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Dear Prep Families,

The buzz of learning is palpable at the Prep this week. Some highlights in addition to those below include the PYP Exhibition, which is in full swing with our Year 5 students actively engaged in research into their chosen topics and participating in meetings with their mentors. There's a little more than a month to go before they share their final projects with the community! Yesterday, Prep students had community time with their buddy classes focused on the themes of reflection and renewal. They learned about many cultural and religious celebrations that focus on these themes, and they made connections with the Learner Profile. Together they created a spring flower to add to the Prep Garden of Renewal display. Our Year 6 students were fortunate enough to have author David A. Robertson visit earlier this week as a companion to the book Barren Grounds, that they read in Language and Literature. We find it's an incredibly powerful learning experience when students can learn about writer’s craft from authors themselves.  Tryouts have also continued for the spring athletics season, with faculty and students braving the snow and ice yesterday in what we hope will just be a weather anomaly!

We want to draw your attention to a few upcoming notes about the calendar to support your planning.  

• Thursday, April 17 is a student early release day. On student early release days, faculty participate in professional development and work on curriculum development and our whole college goals. These days are invaluable to us as we strive to continually refine our work and be responsive to educational research. ASP is available for families on this day.

• Friday, April 25 is Student Led Conference Day at the Prep. There are no classes, but students attend their Student Led Conference. Specific details concerning the Student Led Conferences will be included in the next two editions of Heads Up.

Last week we held an event on campus to welcome all our new families to UCC — we spoke about the essential partnership that we hold with them — and we continue to be grateful for ours.  

Your partners in learning,

Sarah Fleming, David Girard and Gareth Evans

The Prep Leadership Team

Update | Year 3

It feels like spring is ready to arrive! Year 3 is filled with energy these days as the warmer weather appears. At times, spring weather can also bring “spring sillies.” We've been having conversations in our classrooms about how to solve social problems and regulate one’s behaviour. We've looked at identifying the magnitude of a problem, finding peaceful ways to solve our problems, and recognizing when we are feeling frustrated. Continuing these conversations at home always helps support our classroom learning. 

In Inquiry, we have finished our investigation into land uses in Ontario. We are now moving to a history-focused Inquiry unit. Through hands-on activities and research, students will explore life in early Ontario. We begin by learning about the many contributions of the Indigenous people and the way of life among different First Nations and Metis communities. We'll also explore the lives of early settlers and the development of Toronto in the 1800s. Our recent visit to Black Creek Village helped the students envision what life was like for settler children. A huge thank you to our parent volunteers who helped on the full-day field trip. If you are looking for activities to support our unit, there are ten history museums in Toronto that you can visit with your families.

Thank you to everyone for participating in our extreme reading challenge! We're in awe of the creativity we saw in your pictures! We hope your children are enjoying the Readingo independent reading challenge. We'll ask students to hand these in after the mid-term spring break (April 22). We're in the middle of our book club for Dragons in a Bag. Students are asked to read a chapter each week and are encouraged to bring the books home (but must return them to school for our weekly book club).  

We've begun exploring geometry in Mathematics. It's a fun unit with opportunities to explore math concepts with manipulatives. There's quite a bit of terminology for students to learn. We'll be learning about parts of a circle, types of angles, types of triangles, quadrilaterals, and three-dimensional shapes. Please watch the weekly homework sheet with examples of your child’s learning. If your child is unsure, this resource is very comprehensive. 

As the weather changes, please ensure your child has appropriate outdoor gear. This includes a pair of outdoor shoes and a light jacket suitable for rainy weather. 

We have been discussing our upcoming sleepovers at Norval. 3G will be heading to Norval for an overnight on Monday, April 28, and 3O will have their sleepover on Wednesday, April 30. Norval will be sending out a packing list and permission form in the next few weeks. 

On Friday, April 25, we'll celebrate our learning in student-led conferences. Your child will lead you through a series of classroom activities. It's not a teacher conference. If you have specific questions about your child’s learning, please reach out to us or the subject specialists directly. 

All the best, 

Kathryn O'Brien

Christie Gordon

Schwa Day

Dear Prep families,

We're excited to announce that we will have a special "Schwa Day" at school on Monday, April 7! This day will explore a familiar but often overlooked vowel sound — the schwa! 

What is the schwa?

We know what you might be thinking: "schwa? Is that the city in Durham... Oshawa?" Fear not! We're here to clear up any vowel-related confusion.

Have you ever wondered why the letter ‘o’ in ‘lemon’ sounds more like an 'i', or why the last 'a' in 'panda' sounds more like a 'u'? Well, wonder no longer! You've stumbled upon one of English's most common, yet sneaky, sounds — the schwa! Our Year 1, 2, and 3 students have been exploring this fascinating phonetic phenomenon.

When we say words with multiple syllables, we emphasize certain syllables more than others. Unstressed syllables often have their vowel sounds reduced to a short, neutral "uh" or "ih" sound. This is called the schwa! You can think of it as the lazy vowel sound.

The schwa sound is the most common vowel sound in the English language, and it can happen in any vowel (a, e, i, o, u). The symbol of an upside-down e represents the schwa sound (ə).

Why celebrate on April 7?
The words ‘April’ and ‘seven’ both contain the schwa sound. This makes the date a fitting and memorable way to highlight the prevalence of this vowel sound in English.

• April (the ‘i’ in the second syllable)

• seven (the ‘e’ in the second syllable)  

Schwa day activities
On April 7, Primary students will participate in exciting reading activities that help them identify and understand the schwa sound. There will be a special Schwa Scavenger Hunt for Year 1, 2, and 3 classes to make our learning even more engaging. A stuffed schwa is hiding somewhere in the Prep, and the students will use their schwa knowledge to find it. Get ready for some sensational schwa-searching!

Comfortable clothing

To represent the schwa's "unstressed" nature, we invite all Year 1, 2, and 3 students to wear comfortable, relaxed clothing on Schwa Day. Think of it as a cozy, stress-free day! Some ideas include UCC spirit wear, sweatpants, sweatshirts, pajamas, or sunglasses! Please note that Year 6 and 7 students will still be in UCC uniform. 

Continue the fun at home
If you are interested in learning more or continuing the fun at home, you can enjoy a read-aloud of “The Not So Lazy Schwa” by Yvette Manns. We encourage you to listen for this sound with your child(ren) at home. It's truly amazing how often it appears.

We hope this clarifies the schwa and makes those tricky vowel sounds a little less mysterious.

Melody Thompson

Learning Strategies Teacher and Primary Literacy Learning Leader

Update | Prep Community Service Council

Before the March Break, Y7 students engaged in Project Week with a focus on wellbeing. UCC Prep students partnered with two organizations: Club Sandwich & Ve’ahavta because community service and volunteering play important roles in our wellbeing.

Club Sandwich 

Club Sandwich is a grassroots food security organization with over 1000 volunteers that deliver sandwiches weekly to local missions, serving the  unhoused and food-insecure. Those missions serve the sandwiches as a takeaway meal. They aim to fill the meal gap between regular food bank meals.  Club Sandwich has provided over 225,000 sandwiches since June of 2020. At UCC, we put our culinary skills to the test, preparing turkey, lettuce & cheese sandwiches for people experiencing food insecurity. It was a lot of fun to work together to assemble the sandwiches and to make a difference within our spheres of influence.

Ve'ahavta 

Ve’ahavta is a Jewish non-profit humanitarian organization dedicated to promoting positive change in the lives of people of all faiths and backgrounds. Ve’ahavta sends out volunteers in meaningful, hands-on experiences to fulfill our collective responsibility to care for our community. In 2022, the program helped feed over 41,000 people, preparing over 27,000 meals. It was an absolute pleasure for UCC students to experience this program. We learned about the 3.5 million people affected by food insecurity in Toronto. Overall, it felt satisfying to know the next day that our sandwiches helped out the community and made a difference.

Lastly, we would like to welcome back Ms Carter who will resume her role as the Service Learning and Community Engagement Coordinator. We would also like to say thank you to Mr. Kupfer for his work and effort as the interim coordinator.

Ibrahim Naseer (7M) , Eric Wang (7T) and Armaan Sidi (7J)

The Prep Community Service Council

Garden Club starts soon

Year 4 and 5 faculty-run Spring Garden Clubs begin soon!

Year 4 Garden Club

Year 4 sign-up and permission form

Location: Prep Learning Garden

Time: Tuesdays, dismissal to 4:30 p.m.

Dates: April 22, April 29, May 6, May 20, May 27,  June 3

Year 5 Garden Club

Year 5 sign-up and permission Form 

Location: Prep Learning Garden

Time: Wednesdays, dismissal to 4:30 p.m.

Dates: April 23, April 30, May 7, May 14, May 21, May 28,  June 4

The Prep Learning Garden is a very special place filled with microbe-rich soil and pollinator-friendly perennial plants that are already waking up and poking new shoots and leaves out into the warm spring air! Each growing season many varieties of annual vegetables are planted, tended to, and harvested by Prep students during curriculum-linked garden sessions throughout the school day as well as after-school garden clubs. 

All Primary students will be learning and working in the garden approximately once per cycle starting in late April. In addition to curriculum-linked garden lessons led by Dianne Jojic and other teachers during the school day, we're thrilled to be able to offer after-school garden clubs this spring! The clubs will be led by faculty members and are free of charge. 

Prep Garden clubs align with the inquiry-driven approach of the PYP program and integrate science and arts-based activities in addition to hands-on work such as weeding, digging, planting and watering. Students will spend time exploring where food comes from and discovering what it means to tend to the soil and land in an ecologically sustainable way. Garden club teachers help students to deepen critical character traits such as empathy, responsibility and risk-taking through modelling respectful and humane observation and handling of the non-human creatures that live in the garden. 

Please see below for the sign up links for Years 4 and Year 5 students. Clubs often fill up early so please fill out a digital sign-up form as soon as possible, and no later than April 11. 

We look forward to working with your children in the garden this spring!

Monika Kastelic

Visual Art Specialist

Dianne Jojic 

PYP Coordinator

Prep Colour House sale 

DGN Uniforms is having a sale on Colour House items. Shop online or in store until April 6. See this flyer for details.

Donate | UCC’s Annual Mother’s Day Drive 

The students will be once again collecting full and travel/hotel sized:

• soap and body wash

• shampoo and conditioner 

• body lotion and skin care 

• cosmetics and nail polish

• hair care products

• toothbrushes and toothpaste

• antiperspirant and sanitary products

• beauty samples/perfumes

• small gift sets 

Your donations will be beautifully wrapped for children at shelters to give to their moms on Mother’s Day, so that together they can celebrate this special day. If you are travelling over the holidays and have some travel toiletries or beauty regifts — please save and drop off when you return!

Donations can be dropped off at the reception desk in the Upper School or main office of the Prep. Please contact Linda Carvalho if you have any questions about drop off or Samantha Dugas if you have questions about donations.

PPO Coffee mornings

The PPO is hosting two upcoming coffee mornings for Prep parents next week and we hope to see you there! Join us to connect casually after a long winter and hear about some of the exciting events we have coming up this Spring. 

• Monday, April 7: SK–Year 5 parents

• Tuesday, April 8: Year 6 and 7 parents

Coffee mornings take place in the Foster Hewitt Foundation Lounge (inside the William P. Wilder ’40 Arena & Sports Complex) from 8:30–10 a.m. We hope to see you there!

Earth month | Support sustainable living

Donate | Used casual t-shirts

The PPO is supporting the circular economy with a T-shirt Thrift Shop on Wednesday April 23 in the Bitove Lounge. We need your donations of casual t-shirts to support thrift shop fashion fun for the boys! Donations are accepted from April 2 to April 17 and can be left in the box in the Prep foyer. Thrifted fashion will be sold as a fundraiser for $5 per item Wednesday April 23. For more information, please check out the Thrift Shop Flyer.

Recycle your snack wrappers

Don’t forget to let your sons know about our PPO TerraCycle Candy Wrappers and Snack Wrappers Zero Waste Box. This Canadian company founded by Tom Szaky ’01 has a global footprint and is leading change in the way we think about waste. Encourage your sons to place their plastic foil-lined and flexible snack wrappers in our Terracycle Box located by the Prep Dining Hall starting April 1. Please refer to the Recycle Flyer for more information.