From Hat Day to Golden Ticket Day to STEAM Day, we have been having so much fun aboard the Polar Express!  The Division 10 DJ’s have been doing a wonderful job of sharing the spirit of riding the rails this season!

November has brought us torrential rains, a parade of storms and atmospheric rivers.  It hasn’t stopped Division 10 from working, thinking and creating.

Some favourite books this month have been

Can You Hear The Trees Talking.  We have learned so much about:

How Trees Breathe, How Trees Drink, Why Trees Don’t Fall Over, How Trees Procreate, What Tree Children Learn At School, Can Trees Talk and The Forest Internet.

Students created trees for all seasons with their team tables groups.

We continue to appreciate story time in the library and “kindness” continues to be a theme for us to all consider.  This was our latest story time book.

We’ve also appreciated some visiting story readers to share their personal favourites in the class.  Recognize our story tellers?

Division 10 has continued to develop their daily reading skills.  They have particularly enjoyed being Wild Word collectors, enhancing their learning through the book, The Keeper Of Wild Words. 

Mom Dad Our Books and Me carried them into considering all the ways they could make reading fun at home.  A new December Reading Advent Calendar has been sent home.  Have fun with literacy this month.  Remember, Every Day Is A Reading Day!

The Polar Express 10 Days of Christmas will begin on December 6. Please check the schedule that was sent home so you can be prepared for each fun and exciting day that your child will be part of at Clinton School.

The Scholastic Book Fair will be held from Dec 6-9 and purchases can be made online.  Students in Divison 10 will get a chance to purchase books in person on Monday, December 6 during their library time.  They are encouraged to bring their money in a Ziplock bag with their name and money amount on the bag.

For some, in Division 10, Peace means sharing nice words.  We recited a Nice Words poem for the Remembrance Day Assembly.  It was a virtual assembly.  I have attached the poetry recital on today’s blog post. Click on the link. https://sd41-my.sharepoint.com/:v:/g/personal/e13432_burnabyschools_ca/ERK9IYrxe_xFqcHEBM2IwskB_PC1nU7g16MEXBukuCIBbA

Others have shared that reading in a quiet room brings them peace.  Some shared that being out in nature brings them peace.  We have been connecting with trees in nature, working through our classroom inquiry of “What Stories Do The Trees Tell Us?”

We thoroughly enjoyed creating our autumn trees, considering the bare branches and the falling leaves.  With the parade of storms and windy, rainy days, students were able to capture just the right image for their art pieces, “Can You Hear The Trees Talking.”

We have also witnessed rainbows this November so we have been working with our Word Collector activities, engaging in some Rainbow Writes and Roll a Rainbow word challenges using numeracy vocabulary and nice words.

Reading Stamina has also been a focus for November.  We have increased our reading stamina to 30 minutes.  Students have also worked on listening to reading with Tumble Books and Story Time while improving shared reading skills.  They have developed their own list of strategies and criteria for shared reading.

They are very focused and peaceful during this time.

Laptop Tuesday has been well-received and students are becoming very comfortable logging on with user names and passwords.

Diwali brought much light into the classroom and making window diyas brought positivity.

We have been having a very successful first term.

Bones, Spiders and Pumpkins by the light of the Halloween Moon!

Here are some of the spooky and spectacular experiences of our end of October time together.

From time to time we watch Go Noodle BONES and get our bodies moving to the beat.  So we decided to think about all of our bones! Many of our 206 bones are in our hands and feet.  Thanks Mystery Doug for helping us with our X-ray art.

We read By The Light Of The Halloween Moon which connected our bone study to toes and feet.  This led to some amazing pumpkin visual art pieces using chalk pastels.

Our class inquiry challenged us to consider spiders in the trees.  An amazing story by the Fan Brothers called, It Fell From The Sky, got us thinking about the webs of a spider.  We watched a garden spider create an orb web and then began to design our own spider web creations.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNtSAQHNONo

We used our laptop time to look up Spider Facts and went onto the Library site to find Tumble Books so we could listen to Diary Of A Spider.

We had a day of Howling Adventure on Friday! Check out our costumed class!

Have a safe and happy Halloween weekend!                                            (Mrs. E’s dog, Leo!  Not thrilled with his costume:)

October has brought us so many opportunities to reflect on who we are and where we are going.  Students have been excited to move their cars along our Street Smart Learning Journey while also taking time to consider the classroom Apple Learning Journey.   This visual of growth being a process helps Division 10 to consider their movement forward with the concepts, knowledge and strategies they are working with.  The words emerging, developing, proficient and extending coincide with curriculum assessment language.

Safety First has also been a focus with October Fire Safety Month lessons!  Taking time to reflect on Clinton Star Safety has been a rewarding experience.  Room 15 has many shining stars!  We also participated in the Great Shake Out BC on Thursday, practicing our Earthquake Drill skills.

Students are also becoming comfortable taking on some responsibilities with their monitor roles.  They enjoy being helpful and supportive of each other.

Clinton School experienced the first You Be You Spirit Day on Thursday.  Taking time to consider identity, sparks, passions and pronouns through stories like “The Koala Who Could,” “They, He, She as Easy as ABC” and “Neither” has led to powerful conversations.  The school wide activity of joining hands together in support of diversity and acceptance of differences highlighted “The Many Pieces Of Me” for Division 10.

October is speeding along and as we near the end of the month, we will have enjoyed time with our buddy class, lessons by the Light Of The Halloween Moon, time with Bones, and Spider facts as shared by the trees and our classroom inquiry, “What stories do the trees tell us?”

Be ready to check out the BLOG next week as more will be added to cap off this month of appreciation, growth and learning!

The September newsletter came home today, this first day of October.  It highlighted many of the experiences Division 10 has been engaged in this past month.  Building Community, Reflecting on Truth and Reconciliation and Developing A Growth Mindset have been at the forefront of our learning and understanding for September.

Here are some photos of our journey thus far:

Math is Fun and our Classroom Learning Journey! 

Our Story and We Learn From Story!

  The Learning Tree and Try Like Terry!

Truth and Reconciliation!  We  Are  All  Connected!

Welcome to the 2021/2022 school year.  So very pleased to be able to connect with some familiar faces and welcome some new ones to Room 15.

The Division 10 Blog is a space for students to share with you some of our classroom activities and experiences.  We appreciate the time and thought given to our learning moments and often want to show and share through this medium.  Thanks for taking the time to have a look at our posts.  The Blog space is one of many ways for us to give you a window into our learning.

We will add some photos to our next post so you can see the journey we have taken this month.

Playground Builds!

We had architects, environmentalists, financial advisors, health and safety officers and project managers working together to create playgrounds.  The model builds were presented with the hope that Mrs. E. would sign a contract for an actual build of a playground for Clinton Elementary.  Super Teamwork was had by all.  The decision was very challenging.

What a better way to celebrate the playground builds than going out onto the playground and enjoying a cool summer treat provided by the PAC!  Freezie Time on the first full day of Summer!

Division 10 had the opportunity to contribute to the maintenance of our Clinton School Indigenous Garden.  The outdoor classroom stone blocks provide a quiet place for classes to reflect on time in nature and make connections with the plants and trees of BC’s natural habitat.  In the garden, Indigenous trees, plants and bushes have been planted.  Our class weeded and watered, volunteering their time to support the upkeep of this peaceful place.

We look forward to having this space recognized at the virtual assembly on Wednesday, June 16, as part of our ongoing learning and understanding of reconciliation.

It has been an exciting month and we are ending May with the traditional Math Super Hero Day!  Students have been super heroes with all of their May experiences from our Dogwood Daze to Imagine Van Gogh with Vintage Boards.  Students also completed their Animal Research Projects.  Second term had students working on an inquiry project together.  Third term gave the opportunity for students to take that learning and apply it to their own animal project of choice.  Through a process of questioning, fact finding and creating, Division 10 was pleased to present book reports, visual art pieces, game boards and dioramas.

Here’s looking toward June with more success along the Grade 2 learning journey.