Today, we wrote a blog post together to practice creating our own blogfolio posts!

Div. 4 and 5 have started an inquiry exploring the spaces around us. We started by choosing special artifacts from the forest. Then we drew them by looking very closely.

Last week, we visited the Hidden Aspen forest to explore with our senses what we could see, hear, smell and touch. I noticed so many interesting things growing on the trees, such as special mushrooms. I also noticed that a bear had clawed one of the trees on the path. I wonder when this happened! I am glad we didn’t see a bear, but I am so happy we get to share the mountain space with such amazing animals.

We were all busy drawing and writing about what we saw.

Then, we hiked along the path and I noticed so many trailing pacific blackberries along the way. I can’t wait to continue exploring the forest spaces around us and what mysteries might lie there.

I have loved our first few weeks together! Please take a moment to fill in this survey to share about your child and family.

Thank you for your thoughtful conversations and reflections on The National Day for Truth and Reconciliation this week, Div. 5! Visit our windows to see our promises.

Enjoy some snapshots of our first few weeks! Drawing what we see, exploring the forest spaces, harvesting in our school garden, goal setting with Terry Fox, and much more!

Dear Families of Div. 5,

I would like to take this opportunity to welcome you to the Division 5 community! I am very excited to be a part of your child’s learning journey this year and I am looking forward to getting to know your family.

Our goals for this year are community, collaboration, and creativity. The learning will take place across curricular areas, and is based on inquiry, experience, and exploration. We will be taking our learning outside into the garden, forest, and community spaces quite often, so please ensure your children bring appropriate clothing and footwear for the weather each day.

We will be using our classroom blog as one of our communication tools this year. Here you can find snapshots of our journey and materials to support learning at home. Please check the blog on a regular basis, or subscribe to our newsletter for updates about our class community. A newsletter will  be coming home this week.

I am looking forward to getting to know your child and your family as we spend this year together. Please email with any questions or concerns, or to set up a phone call or in-person meeting. I can be reached by email at kristina.carley@burnabyschools.ca.

All the best,

Ms. Carley

Dear Div. 6,

Our year is ending the way it began, with unexpected challenges. We don’t get to spend our last full day together in the way we hoped, but I hope that you are all doing well and staying safe in this heat.

I have some invitations for your day, if you are feeling up for it.

I had hoped to share this little book from our buddies. They loved spending time with us. If you would like to send a message back, please feel welcome to send me your special message and I will pass it along to Ms. Shuster.

One of the things we were looking forward to was finishing up our blogfolios – making sure we had posted everything we were working on, and writing about any new things that were important to us. You are invited to do that today and this summer at home, if you are able. You might want to write about buddies and add your forest powerpoint to a post!

Here are a few photos from some of our exciting adventures these last few weeks: removing invasive buttercup to protect the forest’s edge, harvesting potatoes, and our summer aspen forest walk. We love exploring reconciliation, connection to place, and stewardship this year. Please remember that you can save photos from Ms. Carley’s blog to your computer, or ask me for the original digital copy!

Happy Pride Month! We loved watching Robin Stevenson’s Author Talk interview with Bryan Gidinski, and reading Ghost’s Journey. See if you can use Robin’s writing tips as you write this summer! Congratulations, Div. 6! We also won a copy of Pride Puppy by Robin Stevenson for our class!

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I will pack up your supplies and hope to see you tomorrow so you can collect all your treasures, including your looms.

Love,

Ms. Carley

Wow, Div. 6 students were amazing buddies this week! We had two opportunities to connect! We love seeing Ms. Shuster and her kindergarten and grade one students from 12 different schools as they attended distance learning class!

This year, we have sent photos and padlets back and forth exploring topics of light, shadow, and looking closely. We created a unique dialogue and community across classroom and virtual spaces.

This Tuesday, several Div. 6 students volunteered to read Elephant and Piggie to their little buddies through Zoom and then everyone got a chance to share and chat about all the topics, questions, connections, and magic tricks that came up!

On Wednesday, we met our grade one buddies and presented the powerpoints all about why we love our forest! They loved hearing about our learning and reflections. Each powerpoint was so different and unique! Our buddies shared so many favourite parts from our time together!

With this project, we learned about using powerpoint as a reflective tool. We also learned how to present on zoom! The teamwork and cooperation was amazing. We were incredible leaders, mentors, and partners in learning. We were so proud to share.

We are so grateful for the time we got to spend with our little buddies this year.

Div. 6 has loved caring for our butterflies. On our last day with them, we wrote letters to say good bye and thank them for all they taught us. We learned about the butterfly in Coast Salish traditions and remembered the importance of understanding our interconnections and our relationships. We loved our time with our butterflies and it was time to let them go into the world. We hope to see them again one day. Our world will be a more beautiful place with their gifts of pollinating.

Div. 6 was busy planting these last few weeks! From our learning, we know that with native plants, we can feed native pollintator species and so many other important beings. By encouraging biodiversity, we can be part of supporting climate resilience. Can you show your family some of the plants you planted around our school grounds? How many plants can you name?

This week, we went back to visit the frog stream. We were so happy to see many bees on our walk. We also noticed many changes and special creatures along the way. We explored the stream using our endoscope again to look in places our eyes cannot see. Although the frogs did not sing in their loud, inspiring chorus for us this time, we still loved visiting them. We even saw some new birds and a duck! The more we learn, the more we understand, the more we see what we can do to make a difference!

Division 6 has been learning about diversity and inclusion this week as we prepare for IDAHAT Day on May 17th and welcomed our newest members of the class, our class caterpillars!

Our caterpillars arrived early this week and in just a few days, our little caterpillars have more than doubled in size! We have been observing them closely and reading about them. This morning, a few students even chose to read them a story to start our day together.

To celebrate diversity and explore symmetry, we created beautiful rainbow butterflies with Ms. McGivern!

On Monday, we will wear rainbows to acknowledge International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia, & Biphobia Day (IDAHAT Celebration). Families are welcome to join a virtual event on May 17 from 4:00-5:30pm on Zoom!  The Zoom link to join the event can be found at the top of the event page, which also includes information about the speakers and can be found here:  https://sd41.sharepoint.com/https://zoom.us/j/92170428652?pwd=NENRTENQWDVnaUxPdlEvY1lrNzNaUT09sites/SOGI_Construction/SitePages/IDAHAT-Reimagined.aspx

Div. 6 created art, inspired by a wide variety of landscapes. We focused on sketching the foreground, mid ground, and back ground of our landscapes. Then we mixed our own paint colours and applied them using a paint palette tool. We discovered that we can make so many different colours! We played with the techniques of our new painting tool. What are its strengths and limitations? Tell your family about how you created your landscape!