October 31, 2023

School Hours:

Mon – Thurs: 8:30am – 3:00pm

Fri: 8:30am – 12:45pm

Terry Fox run

This years Terry Fox Run was a huge success. All the students and staff were in the playground and everyone ran, walked and jogged for about half an hour. Many parents also joined in and had a great time.

We are so proud of our community as we have raised a record number of dollars. This year, a little over $5,000 was raised by the school community. All the donations will be going to the Terry Fox Foundation and used to find a cure for cancer.

2023 - $5,000

2022 - $3,163

2021 - $800

As you can see, we seem to be raising more and more each year. Perhaps we can aim for $6,000 next year! I would like to thank all our students and parents for your hard work and contributions to such a worthy cause.

A quick shout-out to Alistair (Hemlock class) for raising the highest contribution total of any student in the school for the third year in a row! Choice School was proud to be a part of such a meaningful event and we look forward to running it again next year.



Pumpkin Patch

On Wednesday October 25th, Oak, Cedar, and Hemlock classes took their first field trip of the school year to Richmond Country Farms. At the farm, they took a tractor hayride observing Halloween displays and different farm animals. Students also sung along to different songs like "Old MacDonald". After picking the pumpkins, the students were able to jump and play around in piles of hay. 

The highlight of the field trip was being able to pick a pumpkin to take back to school with them! Each student picked their own unique pumpkins to take home and carve/decorate. Cedar class, however, is doing an art activity where they will be painting their pumpkins in class. After picking the pumpkins, the students were able to jump and play around in piles of hay. 

Oak class enjoyed exploring the farm, as they have been learning about communities. Oak students were able to apply their understandings of how farms are important to communities because we get food from the animals and the crops that are grown there. At the farm, they not only brainstormed what we could use pumpkins for, but they were also able to pick an apple to have as a snack!

Open House  

On Friday October 6, 2023, Choice School held their first Open House for this school year.



This was an astounding success as over ten families arrived and were treated to a personal tour of the facilities and programs that Choice School has to offer.

The tours were given by some of our students in Pine and Fir classes. Hanchen, Joshua, Christopher and Kingsley were stellar guides to prospective families.

During the Open House, prospective families took the opportunity to chat with current parents, various members of staff, see the classroom resources and discuss possibilities with our principal, Mr. Bolina. Many thanks to the parent volunteers that came out to help with the Open House.

Pumpkin painting

It is Halloween time and most students plan to carve their pumpkins and make interesting sculptures out of them. Many out of the world designs are made and students proudly showcase their pumpkins to everyone.

However, our Cedar class decided to paint and decorate their pumpkins. This is a novel idea and is a lot less messy than carving. It is also very interesting and we were so impressed with the multitude of designs that the students came up with. There were hundreds of ideas available but we allowed the students to harness their own creativity and decorate their pumpkins according to their own thoughts.

We loved these, let us know what you think!

Halloweeeeeeeeen Fun

On Tuesday October 31, the Choice School staff and students had a great time when they arrived in a variety of costumes. Everyone was in good spirits as they blandished their Halloween costumes.

We had pirates, witches, superheroes, doctors, fairies, football players, a soldier, a metal band and many, many more.

At the end of the day, the entire school gathered in the gym and took part in a Halloween parade. Each class, led by their teachers, proudly showed their costumes.

Even the staff participated in the parade!

During day, students and staff participated in Halloween activities and almost every class contained a Halloween theme.

All in all, it was a great day full of fun and laughter. We wish everyone a safe Halloween! What an amazing way to end a great October.

Choice Challenge is a very sought after program as it brings together different students from different age groups in one class.

Every Wednesday, students and staff look foreword to the Choice Challenge and enjoy participating in the experience of their choice. As you can see from these choices, students will be learning about a variety of different skills. Choice Challenge runs for six weeks each term.

We wonder what variety we will be offering next term!

Choice School gardens

As the fall season is upon us, our students in Pine and Fir classes have been busy cleaning up the Choice School garden. There were many plants, some flowers and many vegetables. Tomatoes, in particular, were in abundance this year.

Students have dug the vegetable patches and put extra garden soil (thanks to Christopher and Joshua from Fir class) in order to get the garden ready for sowing new plants.

Next spring, we are starting a new initiative and are planting tulips. In fact, Oak and Cedar classes participated in planting tulips in one of the vegetable boxes under the guidance of Mr. B and their teachers.

There was an assortment of daffodils and tulips in various colours. These bulbs will provide color in the Choice School garden from March to June. In March, we will begin our vegetable gardening by providing seeds for the students to sow and seeing them grow into vegetables.

Professional Development

Professional development is a vital part of any educator’s career. As a teacher, professional development helps you reflect on your teaching practices, build new skills, come up with different classroom strategies, and generally stay ahead of the curve.

Teachers actively work to expand their knowledge by seeking and doing professional development.  Professional development helps ensure the best learning outcomes for students, which has to be the number one priority for any good classroom teacher.

On Friday October 20, all our teaching staff (teachers and education assistants) attended professional development workshops in various areas. Some of the workshops attended were:

• creating more engaging classrooms through visual culture
• assessment issues in the middle school classroom
• designing for inclusion
• The Educator’s Role in Mental Health
• Understanding Anxiety
• Creating a Supportive Environment
• Kaufman Test of Educational Achievement 
• An SEL Approach to Building Strong Kids
• Challenging high ability learners
• Exploring Northwest Coast Aboriginal Culture
• Teacher well being
• How to bring the best in gifted children

Such professional development is vital to keeping up to date with teaching methods and learning new teaching concepts.