Easter Egg Hunt. We are raising money for the Ronald McDonald House! We have made our posters to advertise and put up around the school and written our announcements to have each group read over the next while at school. We started making the treat bags for all the participants today and started decorating the giant banner! Donations are starting to come in to help reach our goal! We are so excited for our special event next week!  

PJ Day!

Today we had a great day with our pjs on and our stuffie to cuddle with today! 

Humane Society Presentation

Today, we had the pleasure of having a presentation from The Humane Society of Stratford. The topic was all about how animals communicate so we know about animal safety. We were learning about:

• When dogs or cats lift up their leg or paw, it could mean that their legs are hurt. (Liam)
• When cats have their backs up, that means they are scared. (Jack)
• When cats are calm, they purr. (Madelyn)
• When dogs bow, that means they want to play. (Raiden)
• When dogs mouths are open and they are panting, it could mean they are hot. (Olivia F)
• When you can see dogs teeth, that means they are mad. (Tom D)
• When cats are scared, they put their tail behind their legs. (Ella)
• When cats are mad, they stick their fur up. (Bellamy)

We want to be safe around pets but also around wildlife and farm animals. We want to thank our presenter for sharing some good info with us. We also got to make some puppy treat bags for our friends that are at the Humane Society. We hope they enjoy their treats!!