Fern Ave. Public School Blog

Happy Summer Everyone! Find the June newsletter here .

Dear Parents/Guardians, Staff and Students, Please join me in wishing Vice-Principal Linda Tasevski all the very best as she bids farewell to the staff, students and parents of Fern Junior and Senior Public School. During her tenure at Fern Junior and Senior Public School, Vice-Principal Linda Tasevski has proven herself to be a dedicated and hardworking vice-principal and we sincerely thank her for her years of contribution to the students, staff and community of Fern Junior and Senior School.  She will be deeply missed.  On behalf of the Toronto District School Board, we wish her much success in her new endeavours. Following approval at Board meeting last evening, Ms. Lindita Guffin will assume the vice-principalship at Fern Junior and Senior School.  Vice-Principal Lindita Guffin comes with many years of experience teaching and leading in administrative roles and was a dedicated administrator at various schools wi...

Dear Parents/Guardians, Please note we still have quite a few lost & found items which have not been claimed. Kindly have a look through the items displayed in the main foyer, those items not claimed will be donated. Thank you.

The City of Toronto has pledged $34 million to build the new Wabash Community Centre at Sorauren Park by 2023, starting with design studies in 2017. We need you to Show Your Support to ensure this remains a priority project for our neighbourhood. A private donor has generously provided funds to pay for special keychains for students and families of Fern Avenue Public School. Please send any old keys you have (that no longer work) into your child's classroom for them to attach to their keychain. If you have a lot of old keys, please send them all so that we can distribute them to those who don't have one. Your children will show their support by writing their name on the keychain. You can also send beads in so classes can personalize their keychain. Classes will hang their keychains on the fence in Sorauren Park’s south-east corner along Wabash Avenue... joining the growing number of keychains already there. Funds raised through the keychain campaign support the cont...

Room 202 is holding a mini-carnival on Monday, June 27th for students in Grades 1-4. Students are asked to bring a donation of $2 to $5 next week. They will get a bracelet allowing them to play games like pinball and tomahawk throwing. They'll also get a couple of treats. Room 202 is putting on this event as a fundraiser for Attawapiskat, a reserve in Northern Ontario where there is a suicide crisis.

Dear Parents/ Guardians, Just another reminder that our Fern Avenue PS grade 8 GRADUATION is fast approaching. The Graduation ceremony will take place on Tuesday, June 28th at Parkdale Collegiate Institute on Jameson Avenue from 4:30 to 5:30 PM. Graduates are asked to please come to PCI between 3:30 and 3:45PM for a group photo. Once the ceremony comes to an end the graduates are invited to celebrate at the LULA LOUNGE from 6 to 10 PM. Parents please note if you are  not picking up your child from the LULA LOUNGE kindly notify Vera Ciric in the main office of alternate pick up arrangements. Thank you.

Dear Parents/Guardians, New estimated time of arrival for grade 8's returning from Montreal is now 7:40 to 8:20 PM the buses are about 30 mins apart. Thank you.

Dear Parent/Guardians, The estimated time of arrival of the grade 8's returning from Montreal is between 7 & 8 PM this evening. Students will be dropped off on Wright Avenue. Thank you, Vera

A Huge Thank You to all of the Volunteers who helped make the day the great success it was. The dunk tank was a great addition this year. Thank you to Principal Szonyi, Mr. Nikolajevic, Mr. Sy and Mr. Ciric for their participation! Thank you Taya & Chris. The weather cooperated and a lot of fun was had by all that attended. Thank you to Janet Hoard who ran an fantastic Bake Sale for the 3rd consecutive year. We raised $6830 which is a terrific result and will enrich the students programs for the 2016-2017 school year. Thank you Liz Leason Fun Fair Organizer

Fern’s hot-lunch program has served more than 30,000 lunches this year to students from JK to grade 8, teachers and staff. Why not sign up for next school year's program right now and take care of all your child's lunches for a year? In September, TDSB NS will continue to offer a 4-week menu rotation featuring items such as chicken cacciatore, teriyaki noodles, burger with oven fries, chicken noodle soup, kale caesar salad, chicken tikka masala and pita pizza. For more details about next year's lunch program click here . To order, simply fill out, detach and submit the form with your payment in a sealed envelope. The secure wall-mounted deposit box is conveniently located outside the Ferncliff Daycare office (room 103). The deadline for your order is Wednesday, June 29th to begin lunch on Tuesday, September 6th, 2016. Fern Food Committee fernlunchprogram@gmail.com

Just a reminder that if you'd like to get next year's lunches out of the way before summer starts, you still can! Simply fill out the order form and drop it off by Wednesday, June 29th. If you'd like to read about next year's lunch program, please click here . Thanks and have a happy and safe summer, Fern Food Committee

One of the organizations is called Green Thumbs. Green Thumbs offers food growing and environmental education programs in 4 inner-city schools and 2 park sites. Their programs take place in the east downtown Toronto neighbourhoods of Saint James town, Cabbagetown, and Regent Park. Green Thumbs mission statement is “to empower urban children, youth and their families to learn about, grow and prepare fresh foods, cultivated in an environmentally sustainable manner, in hands-on programs.” The organization’s vision is of healthy communities with learning gardens everywhere! For more information: greenthumbsto.org The other organization is called Earth Rangers. Earth Rangers is an organization that helps children to learn how to help animals. Their programs are based on research that indicates that the #1 environmental concern for children across Canada is protecting animals from extinction. Earth Rangers takes that concern and translates it into action; they encourage children to...

We want to invite you to share our spring/summer programming at MacGregor Park with the students - we are just around the corner from the school, on Lansdowne north of College. For two more weeks in the spring, we have community garden and theater drop in sessions once a week on Saturday mornings from 10-1pm. The south end of the park is the perfect spot for a family day, with enough shade to sit aside and listen to or sing along with music by Lisa Bozikovic. Kit Tough runs the theater workshops: where stories and characters are developed, inspired by the gardens and park. And still plenty to do in the gardens. All building towards a group performance for July 1st, Canada Day . In the summer we will be expanding our to three times a week, and together with our gardener, Ava Lightbody, students can learn about growing and harvesting an edible garden in a public park. Students in finishing grade 8 can connect with us to start doing their community hours in the garden. We wo...

In May, the Fern Eco Team participated in a waste audit with Mme. Tse and Mme. Mably. During the waste audit we had to sort through the garbage, compost, and recycling to see whether or not teachers, students and staff were properly sorting their garbage, compost, and recycling. It was not a fun job but we learned a lot during the audit. When we sorted through the garbage we found many items that did not belong in the garbage bin. The compost bin was good in some ways because there was a lot of food scraps. One thing that we noticed and were quite surprised with was the amount of uneaten food that had been prepared carefully for students by their parents. The recycling bag had a lot of garbage and some unopened food and cutlery in it. Overall the school did okay, but we think we could have done better. Things that we can do to improve are: · Take a moment to ensure you are placing your item in the right bin · Take all uneaten food back home · Reusable contai...

The Eco-club will be leading the school in a planting and nurturing Fern School’s front gardens this spring. We are planning to refresh the existing planting of the Fern Avenue front gardens with new plants that focus on: wildlife habitat for birds and bees, a three sisters garden to celebrate food and heritage and a focus on bringing beauty and colour to the school’s front yard. While classes will help with the planting, we need volunteers to help us tend the gardens over the summer months. There is watering and gardening equipment available to make this easy but we need garden keepers to help us. If every volunteer family could commit to watering and tending the gardens for just one week in the summer, we can ensure efforts of our students are sustained through the hot weather months. If you are able to take on a few days or even a week (only 2-3 waterings) over the summer please let Mdm Tse or Melanie Hare know at mhds230@gmail.com or 416-516-6028. Hoping you will join e...

Once again, the Eco-club will be leading the school in a planting and nurturing Fern School’s front gardens this month. We are planning to refresh the existing planting of the Fern Avenue front gardens with new plants that focus on: wildlife habitat for birds and bees, a three sisters garden to celebrate food and heritage and a focus on bringing beauty and colour to the school’s front yard. Classes will help with the planting on Friday June 17 . If you are interested in helping out in the morning and/or afternoon please let us know (Melanie at 416.516.6028; mhds230@gmail.com ). We are also looking for volunteers to help us tend the gardens over the summer months. Last summer we had a number of families (thanks Garden Keepers!) who stewarded the gardens and new trees by watering and weeding over the summer - each taking a stint of one week. We are looking for volunteers again this summer. If every volunteer family could commit to watering and tending the gardens for just on...

Please click here for all the exciting May news from the Principal, teachers and classrooms! With a month left of school, find out what's up and coming for June including the Dunk Tank at the Fun Fair!