News Week of March 23 - 27, 2026

WELCOME SPRING!

Welcome back! I hope everyone had a safe, restful, and fun March Break.

School Lenten Project - SchoolBOX 

 Get Ready for Our Lenten Raffle!

As we continue our journey of giving this Lenten season, we are thrilled to announce our next exciting fundraising initiative! We have some incredible prizes lined up, and we can’t wait to share the excitement with our students and families. All proceeds go toward SchoolBOX, a local organization with big dreams to support education and learning in Indigenous communities in Northern Ontario. SchoolBOX’s mission is to ensure Indigenous children in Northern Ontario have the same access to quality books as our students at St. Gabriel. Through this fundraiser, we will be helping to purchase books and support the building of libraries.

The anticipation starts soon! Starting Monday, March 23, we will reveal one exciting raffle prize each day of the week. The students will hear about what’s up for grabs each day on our morning announcements.

Ticket Sales & The Big Draw

• Sales Start: Monday, March 30

• The Draw: Thursday, April 2 

Pricing & How to Buy

• $5 for a half arm’s length of tickets

• $10 for a full arm’s length of tickets

Two ways to pay:

1. Cash: Students can bring money directly to school to purchase tickets. Please send money in a bag or envelope labelled with your child's name on it. 

2. School Cash Online: For your convenience, tickets are also available for purchase through School Cash Online (link will be sent out on Monday, March 23).

Field Trip to the Agriculture and Food Museum April 28th

On April 28th, Mrs. Rocco’s Grade 1 class, Ms. Vysochyna’s Grade 1 / 2 class,  Mrs. Maidment’s Grade 2 / 3 class, and Mrs. Lobo’s Grade 3 class, will be visiting the Canada Agriculture and Food Museum (Experimental Farm) to provide the children with a unique opportunity that will complement concepts addressed in the Grade 2 and 3 Science curriculums. The Grade 1 and 2 students will have an opportunity to visit various museum exhibits and participate in the Meet the Farm Animals exploration, and the Grade 3 students will participate in the Living Soils workshop. Please return both permission forms to school by Friday, March 27th.

Volunteers wishing to accompany us on this trip must have completed a current Vulnerable Sector Check (VSC) from Ottawa Police. The Ottawa Catholic School Board requires all volunteers to have this check completed. Please visit the St. Gabriel School website gab.ocsb.ca and under Quick Links, click on the Volunteer link. Please register as soon as possible.

Dressing Appropriately For Outdoor Recess

With the very wet weather that comes with early Spring, our schoolyard (both the pavement and grassy areas) is very wet and muddy. Please help us keep our students, school, and classrooms dry and clean by reminding your child to wear appropriate outerwear each day such as splashpants, boots, and a warm jacket. Extra socks, mittens, and even a change of pants are highly recommended. Thank you for your support.

Our Learning

Grade 3 EQAO Homework:

This week, the Grade 3 students will bring home EQAO preparation "at-home" packages to help them prepare for the EQAO provincial assessment to be completed in May (dates will be shared when we have them). The "at-home EQAO preparation packages" will be sent home with your child, in paper format, at the end of each week and must be returned back to school on the following Friday. We encourage your child to complete a few questions per night to make it more manageable. We encourage you to review the concepts with your child. This is the perfect opportunity to improve your child's confidence in these areas. Do not worry if your child is not able to complete all the questions as we will be taking up and reviewing each question in class on Fridays when the packages are returned.

Most of your child's preparation is taking place at school but we have heard from students and parents that they would like help in feeling well-prepared. The ministry EQAO assessment is based on students' cumulative learning of the curriculum from all grades up to and including Grade 3. The "at-home" practice packages have been prepared by a team of Grade 3 teachers and are meant to be a link between home and school, and are designed to allow parents to see the sorts of concepts that may be assessed and the types of questions that have appeared on the EQAO assessments in the past. Additionally, there is a link on the ministry EQAO website to an online practice test and we will soon be exploring the Language and Math practice tests. Thank you for your help and support in improving your child's confidence and feeling of readiness for the provincial test. The most important thing is that your child is not feeling anxious about the test. 

Math:

In Grade 3, we will continue to explore how to measure the area of 2-dimensional shapes using non-standard units and standard units, such as square centimetres. 

Link to Grade 3 parent summary letter area using non-standard units 

Link to Grade 3 parent summary letter measuring area using square centimetres

In Grade 2, we will continue our 2-digit addition and subtraction unit. This week, we will focus on adding large numbers using base ten materials and place-value concepts. 

Link to Grade 2 parent summary letter adding 2-digit numbers using base-ten blocks

Language:

Our next UFLI phonics lessons will focus on the ending - y (making the long /ī/ sound), as in the words by, my try, dry. When the letter Y comes at the end of a one-syllable word, it says the long /ī/ sound.

This week's new heart words: four, fourth

Please have your child practise the heart words we have learned so far in class: the, I, a, said, to, do, of, see, he, be, me, from, you, what, have, look, book, are, was, your, want, go, no, so, goes, says, they, their, were, talk, walk, could, should, would, or, for, who, by, my, one, once, use, two, does, many, any, been, into, friend, because, woman, women, move, both, *four, *fourth.

Religion:

We will continue to discuss the meaning of Lent as a time to ask for forgiveness, with a focus on prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. We will begin to get ready for the story of the Passion as Holy Week approaches.