Hastings Reads! 2023

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Hello Hastings school community!
Many
of you will remember in 2021, Hastings held a library diversity book
drive. It was incredibly
successful, with hundreds of book titles suggested by students,
care-givers, and teachers and over $5000 raised to purchase those books
and more. The intention was to ensure that the books in our school
library reflected the diversity in our school community
and around the world. Since then, much work has gone into purchasing
and cataloguing many of those books, and now we are ready to get going
on a second project……..
  HASTINGS READS!

As
the book drive
happened during a time when restrictions were in place and care-givers
weren’t allowed into the school, we want to make sure that all kids (and
adults) know about and take the opportunity to dive into these great
new books! So, using the popular yearly event
CBC’s Canada Reads as inspiration, 
we are going to have our own ‘Battle of the Books.’  ðŸŽ‰
Learn about
Canada Reads.
All classes and children will be involved and to kick things off,
everyone will receive their own Hastings Reads! 2023 bookmark. There is a
spot on the back where kids can write their name and division number, to
prevent them getting lost. 😉 Participation for the
different grades will look like this:
Kindergarten to grade 3:  The school librarian, Chris Donegan, will read from the new book list to each of the classes during their library time. 
Grades 4 and 5:  Children will each have their own checklist of
the new books, which they will be able to borrow from the library. Once a
book is read, they’ll check it on their list. Prizes will be awarded to
classes when they reach certain milestones
of books read in total.
Grades 6 and 7: The Hastings Reads! the subcommittee has been very
busy behind the scenes. The librarians on the subcommittee (we are lucky
to have several), have chosen 5 books for each of the 6/7
classes. From those five books, children will be able
to choose which book that they’d like to ‘champion’ as a group. A class
is welcome to have multiple groups championing a book. Children are
welcome and encouraged to read more than just the book they’d like to
champion, as the class that reads the most books
will earn a class prize. Classes have five copies of each of their five
books. While some were purchased through our awesome neighbourhood book
store –

Iron Dog Books
on Hastings St – half the books were either donated or heavily discounted by the publishers. And then in May, the final event, our very own ‘battle of the books,’ will take place! Date to be announced soon! As
we would like to make the final event as inclusive as possible, the
logistics of what that will look like are still being determined, but
we are already lining up local personalities from the book community, as moderators. 
The grades 6/7 teachers have received their books and checklists, the
grades 4 and 5 children will receive their checklists this week, posters are up, Hastings Reads book
displays are set
up in the library, and
all children will soon be receiving their Hastings Reads bookmarks. So,
everything is ready to go and the challenge is on!

Ask your children to tell you more about Hastings Reads and let’s talk about books!!

On behalf of the Hastings Reads! subcommittee, the Hastings Anti-racism Committee, and the Hastings PAC

Lost & Found Trolley is out!

Our Vice Principal Susan would like to remind families that the Lost & Found Trolley is out!

On most mornings as school commences (unless it’s raining), the trolley is wheeled out to the sidewalk in front of the main entrance on Franklin. Parents are welcome to come take a look and hopefully retrieve those lost items!

Susan says the best way to keep your kids stuff out of the lost & found is to LABEL YOUR CHILD’S BELONGINGS. It’s as easy as using a permanent marker in the neck label. While staff make every effort to unite lost items with their owners, they can only do that if the item is labelled.

An alternative to marker, are stickers with your child’s name. If you plan to label your child’s items before the start of September, please consider ordering Mabel’s Label’s and supporting the Hastings PAC’s ongoing fundraiser! 20% of every order goes to the PAC’s operating account, and is used for many important initiatives at our school. With the lack of fundraising events due to COVID this year, such as Spring Fair, Burger & Bevvie, and Bingo Night, small fundraisers like Mabel’s Labels help a lot!

Click above and look for ‘Hastings PAC (Vancouver)’. Thank you in advance for your support!

School Streets Pilot Project Video

To share the success of the Hastings School Streets Pilot Project, the City of Vancouver would like to make a short video of the project in action while highlighting Hastings students’ and parents’ perspectives. The City is looking for a few parents/students to participate in the video which will take place either this Thursday May 6th or Friday May 7th. Participation may include an interview with questions such as:  

  • What has been different about the street in front of the school?
  • Can you describe what it’s been like not having vehicles on one block in front of the school?
  • What do you like about biking, walking or rolling to school or on the school street? How do you feel?
  • What is something you liked about having one block in front of the school closed to cars?

If you are interested in participating, please contact Tracy Wilkins at Tracy.Wilkins@vancouver.ca

The Hastings Podcast – A message on Behalf of the Grade 7 Students!

Hi! I’m Avery, grade 7 student at Hastings and co-founder of the Hastings Podcast.
I started the podcast with my friends Lillian and Nasja, also in grade 7. We wanted to both give some students at Hastings a chance to share some things about them personally and about things that go on the school. We also thought the parents would appreciate an inside look at things that are going on in Hastings right now, because of the Covid restrictions and also because of course they can’t follow us around all day. (Although I know my moms would probably love to)

So far, we have three podcasts out. The first is on slang; slang words that kids use that parents might not understand. The second was released in February and is about how the students we interviewed spent their winter breaks. (Spoiler alert: nobody went anywhere!) And the most recent one is about wether students prefer cats or dogs—a very controversial topic in elementary school!

Please check out our podcast on Teams or wherever you get your podcasts! (But actually just Teams). Click on the link below, sign into Teams, and it will take you to the episode.

Episode 1 – Slang Words
Episode 2 – Winter Break
Episode 3 – Cats & Dogs

School Streets Pilot starts Tomorrow!

The School Street Pilot will be in effect on Franklin Street between Penticton and Slocan from 8:40am-9:10am and 2:40pm-3:10pm, Monday to Friday (on school days), April 12th, 2021 until May 7, 2021 (4 weeks).

All of Franklin Street in front of the school will be car free during pick up and drop off for the next month! We encourage kids and parents to skip, bike, scoot or skate to school and enjoy the use of the street before and after school. There will be prizes throughout the month!

Volunteers Still Needed

To make this pilot possible, more volunteer ‘School Street Coaches’ are still needed! As a School Street Coach you will be responsible for setting up, taking down and monitoring the School Street barriers during drop-off and pick-up (Shift will be approximately 40 minutes total). The School Street Coaches will receive instruction prior to their shifts and there will be a volunteer training session. There will also be prizes for volunteers who commit to the full month (2 shifts weekly).

To sign up for a volunteer shift please click on the following web link (or copy it into your web browser if clicking doesn’t work) to go to the signup sheet:

volunteersignup.org/JWJYE [volunteersignup.org] [eur01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com]