What is the OSSLT?
The OSSLT is a provincial test of literacy (reading and writing) skills students have acquired by Grade 10. It is based on the literacy skills expected in The Ontario Curriculum across all subject areas up to the end of Grade 9.

Basic Test Details: 

• Administration Date March 27, 2019
• Test Materials four test booklets: two Question Booklets and two corresponding Answer Booklets
• Duration 2.5 hours of testing time in total
• Results are posted in the form of an Individual Student Report indicating whether the student was successful or unsuccessful.

Test Format & What to Expect: 

National Geographic: SCIENCE & INNOVATION STARSTRUCK
​
​See the first supermoon on the spring equinox in 19 years
Look up while it lasts: This particular cosmic coincidence won't come again until 2030

BY ANDREW FAZEKAS
PUBLISHED MARCH 19, 2019
Assuming spring showers stay at bay, sky-watchers in the Northern Hemisphere will get to see a cosmic triple play on March 20, as a “super worm moon” lights up the vernal equinox. According to astronomy website EarthSky.org, a full moon has not landed this close to the first day of spring since the year 2000, and the two celestial events won’t happen less than a day apart again until 2030.

Click here to read the full article.

Interested in all things moon related, try sampling a book or two from this diverse collection of offerings...
amazon.ca

​Checkout the article posted by The Old Farmer's Almanac to learn more about the Spring Equinox.
CELEBRATE THE VERNAL EQUINOX AND THE START OF SPRING!
By Catherine Boeckmann
March 20, 2019

Repost from National Geographic

​Holi is a festival celebrated by Hindus around the world. It marks the beginning of spring, and is usually celebrated at the end of February or early March. Participants in a Holi festival often throw brightly colored powder and scented water at each other.

Holi is a major festival in the Hindu religion. It is celebrated on the day after the last full moon of the Hindu month of Phalguna. Phalguna falls between late February and early March in Western calendars. Holi usually marks the happy transition from harsh, dark winter to brighter, warmer springtime.

Holi celebrates the Hindu story of Prahlada. Prahlada was a prince dedicated to the worship of Vishnu, a major Hindu god. Prahlada's father and aunt opposed his religious faith, and as punishment made him sit in the middle of a raging bonfire. Vishnu protected Prahlada, and the prince did not burn.

Bonfires remain a part of Holi rituals today. However, the most striking aspect of the festival is the spraying of brightly colored powders and water in enormous public celebrations. The colors mark both Prahlada's flickering bonfire and the bright colors associated with spring.

The "Festival of Colors" is also a time for Hindus to relax social codes. Barriers between rich and poor, men and women, young and old are broken down by Holi's bright colors. A familiar saying is bura na mano, Holi hai—don't be offended, it's Holi!

March's Essential Mysteries and Crime Fiction MARCH 1, 2019 BY CRIMEREADS 

At the start of every month, CrimeReads staff members look over all the great crime novels and mysteries coming out in the weeks ahead and make recommendations based on what they’re reading and what they can’t wait to read. Check back over the course of the month for more suggestions for feeding your crime habit. Explore the original post by CRIMEREADS for a full inventory of juicy reads to lose yourself in this spring. 

March is Greek Heritage Month at the TDSB. This year's theme is “Wisdom, Hope, Love” , translated as  “Sofia, Elpida, Agape.”

SOFIA was not a Greek goddess, but rather the personification of cleverness and skill; wisdom incarnate. She is not to be confused with Athena, the goddess of wisdom and war. By definition, philosophy equates to a "love of Sophia" -or a love of wisdom. 
​
ELPIS (Elphida in modern Greek) is the personified spirit (daimon) of hope. She and the other daimones were trapped in a jar by Zeus and entrusted to the care of the first woman Pandora. When she opened the vessel all of the spirits escaped except for Elpis (Hope) who remained behind to comfort mankind. Elpis was depicted as a young woman carrying flowers in her arms. Her opposite number was Moros, the spirit of hopelessness and doom.

AGAPE is what some call spiritual love, or love in its highest form. It is an unconditional love, bigger than ourselves, a boundless compassion, an infinite empathy. It is what the Buddhists describe as “mettā” or “universal loving kindness.” It is the purest form of love that is free from desires and expectations, and loves regardless of the flaws and shortcomings of others. This type of love is in direct contrast and not to be confused with eros (love associated with sexuality and desire), deriving from the Greek god Eros and associated with Aphrodite; the goddess of love and beauty. 

​
​The Republic 
Often ranked as the greatest of Plato's many remarkable writings, this celebrated philosophical work of the fourth century B.C. contemplates the elements of an ideal state.
​
Written in the form of a dialog in which Socrates questions his students and fellow citizens, The Republic concerns itself chiefly with the question, "What is justice?" as well as Plato's theory of ideas and his conception of the philosopher's role in society. To explore the latter, he invents the allegory of the cave to illustrate his notion that ordinary men are like prisoners in a cave, observing only the shadows of things, while philosophers are those who venture outside the cave and see things as they really are, and whose task it is to return to the cave and tell the truth about what they have seen.

​The Odyssey
by Homer (Author), Bernard Knox
 (Editor, Introduction), Robert Fagles (Translator)
​
If the Iliad is the world's greatest war epic, the Odyssey is literature's grandest evocation of an everyman's journey through life. Odysseus' reliance on his wit and wiliness for survival in his encounters with divine and natural forces during his ten-year voyage home to Ithaca after the Trojan War is at once a timeless human story and an individual test of moral endurance. In the myths and legends  retold here.