Horizon Parents and Students,

Land Acknowledgement

On behalf of our school community, we recognize that we are situated on the lands that rightfully belong to the Anishinabewaki, Wendake, Haudenosaunee, and the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation. We acknowledge that Turtle Island is the original land of all Indigenous peoples and want to rectify the harmful actions of the past.  We will continue learning about how we can share this land together.

(Written by Grade 8 Class of 2023)


Texte Reconnaissant de Traités

Nous reconnaissons que nous sommes accueillis sur les terres des Mississaugas des Anishinabes, de la Confédération Haudenosaunee et du Wendat. Nous voulons également reconnaître la pérennité de la présence des Premières Nations, du Métis et du Inuit.


Please find attached a copy of the grade 7 and 8 Time Management (TM) sheets for this week. Below you will find the special announcements for this week as well.


Just a reminder that you can email the school at horizon_alt@hotmail.com or Vanessa directly at vanessa.shrimpton@tdsb.on.ca.  When students are sharing assignments, they should do so with their classroom teacher or post in the appropriate Google classroom.


Special Announcements

Week of October 6th Monday is Day 4

*please note that items you need to take care - forms, etc., are highlighted in blue




Let's keep it : Teaching kids to put down their devices is like teaching them to stop eating cookies.

 

One cookie is fine, two cookies are OK, but if they eat the whole container while you're not looking, they're going to feel sick. It's the same with screens: A little video gaming is fine, but three hours later (when they're cranky and their eyes hurt), you're dealing with a digital sugar crash.

 

Handling cranky kids isn't new for parents, but when it comes to managing media and devices, caregivers can feel out of their element. With kids using technology at younger and younger ages, it may feel like they already know what they're doing when they start swiping on our phones or tablets. And, in many cases, kids may even act as a parent's tech support.  As parents, you are really the experts when it comes to the full scope and lifelong impacts of digital literacy and well-being.

 

For example, even though I'm very comfortable with technology, my own kids can put me to shame with all kinds of tech tricks! But their tech savvy doesn't mean they understand the bigger picture—the role that media and tech play in their lives. While I truly believe we can learn plenty from kids, we adults have perspective and wisdom that kids don't.

 

Family Engagement for Digital Literacy & Well-Being is key in helping realize you’re well equipped to guide your children and foster the essential skills needed to thrive in the digital era. In fact, research tells us that parents decide when and how they will be involved in their child's education based on their confidence about helping their children learn, being invited to be involved by their child's school, and their own life context.

 MIND : Stay connected to our thoughts and feelings

BODY : Take breaks and balance offline activities

ENVIRONMENT : Reclaim control from tech influences

 

When we can connect these topics with non-tech parenting scenarios, we can show don't have to be tech experts to have conversations and offer guidance to kids:

 

Eating too many cookies is like too much passive screen time. Let's think about how our online activities make us feel, check in with our bodies, and acknowledge that it can be hard to just stop—but it's not your fault! A lot of tech design is like junk food, scientifically created so that you crave more.

 

Parent participation and family engagement are proven to improve student success—something we all want. Sharing family resources is a great way to build stronger partnerships. It also helps all adults and caregivers in a child's orbit share responsibility in cultivating mindsets that will serve that child for life, no matter what new technology emerges.

 Parenting with tech is simply parenting. Together, we can prepare kids to build skills and habits that will help them thrive in our world of ever-evolving media and technology.