June 4 was a beautiful, sunny day in Kimberley for the second to last Ready, Set, Learn event of the 2024-25 school year! We were very excited to see the number of babies at this year's event and we want to remind families that your children are never too young to start attending these community events.

Ready, Set, Learn events are opportunities to connect multiple times through a child's journey from birth to kindergarten with FREE community programs and services to support child development and provide families with a variety of supports.

We will update the Ready, Set, Learn tile in September with all the events for the 2025-26 school year. Happy summer!

On January 6, 2025 the school district proudly hosted an Open House with Summit Community Services Society at the new Rocky Mountain Childcare Centre in Marysville. The purpose of this event was to celebrate the construction completion and share the building with the public. The evening was a huge success with approximately 200 families and community members attending including Mayor Don McCormick, Christine Hoechsmann from Columbia Basin Trust, Trustee Darryl Oakley, and Columbia River-Revelstoke MLA Scott McInnis.

Photo L-R: Mayor Don McCormick, Summit Childcare Director Cheryl Anderson, CBT's Christine Hoechsmann, Summit Executive Director Martina Danzer, Director of Instruction Crystal MacLeod, and Superintendent Aaron Callaghan

On November 26, 2024 the Changing Results for Young Children (CR4YC) cohort met at the District Board Office. CR4YC is a Ministry of Education and Child Care funded project that brings together community based ECEs, including StrongStart facilitators, and Kindergarten teachers. CR4YC is focused on the social and emotional well-being of children and how ECEs and Kindergarten teachers can work together to share ideas and collaborate using the Early Learning Framework.

To start the meeting, educators utilized the Little Spot of Emotion to discuss what feelings they had experienced recently and shared these with a colleague. The educators associated a colour of crayon with each of these feelings and melted these together in a muffin tin. Once melted and cooled, the educators had a colourful representation of their feelings to share and keep!

Educators enjoyed the opportunity to connect with each other and to examine their own feelings. Many want to use this exercise with their students!

This past school year saw the implementation of a district-wide Kindergarten Transition Timeline document. This document was co-created with several early years partners and school principals across the district in an effort to align transition practices and provide the best possible support for children and families as they enter the school system. 

Over the past two weeks, the working groups in each community (Golden, Invermere, and Kimberley) came back together to share their experience with using this timeline. There were many stories of success and additional feedback on things to modify and/or add for the upcoming year. 

You can see the Kindergarten Transition Timeline document here. 

StrongStart Programs across Rocky Mountain School District recognized National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. Facilitators were provided a copy of the book With Our Orange Hearts to share in their programs and children and their families engaged in a variety of activities including painting orange handprints, orange t-shirts, writing gratitude letters to the earth, and many more!