E - BULLETIN UPDATE #11 2017 Character Trait….E M P A T H Y Empathy is about standing in someone else's shoes, feeling with his or her heart, seeing with his or her eyes. Not only is empathy hard to outsource and automate, but it makes the world a better place. Since our last E-Bulletin, and as per usual, many great things have been happening at Cedarwood! On the evening of March 28 th , Celebrity Chef Devan Rajkumar visited our school and helped our families make a variety of healthy dishes for the participants to enjoy. Chef Devan demon- strated that cooking following recipes can be a fun activity for families to do together and he modeled how using healthy food options can help to create delicious meals! The feedback from the evening was extremely positive and we thank Ms. Shama for her leadership in organizing this event for the community. It was a great deal of work to plan and organize the session and we also thank Ms. Kim, the many staff members who volunteered to support the event, and the many parent volunteers who helped throughout the day with the food preparation. Many hands helped to make light work and the evening a great success! Our end of month assembly followed the next day and Ms. McDonald and Ms. Irani ’s classes did a wonderfully choreographed skipping perfor- mance, as part of their Empathy presentations, that helped kick off our Jump Rope for Heart campaign. The statistics show that heart disease affects 1.3 million Canadians. Research has found that with healthy behaviours, such as regular exercise and proper nutrition, you can delay the onset of heart disease or stroke by as much as 14 years! The Heart and Stroke Foundation uses the funds from campaigns in a variety of im- portant ways. They support Canadians by helping to put A.E.D. ’s (automated external defibrillators) in public places, by helping to fund cardiac rehabilitation programs, by working with communities to promote healthier lifestyles, and by investing in life-saving research. We thank the many families who have supported this fundraising initiative as it will have a positive impact on so many Canadian lives! Following these two events, our Student Council, under the leadership of Ms. Legault, Ms. Ganeshan, Ms. Belanger, and Ms. Hamawi, planned and organized our recent Wellness Week Activities. The goal of the week was to promote positive mental health and bullying prevention. Each day of the week had a different theme and our students were engaged in a variety of fun activities that supported this goal. On Musical Monday, all students attended a music performance by the Infinitus Beatboxing String Trio. This dynamic group engaged our students with music ranging from familiar classics to classic rock, and from TV theme songs to hip-hop beatboxing. The students were encouraged to participate during this interactive performance and they seemed to really enjoy the experience. On Let ’s Talk Tuesday, our students participated in a variety of wellness lessons that focused on being an upstander and to “fill the bucket” of others by being supportive and doing and saying nice things. The Grade 6, 7, and 8 students attended a Social Media Fitness session with guest speaker Chris Vollum who spoke to them about the impact of their social content to themselves and others. What’s Up Wednesday and Thoughtful Thursday followed with a variety of activities that further helped us work towards meeting our goal. If you would like to see some more information about what happened during this week visit our Twitter site @CedarwoodPS. We thank the staff and student leaders for their efforts in making this week a fun and engaging one, and our challenge now is to make sure that we continue to support each other to help make Cedarwood a positive and inclusive school that stands up to bullying and dis- crimination of any kind! During the current week, we have been participating in Earth Week activities organized by Ms. Bhatt, Ms. Murali, Ms. Alexan, Ms. Singh, Ms. Hobbs and our wonderful student Eco- leaders! Tupperware Tuesday encouraged students to bring their lunches in reusable containers and Walking on Wednesday encouraged families to walk to school. Thursday was Lights Out day and Friday is our annual Earth Day community clean up. We will continue to promote green practices with our students, staff, and families, as together we all make a difference! Finally, next week is pause to PLAY week in York Region. Students and families in the region are being challenged to put their T.V.’s, gaming devices, tablets and computers on “pause” for one full week. Instead, they are encouraged to participate in outdoor play activities. Experts rec- ommend that screen times should be limited to no more than two hours a day for children 5 to 17 years of age but studies are finding only 24 per cent of children are meeting this recommendation. Furthermore, it is recommended that children should get at least 60 minutes of moderate to vigorous intensity physical activity each day, but only 9 per cent of Canadian children meet this recommendation (from Community and Health Services Public Health – York Region). It is our hope that your family will choose to pause to PLAY next week. A copy of a letter from the Pub- lic Health Department and a Student Activity Log sheet will be shared with families by e-mail. Interested students were invited to the gym on Friday morning to learn more about how pause to PLAY week works and to see some of the great prizes that they can win if they participate! Over 90 students took the pledge to ‘pause to play’ next week and were given a Student Activity Log Sheet. Let ’s get active Cedarwood! High Five! P. Battler and A. Porter, Administrators 399 Elson Street, Markham, ON L3S 4R8 (905) 294-5756 Principal: Paul Battler Vice Principal: Araby Porter Superintendent: Chris Tulley (905) 940-7800 Trustee: Juanita Nathan (905) 471–2553 School Website: http://www.cedarwood.ps.yrdsb.ca School Email: [email protected] Upcoming Highlights… April 25th - EMPATHY ASSEMBLIES—8:30—9:30—Gr. 3/4—8, 10:15—11:15— JK—2/3 April 26th - SPRING PICTURES & INTERMEDIATE FAMILY MATH NIGHT April 27th - SCHOOL COUNCIL MEETING—6:30pm in the Library April 28th - HEP B/HPV Vaccines