Mar 4, 2021

Read-a-thon, PA Exec, Parent Ed

Topics covered in this post:

Book Night
Read-A-Thon
JICS Parents' Association
Parents' Association Meeting Recording
Parenting Workshop Series: March 16, 12:30pm
Parent Education: March 25, 7:00pm
Persian New Year: March 21
Passover: March 27-April 4
PHOTOS: Student Art
Upcoming March Events

1. Book Night

If you missed it and want to know what all the buzz is about, or you simply want to watch it again, here is the link: https://youtu.be/ohuXt83M3kU

Thanks to all the JICS students, teachers, staff, and planning committee (Nick, Tory, Charlotte, David, Krista, Mallory, Chriss, and Richard) and to the JICS parents for your support and positive feedback!

2. Read-A-Thon

March is a special month for families and for READING!

The 27th annual JICS READ-ATHON runs until the first week of April. Help your child document each day that they read and collect pledges from family members and friends. The funds gathered go directly toward visiting authors, illustrators, and storytellers, and to purchasing books for the library.

Online donations

Website with all the information and downloadable forms

3. JICS Parents' Association

All JICS parents are members of the Parents’ Association (PA). As a registered charity and parent volunteer group since 1968, the PA’s purpose is to provide educational resources and programs that advance the educational experience of the children, and build, foster, and support the parent community.

The PA Executive is a wonderful opportunity to get more involved and be an active member of the school community.

The PA is looking for new members to fill some Executive Positions (all are 2-year terms) beginning July 1, 2021. See the poster for details and contact PA President Deepta Rayner at PAExecJICS@gmail.com for more information or if interested!

4. Parents' Association Meeting

The recording of the January 25th Parents' Association meeting is now available for you to watch or listen.

5. JICS Parenting Workshop Series with Social Worker, Ellie Lathrop

Mindful Parenting: Cultivating compassion and awareness

March 16th, 12:30pm

We are a year into the pandemic and hopefully seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. And there is also a collective exhaustion. Join us to take a breath and share an introduction on how mindfulness practices can help you as a parent become more present for your children and all of their experiences. Mindfulness has also been shown to support in becoming less reactive or automatic when we are responding to our children. Additionally, mindfulness encourages us to slow down, with compassion and this can lead to improved self-care and more effective parenting.

As always, we will have a 30 min talk that will be recorded and 30 min of open discussion with parents to allow time for questions. The discussion and questions will not be recorded.

RSVP to this lunch time talk to receive email reminders with the Parent Education zoom link.

6. Parent Education March 25th, 7:00pm

Book and Ticket Event: Gutter Child with author Jael Richardson

Join us for a night of Q&A with Jael Richardson, author and artistic director of the FOLD literary festival, the books columnist on CBC Radio’s q and an outspoken advocate on issues of diversity. Moderated by Harper Collins Editor and JICS Parent, Jennifer Lambert.

About Gutter Child:

A fierce and illuminating debut from FOLD founder Jael Richardson about a young woman who must find the courage to determine her own future and secure her freedom.

Set in an imagined world in which the most vulnerable are forced to buy their freedom by working off their debt to society, Gutter Child uncovers a nation divided into the privileged Mainland and the policed Gutter. In this world, Elimina Dubois is one of only 100 babies taken from the Gutter and raised in the land of opportunity as part of a social experiment led by the Mainland government.

But when her Mainland mother dies, Elimina finds herself all alone, a teenager forced into an unfamiliar life of servitude, unsure of who she is and where she belongs. Elimina is sent to an academy with new rules and expectations where she befriends Gutter children who are making their own way through the Gutter System in whatever ways they know how. When Elimina’s life takes another unexpected turn, she will discover that what she needs more than anything may not be the freedom she longs for after all.

Richardson’s Gutter Child reveals one young woman’s journey through a fractured world of heartbreaking disadvantages and shocking injustices. Elimina is a modern heroine in an altered but all too recognizable reality who must find the strength within herself to forge her future and defy a system that tries to shape her destiny.

About Jael Richardson:

Jael Richardson is the artistic director of the FOLD literary festival, the books columnist on CBC Radio’s q and an outspoken advocate on issues of diversity. She is the author of The Stone Thrower: A Daughter’s Lesson, a Father’s Life, a memoir based on her relationship with her father, CFL quarterback Chuck Ealey. The memoir received a CBC Bookie Award, an Arts Acclaim Award and a My People Award. A children’s edition was published by Groundwood Books. Her essay “Conception” is part of Room magazine’s first Women of Colour edition, and excerpts from her first play, my upside down black face, appear in the anthology T-Dot Griots: An Anthology of Toronto’s Black Storytellers. Jael Richardson received an MFA in creative writing from the University of Guelph. She lives in Brampton, Ontario.

The JICS Parents' Association has purchased five copies of Gutter Child for the school library. If a member of the community would like to attend but does not have the means to purchase a book/ticket, please contact Richard directly for a link to the event.

This is a book and ticket event.

Click here to purchase Gutter Child from Another Story

with the code "JICS Gutter Child event" to receive a ticket to the event.

7. Persian New Year - March 21

Nowruz is the day of the vernal equinox, and it marks the beginning of Spring in the Northern Hemisphere. It also marks the first day of the first month (Farvardin) of the Iranian calendars. Typically, before the arrival of Nowruz, family members gather around the Haft-sin table and await the exact moment of the March equinox to celebrate the New Year. Traditionally, the Haft-sin (seven things beginning with the letter sin (س)) are:

Sabze – wheat, barley, mung bean, or lentil sprouts grown in a dish
Samanu – sweet pudding made from wheat germ
Persian olive
Vinegar
Apple
Garlic
Sumac

We invite parents to suggest ways to help our students gain insight into the celebration of Nowruz. Please be in touch with your child’s teachers with ideas.

8. Passover: March 27-April 4

Passover is a major Jewish Holiday that occurs in the Spring on the 15th day of the Hebrew month of Nisan. It marks the Exodus of the Children of Israel from Egyptian slavery, when God "passed over" the houses of the Israelites during the last of the 10 plagues. The Passover Seder is one of the most widely observed rituals in Judaism. The Seder table is traditionally set with the finest place settings and silverware, and family members come to the table dressed in their holiday clothes. There is a tradition for the person leading the Seder to wear a white robe called a kittel. At the head of the table is a Seder plate containing various symbolic foods that will be eaten or pointed out during the course of the Seder.

We are asking for parent volunteers to help us celebrate and to learn more about Passover. Please contact your child’s teachers.