The Lynx Lowdown

This week was short but powerful.

Our students never fail to impress as they engaged respectfully in Orange Shirt Day learning and activities. Students across the grade levels talked about Truth and Reconciliation in age appropriate ways through lessons, storybooks and thoughtful classroom discussions.

Our younger students added small cut out orange shirts to a huge orange shirt in our foyer as part of their learning. If you pass by the school, make sure to pop in and check it out! Our grade 4 to 6 students cut out hand prints and wrote messages of how they might have an impact in their own acts of learning for reconciliation.

Students in junior high followed structured lessons around residential schools and discussed the meaning behind the resilience logo that was designed for the our school. We were fortunate to join a Grade 9 Logos class for this lesson and were impressed with the empathy and maturity our students demonstrated while discussing this topic.

Listening to our students speak about how we can learn from the past to make a brighter future for all treaty people was inspiring. If these are the future citizens of this community, we know that our future is in good hands.

We would like to thank our First Nations, Métis and Inuit lead team of Mrs. Fiddler-Berteig, Mrs. Bianchini, Mme Fayed and Mr. Basaraba for making this week such a memorable experience.

Wishing all of our Forest Grove families a restful and hopeful weekend!

Mme Helene Hewitt, Mr. Greg Probert, Mr. Kristian Basaraba, Mrs. Angela Sonnenberg

Your Forest Grove Leadership Team

Where learning takes root and success grows.

Enraciné dans l'apprentissage, nous cultivons le succès.

The "Association pour la recherche en neuroéducation" in Montréal recently focused on the importance of sleep:

This BOLD blog post examines the effects of weekend sleep on adolescents, which is particularly prone to sleep deprivation during the week due to school schedules and the many demands of daily life. Several studies suggest that catching up on sleep may impact mental health in this context.
For instance, the greatest risk of experiencing depressive symptoms appears to be among adolescents who sleep fewer than five hours on weekdays and increase their sleep by no more than one hour on weekends (Le et al., 2022). Conversely, Carbone et Casement (2026) found that catching up on sleep on weekends was associated with a 41% reduction in depressive symptoms.

The effects of catch-up sleep on cognitive and academic performance may differ depending on age. Among younger children (ages nine to 12), some studies have shown an association between sleeping in on weekends and poorer cognitive and executive function, though no clear link to mental health has been established. In the long term, the association for research in neuroeducation states that instability and imbalance in the circadian rhythm can impact mental health.
In summary, it is important to get enough sleep during the week and maintain consistent bedtimes, including on weekends.

Your counselling team,

Mme Natalie Pathirana et Mme Katharina Staub

Our Feeding Grounds canteen is now up and running! Thanks to Mrs. Carstairs and our Grade 9 student chefs, we are now serving delicious homecooked meals at lunch. We will continue to have pizza sales on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The Feeding Grounds is open to students in Grade 7 to 9. Later in the year, we will offer a special Feeding Grounds day for our Grade 6 students once a month.

Here is this week's menu:

We are thrilled to announce that Read In Week starts on Monday!

This year's theme is “Let Stories Soar!”, and we have planned many fun and engaging activities to foster a love for reading throughout our school community. Throughout the week, different classes will welcome invited guests to come in and read with them, offering students a view into all those in our community who enjoy reading!

Here’s a snapshot of the exciting events happening during the week:

Daily:

• DEAR (Drop Everything And Read): At random times throughout the day, students will be asked to stop what they’re doing and read for 5-10 minutes.
• Junior High Comic Strip Contest: students create a comic strip and submit it in the library by the end of the week for a chance to win a $25 voucher to the upcoming Scholastic Book Fair

Monday, Oct. 5:

• Reading BINGO - Elementary students’ BINGO cards will be sent home for a chance to win a prize!
• Frankenword contest - students use morphemes to invent a word for a chance to win a voucher for a free slice of pizza!

Tuesday, Oct. 6:

• Dress as your favorite book character!
• Comic Book artist and writer, Adriean Koleric, visits junior high students

Wednesday, Oct. 7:

Buddy Reading - Students will read with a buddy and enjoy a small snack.

Friday, Oct. 8:

• Flashlight Friday - K-6 students can bring flashlights (and a stuffy) to read during DEAR time.

• Family Read in - Parents are invited to come and read with their child for the last 30 minutes of the day (from 2:45-3:15). Junior high siblings may also read with younger siblings!

In addition to these events, we will also welcome several guest readers to our school including Minister Nate Glubish, MLA Kyle Kasawski, Constable Skelton from the Edmonton Police, Strathcona County Firefighters and Oilers Alumnus Matt Kassian.

We are committed to fostering a love for reading every day, and as a community, we believe it is important to work together to help our students grow into lifelong readers. Thank you for your ongoing support in making this week a success!

Elementary Volleyball – Grade 5 & 6

We are excited to get our Grade 5 and 6 elementary volleyball season underway! Tryouts will begin Monday during the first half of lunch in the large gym. All Grade 5 and 6 students are welcome to try out. We will continue with tryouts and practices during lunch hours as the season gets underway.

Tournament Commitment:
Our volleyball tournament will take place October 30–31, 2026. Students who are selected for the team must be available to attend the entire tournament in order to participate on the team.

• Friday, October 30: 4:00–8:00 p.m.
• Saturday, October 31: 8:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m.

We are looking forward to a fun season of learning, teamwork, and representing the Forest Grove Lynx!

Congratulations to Our Junior High Golf Team!

A big congratulations to our Junior High Golf Team who participated in the EIAA Golf Tournament on Monday! They enjoyed a beautiful afternoon of weather and golf and did a fantastic job representing the Forest Grove Lynx with pride.

We are so proud of the sportsmanship, effort, and enthusiasm they brought to the course. Way to go, Lynx!

Junior High Cross Country Meet

Our junior high students who qualified for the cross-country meet will be headed to our EIAA meet on Tuesday October 6th. Unfortunately, there are no spectators permitted during the races due to parking restrictions on site. Permission clicks have been sent out to all students who qualified for the event. Please sign and return as soon as possible. A meeting will be held Monday for singlets to be handed out and more information given.

One our of school expectations is "be safe". This is of high priority for our school community now that we have moved into a large building and we've become a family of over 900 students!

What does being safe look like at Forest Grove?

As a staff, we have had many discussions about various things we can do to ensure that everyone is not just physically safe but also feeling safe at school.

We know that relationships with families are very important as every family is sending us their most precious person each day with the trust that we will keep them safe and well cared for. We prioritized communication strategies between house and home. You should have received emails from your elementary teacher as well as your junior teachers to let you know about what students are learning this year. Additionally, you should have had a phone call from your child's homeroom teacher with a short welcome. We want you to know that we care about you and your child. If you ever have a question about how your student is doing, please don't hesitate to email or call the teacher.

What about physical safety?

We have implemented several strategies to ensure that students feel safe in and out of the building. We have high levels of staff to student supervision happening at all breaks throughout the day. We use these opportunities as connection points to talk with students, to get to know what they care about and to notice patterns of connection between peers.

During the lunch hour, we have noon supervisors, educational assistants and teachers roaming hallways, monitoring washrooms, supervising the bus loop, and walking through the fields and paths behind the school.

Finally, we have many staff who help monitor our buses, crosswalks and parking lot to make sure every student can get to class and go home safely each day. At Forest Grove, we want every student to feel supported and cared for!