Roden School Council

We’re having  a party and you’re all invited!

Join us an evening of good food and good laughs; enjoy a break from the kids and meet some other parents in our school community.

Check out our upcoming parenting workshop: Jan. 21 at 6:00 p.m. in the school library.

This month’s workshop explores How to Sidestep Power Struggles: parent-child communication & problem solving. Lead by facilitators from the East End Community Health Centre, the workshop is offered in both English and Hindi/Urdu.

Best part? It’s free and childcare is provided. Hope to see you there.

Please note that there will not be a Roden Movie night this January.

Watch out for the next movie night in March!!

On February 3, 2015 we are having an all day Early Bird Registration for Kindergarten by appointment only. Parents wishing to register their child need to call Ms. Morley at 416-393-9555 to schedule their appointment. Students will be available to take parents on a tour of the JK classrooms on that day. Parents are required to bring the following documents:

their child’s birth certificate
health card
immunization records and
two pieces of proof of their address (bank statement, income tax statement, or utility bill) within the past three months.
If this date is not convenient, please call the school and an alternative date will be arranged.

There are many extra-curricular activities happening at the school. Check out how your kids could become involved!

Indoor Soccer: (Grade 7/8) Tuesdays 3:30 – 4:30 pm (Sept. 30 – April 14) – Mr. Lam
Beep Club: every Monday @ morning recess- Mr. Poon
Yoga Club: (Grades 1 and 2) Wed @ lunch – Ms. Logsdon
Ukelele Club: (Grades 3 and 4) Tuesdays @ lunch- Ms. Montgomery
Photography Club: Mondays @ lunch – Ms. Homavazir and Ms. Horvath
Dance Club: (Grades 2 to 8) Fridays at 12:10 – Louise Granahan
Comic Club: (Grade 4 and 5) Mondays @ lunch – Mr. Donovan – Area 22
Boy’s Basketball: (Grade 8) Practice Times TBA – Mr. Punch and Mr. Mighton)
Girl’s Volleyball: (Grade 5) Mon/Wed @ 8:10 am, Thurs @ 3:30 pm – Mr. Poon and Ms. Lumley
Tournament: February 11 @ Balmy Beach
Girl’s Volleyball: (Grade 6) Tues, Thurs and Fri @ 8:10 am – Mr. Poon and Ms. Lumley
Tournament: February 10 @ Roden
Girl’s Volleyball: (Grade 7) Practice Times TBA – Mr. Poon and Ms. Lumley
Tournament: Date TBD @ Bowmore
Floor Hockey: (Grades 2 and 3) Wednesdays @12:15 – Mr. Parker)
Floor Hockey: (Grades 4, 5 and 6) Tues and Thurs @ 12:15 Mr. Poon and Mr. Levine
Lego Club: Wednesdays at Lunch (Jan 14 to Feb 25) – Mme. Stavrakos and Ms. Campbell

Roden School Council Meeting minutes can be read by clicking on the following links:

November 2014 minutes
December 2014 minutes

Mark it on your calendars

With a New Year comes new adventures, new learning opportunities and more parties! Roden School Council is pleased to announce that we are hosting a Family Social on Saturday, February 21 from 5 to 9 pm at Roden Public School.

The event will be a fundraising and community outreach event that invites Roden families together to socialize and raise money for the school’s diverse programs, such as our students’ photography and ukulele club, field trips, educational materials, and much more.

We are reaching out to you, our parent community to help us collect items for the Silent Auction. Specifically we need gift certificates for services or products, gift baskets or other items.

You can drop off items in the school’s main office by Feb. 12, marked to the attention of School Council Silent Auction. Or send us a message at facebook.com/rodensc or to communications@roden.ca and we can arrange to pick it up.

Or if you want to donate some time to help out ahead of the event, let us know.

Thank you for your continued support and we hope to see you on the 21st.

We would like to thank Will (Guillermo) Del Aguila for his work with the Roden School Council for the past year and a half. Will has stepped away from the Roden Council for personal reasons.

We would like to welcome Tawnya Hallman (Council member for the past 1.5 years) to the role of Chair of the School Council.

By Mercedes Lee

I get it, I do. On top of everything else we’re required to provide as parents, employees, community members, now there’s the additional pressure of providing a nutritionally sound dinner, 7 nights a week, at a reasonable hour, that appeals to the picky palates in the house.

As someone who lives and breathes organization and is a chowhound to boot, I have a series of tips and tricks I’ve learned that help my family successfully navigate the dinner gauntlet smoothly (most of the time) with minimal tears (most of the time).

This month’s tip is about DOUBLE DUTY DINNERS. Make your work count – twice! Repurposing one dish into another later in the week is a cost-effective way to stretch ingredients, labour, and time into tasty results. This month’s pot roast, based on an Ina Garten recipe but simplified for all of us who don’t live in the Hamptons, is a delicious one-pot dinner that requires nothing more than keeping the leftovers in the same pot, thinning out the liquid, and dumping in some barley and mushrooms to be turned into a delicious soup for later in the week. WIN!

Pot Roast with Vegetables
Serves 4-6

1 4-5lb pot roast (or any big hunk of meat labelled “braising”)
all purpose flour
olive oil (regular cooking oil works)
2 onions, chopped
2 celery stalks, chopped
4-5 cloves of garlic
2 cups of red wine (recipes will tell you “never cook with wine you wouldn’t drink” but I say that’s rubbish. Cook/drink cheap wine and no one will judge. No one will judge if you omit the wine entirely)
1 176ml can of diced plum tomatoes
1 cup of beef stock or beef broth (if using beef broth, buy reduced sodium or no salt)
three sprigs of thyme
three sprigs of rosemary
salt and pepper to taste
2 cups baby carrots
1 tablespoon unsalted butter

1. dust the roast with flour all over. In a large dutch oven, heat a few glugs of oil over medium high heat. Sprinkle the roast all over with salt and pepper. Sear the roast in the pan until all sides are golden brown. Take the roast out and set aside on a plate.
2. throw the chopped onions, celery, and garlic into the pan, and sauté until softened (about 3-5 minutes), stirring ocassionally.
3. Take the wine (if using, if not, substitute equal amount of water or more beef stock/broth), dump it in the pot and stir the bottom with a spoon, scraping up any browned bits.
4. Add the tomatoes, the beef stock, the thyme and rosemary back into the pan. Put the roast and any accumulated juices into the pot, cover with a tight fitting lid, reduce the heat so that it’s barely simmering, and then let cook for 1 ½ – 2 hours, or until the meat is tender*
5. About 30 minutes before you’re ready to serve, you can add the baby carrots, and the butter.
6. Before serving, taste for seasoning and add more salt and pepper as required.

Serve hot (you can either take the pot roast out and slice, or the meat should be tender enough that you can just break off chunks), with the carrots with a side of boiled potatoes or mashed potatoes.

*This dish is very forgiving. If you forget it and it spends an extra hour braising, no harm! If you let it get to the point where all the liquid is reduced, just top it up with more.

You could add 3 cups of frozen peas in the last 15 minutes of cooking, and then you get two vegetables in one dish! You could also add other chunks of root vegetable, or even little boiling potatoes, for a one pot meal. You could park the whole pot in the oven at 350F for the same amount of time. After step 3, you could throw everything into your slow cooker, set it on low, and have dinner ready when you get back (if you’re okay with the baby carrots being very soft, they can go in at the beginning, too).

Round 2: Beef, Barley, Mushroom Soup
To turn this into a delicious beef, barley, mushroom soup, keep everything in the same pot. The day you’re ready for soup, add ½ cup of pearl barley, maybe half a pound of sliced button or cremini mushrooms, and 4-6 cups of additional stock, broth, or water, and let it simmer until the barley is cooked through. Taste for seasoning and add salt and pepper. You can add more liquid to get the desired amount of soupiness. Serve with a salad and some bread and butter and there you go, dinner is done…like dinner? Err… The soup is pictured below served with a roasted red pepper, goat cheese panini.

The school raised over $10,000 in last fall’s walk-a-thon and teachers now have access to those funds. As part of the “Inspiration” theme, teachers and students have brainstormed ideas on what inspires them to help direct where their class funds should be spent. Funding may be directed toward sports, arts and culture and involve things like field trips or enrichment experiences.

So far, classrooms have spent walkathon funds in a variety of ways:
Ms. Vacrinos JK/SK: paint materials for special art work ($80)
All JK/SK Classes: theatre performance ($720)
Mr. Lam & Mr. Mighton Grade 7/8: video camera equipment ($960)