A New Addition!

Hello,

I wanted to share some wonderful news. Our baby came five weeks early and was born at the end of April.

Nora Rose Skinner is small, but strong. She was under observation for six hours, and we were in the hospital for a few days, but thanks to the amazing nurses and doctors at the Civic, she has been at home with us for a week.

She is happy and healthy and my wife, my daughter Stella, and I are delighted. We are thrilled to now be a family of four!

Time for me to go change a dirty diaper. Have a great day!

Mr. Skinner

Time to Share Some News!

Hello,

I wanted to share some news with my former students who still might happen to follow this blog.

Next month, I will be changing schools again because I am starting a new job!

As of February 2, 2016, I will be the new vice-principal at St. Stephen School in Stittsville. I will be sad to leave my current Grade 3 class in the middle of the school year, but I am very excited to take on this new leadership opportunity!

Also, several of you have asked me if I will be attending the Holy Redeemer BBQ this year. I would definitely like to attend, and get Mr. Ullrich to take our family photo.

However, it might not work out this year because my wife is pregnant and our baby will be born right around that time. We will have to see how things work out.

And yes, Stella is very excited about becoming a big sister!

So, big changes for me in the next few months! I hope everything is going well for everyone at Holy Trinity!

All the best.

Mr. Skinner

Congrats!

Hello,

I just wanted to send a quick congratulations to everyone. The EQAO results have been released and you did amazing! Just like I knew you would!

You should receive your individual results at Holy Trinity soon, but the overall school results have been released and you excelled.

You can find the information at: http://www.eqao.com/en/assessments/results

Also, I'm sure many of you have seen this amazing article about Mr. Mendoza, but I was very proud to tell people this week that I have had the privilege of teaching three kids from this wonderful family.

ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/a-new-beginning-in-a-safe-place-ramon-mendoza-no-longer-looks-over-his-shoulder-to-see-whos-following-him

All the best!

Mr. Skinner

Happy Thanksgiving!

Hello,

I hope everyone has had a wonderful Thanksgiving with family and friends!

I also hope you've enjoyed watching the Blue Jays win the last two games!

Have a great evening and Go Jays Go!

Mr. Skinner

New Adventures

Hello,

I'm about to go to sleep, a little bit nervous, but excited about facing a new challenge and experience tomorrow. Sound familiar?

I know that everyone will have a great first day at Holy Trinity and I know that my first day teaching Grade 3 at St. Anne's will be pretty cool too.

Good luck guys! Work hard, try your best, and don't be afraid of new things. Sign up for clubs and teams. Say hello to the person sitting next to you (even if they didn't go to Holy Redeemer). You never know, you could be meeting one of your new best friends!

Have a great day!

Mr. Skinner

More Links - Vimeo videos, Dopbox Downloads and Slides used in Leaving Ceremony

Hello,

I have some more links to share. Please let your friends from Mrs. Boudrias' class know that they can access these links as well.

Mr. Ullrich has made a final version of the outtakes video.

https://vimeo.com/132183770

Also, if parents and students are interested in downloading the full slideshow, the outtakes, and the Rockets dance performance onto their computers, they can be found by following these links to Dropbox.

If the video starts playing when you click these links, right click on the screen and "save video as..."

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/31193642/2015%20Grade%20Six%20slideshow%20June2015%201080p.mp4

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/31193642/2015%20Grade%20Six%20outtakes%20June2015%201080p.mp4

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/31193642/2015%20Dance%20on%20stage%20May2015%20-720p.mp4

Here are the links to the slides used in the leaving ceremony.

Link to Power Points from Leaving Ceremony

Finally, Mr. Ullrich shared some wonderful photos with me, that he took throughout the year. I shared the Google Drive folder with all of my students. I will give you access to this folder for the next week, so you can download some great photos of yourself, if you want them.

I hope you all have a great Canada Day tomorrow.

Mr. Skinner

Thanks

Hello,

I'm a few days later than I had planned, but it took a little longer than I expected to go through nine years worth of stuff.

After cleaning out my desk and cabinets, getting rid of a few things, and moving the rest to St. Anne's, my time at Holy Redeemer has officially come to an end.

When I arrived at Holy Redeemer, I had three years of teaching experience, I was recently engaged and still living with my parents.

Now, I leave Holy Redeemer, ready to celebrate eight years of marriage with my wife, and our daughter's fifth birthday, this month. I think you might have heard me talk about her once or twice, her name is Stella.

A lot has changed in my life, but one thing hasn't: my love for the Ottawa Senators.

Ok sorry, two things haven't changed, my love for the Sens and of course, my passion for teaching.

We had an amazing final week, with the leaving ceremony, talent show, and end of year slideshows. It's been a great time to look back on the year.

This year has been another wonderful experience for me and I hope my students learned as much from me as I did from them.

I have the greatest job in the world because I look forward to teaching my students every single day. I look forward to hearing their stories about the games they played the night before, or seeing their excitement when they master a skill in Math class.

I am so proud to meet former students and see all that they have accomplished already, in their studies and even the work world (yes, I have now been teaching that long). It fills me with so much pride when they tell me that I inspired them to do their best.

I want to thank all of you, students and parents, for being my partners on a learning journey this year. We have all worked hard together and the students have achieved great success this year because of it.

This past week I have received some very thoughtful gifts, none of which were necessary, but all were definitely appreciated. I am most thankful for the amazing notes from parents and students. Thanks so much for your kind words. I am overwhelmed and humbled each year by the feedback I get from parents and students.

Next year will mean new challenges for all of us.

We will all be moving to new schools.

Rest assured, when I am teaching my Grade 2/3 class on the first day of school next year, my thoughts will drift to you, probably at lunch time, when I have some time to reflect. I will wonder how you are doing, and if any of you got lost or forgot your locker combinations, but I will remain confident that we will all be successful at our new schools. Why? Well, because I think we are all pretty awesome!

I will miss all of you, but I definitely plan on seeing you at various Holy Redeemer events. At the very least, my family will have to attend the BBQ, so that Mr. Ullrich can take our annual family photo!

I will post a few things this week, including downloadable versions of the slideshows from the Leaving Ceremony and of Mr. Ullrich's amazing video.

Have a wonderful Summer.

Mr. Skinner