What's happening in Div 9?

Happy Winter Holiday :)

Dear Families,

There is something so magical about this time of year, whether or not one celebrates Christmas, Bodhi Day, Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, Winter Solstice, or just excited about school holidays. The darkness allows us to settle in at home with loved ones and to appreciate the light as well.  Our librarian, Ms. Carson, shared with me how exciting the Winter Solstice is for her as she has memories of living up North and how, on the longest night of the year, all would celebrate the turning of the seasons, the promise of the sun.  We are cultivating memories in this time– together as a class within a community within a world. It’s exciting!

We have been, as always,  busy. We have been fervently working on our Elder Projects, sharing stories passed on and making art work.  Our art is inspired by George Littlechild, a Plains Cree artist who works with collage and photos of his elders.  See his work here! https://georgelittlechild.com/

We have also been reading stories about elders, about respect and about inferencing as a comprehension strategy.  We have been celebrating snow with our buddies and in our art. We’ve been reinforcing numbers to 20 and introducing addition strategies. Some of our students have been going to Ms. Saunders for Math, and some of her students coming to me! We call it Mega Math!

I recently sent out a newsletter with some pieces of information, and I hope you are able to take a read. I will also post the info on here in case you would like to translate with the translate tool on this website.

One important event this week will be on Friday– well, make that 2 events! One, we will have a pajama day and some fun activities to celebrate together.  More details to follow this week. The second is that the students will bring home their informal report, their ‘Snapshot of Learning’, on Friday.  This report will give you an indication of your child’s learning so far this year.  Please be sure to ask any questions before or after- my figurative door is always open 🙂

I hope whatever your December and January look like, that it brings you great peace, love and health. Much love to you and your families this winter.

This week in Grade 1 and 2

Happy Weekend, all!  I hope it has been a relaxing weekend with your family.  🙂

We continue to grow and stretch in Division 9.  This week brought us a few new experiences!  Here are some highlights!

Tuesday: We learned about Sea Gardens!  For thousands of years many Indigenous folks of the Pacific Northwest have been practising Aquaculture, setting up rock walls that clams love as a habitat.  The clams can grow and flourish AND be harvested all throughout the year. Why do clams go under the sand though?  Well, we listened to a story called The Chattering Clams, an adaptation by the podcast Circle Round.  This story teaches us how the clams came to be under the sand and also a lesson on using kind words rather than spreading unkind rumours!

Wednesday: We had a design challenge on the theme of Coco Chanel. We learned about her life and then designed an outfit for a paper doll using a variety of different fabrics and materials. We had so much fun, most of all because we did this with our new buddy class, Ms. Ginter’s Grade 5 and 6s!

Thursday: Mega Math and THE CASE OF THE POISONOUS PIZZAS. This was a 5 clue puzzle reviewing patterns.  The students worked SO hard to identify the suspect who poisoned Pepe’s pizzas!  We were helped out by Detective Bert…..ask your kids 😉

We have also started doing throwing and catching in gym, and having so much fun doing it.

Friday: We had just a great, immersive time doing Story Workshop.  We focused on Character and Setting and, if possible and ready, the Problem of the story. First we read “The Panda Problem” (hilarious) and then started building and creating.  We have a group of storytellers and it is really inspiring to see how dedicated they were to working on their stories.  I tried to catch photos and clips of most of the students– usually in Story Workshop a teacher can document a few kids each time- but ALL the students were really invested in their work.  Many wanted to work through snack time and to continue later in the day.  How exciting.

Those are a few highlights from this week.  We are also working on assessments leading up to the Snapshots of Learning being completed.  As I mentioned before, the Snapshots of Learning are anecdotal and more general reflections of your child’s learning thus far in the year.  There will be a more specific comment directed at Numeracy and Literacy to reflect your child’s progress on the proficiency scale.

LASTLY,

I want to start posting a few conversation starters for when your child comes home from school.  So often we say: ‘How was your day?’  And what do we get in return?  ‘Good’. I know at home at the dinner table I am experimenting with different questions that elicit different and more in-depth answers from my Kindergardener.  Here are a few for trying out!

1. Who did you play with today?
2. What made you happiest today?
3. How would you rate your day on a scale of 1 to 10? (explain the 1 to 10 scale!)
4. What was the nicest thing you did for someone today?
5. How were you brave today? (This is a great one, as we have recently been talking about courage and bravery)
6. If you changed places with Ms. Merkel tomorrow, what would you teach the class? (and please pass on the answers to this one to me 😉 Just kidding!)
7. AND, our go-tos at the dinner table: What was the best thing that happened? What was the saddest thing that happened? (the latter is my son’s contribution, and I think a good one to remind us all that we have ups and downs and all are good and normal.)

More next week!  Take great care and enjoy the sunshine I see peeking in my window 🙂

Ms. M

Mid November updates!

Happy rainy weekend, all!

It has been a couple weeks since my last post so it will be hard to recap our busy days.  However, I am feeling good that Seesaw has allowed you to see into our class in small bits- the fun, the messy, the complex, the calm & all spaces in between 🙂

A few particular highlights have been:

• The reader’s theatre production, an adaptation of The Room on the Broom:  It was so great.  We definitely have a class of many actors who shine on the (puppet) stage.  The kids made puppets on popsicle sticks and performed the play together in groups for each other and then for Ms. Anania and Ms. Carson.  I took videos of the groups but decided not to post them on Seesaw as they were just so long! Perhaps when I have time I can cut them down into bits to share.  It was amazing.  We only practised a couple times to keep it fresh and new but the students did SO well reading their lines and delivering with expression.
• Box city, aka, Shifu’s community village: As you may have seen, our city grew and grew…. what started as a simple community project grew into a rather large task with ziplines, robot cars and rollercoasters.  As I mentioned, it might not look like much, but the number of lessons we spent investigating each element were plentiful.  One important aspect of my previous role in Advanced Learning is that process is ever so important.  That’s where the big out-of-the-box world changing ideas take place! In the words of Thomas Edison (to one who said ‘where are your results??’), ‘Results!? Why, man, I have gotten a lot of results! I know a thousand things that don’t work!’  This being said, we do do some worksheets and product making, but a lot of what we do is in the process….the making, the dialogue, the risk taking and mistake making– and I want to continue to challenge our students with these processes.
• A BEAUTIFUL interactive book on Coast Salish Fall seasonal rounds.  They are stunning and I would like to post them soon both in person and in Seesaw before sending them home.  A few students are still working carefully on them.
• We continue to work on weekly writing, Story making, word play (spelling) and I have now introduced Sight words to the mix!
• In math we have worked on number sense, ordering numbers and skip counting.  I am trying to get a pretty good foundation going before moving towards operations.

Coming up…..

A community project involving you! Yes, you! 🙂  It will probably be a really lovely project to work on as a family.  Keep your eyes open for news of that project coming later this week (hopefully!)

Addition & subtraction strategies

The Night Sky & how day and night work! How do seasons work??

More daily reading and writing, PE, yoga &/or relaxation and philosophy….we are BUSY!

What you can do at home:

1. Reading.  This is ALWAYS number one.  Enjoy reading together and enjoy books.  This is essential and if you have no time for anything else, do this! We are just getting a subscription to Raz kids which will allow you to read levelled books online at home.  More info when it’s ready to go….
2. Practice number patterns– skip counting, forwards & backwards, look at number puzzles and make patterns
3. Do the bi-weekly homework I send home for word play.  Enjoy playing with words with your child and help them have fun doing their ‘homework’
4. Practice doing challenges where they must make mistakes and celebrate that! We must take risks to learn and we can support our students by being right there beside them when they do.

I think this is all for now….there is always much more, but I shall leave it there for the time being.  As always, please contact me if you have any comments or questions.  The first ‘snapshot of learning’ will be coming home in December, which is an update on your child’s learning so far, a somewhat informal report card, but with a progress report in Numeracy and Literacy. Looking forward to celebrating your child in those snapshots then 🙂

Take great care, stay dry, and until next week.

Ms. M

P.S. Please pardon no photos, I think SeeSaw has inundated you plenty 🙂

Seesaw and Box city

Hello families!

Well…I think the Seesaw app may change my life!  What a difference it makes to be able to send photos of your kids doing all the wonderful things they do at school.  I had to pace myself from posting all the photos from the past few weeks in case it felt like social media overload! But I think this platform will be a great one to highlight your child’s learning.  If you haven’t already done so, you can use the invitation I sent yesterday afternoon in your child’s planner.  If you didn’t receive one, please let me know as there are two that seemed to be left behind yesterday! And, if you have any questions about this portfolio app please let me know.  As I have mentioned, it is new for me too, so may take some troubleshooting!

This week- in case you haven’t noticed- the kids are very excited about their city they are constructing.  It is one of those messy but necessary projects.  It was the highlight of my week to see every single student enraptured by their community building.  We had a conversation to introduce the project and we brainstormed what are things we need and what are things we want in our community.  Of course, this is an interesting philosophical question…. it took a very long time before the students realized they couldn’t just live with a cupcake bakery, a cookie bakery and a pet store 🙂 At one point a student jumped up and said: waitaminute! If we build a farm we don’t have to PAY for groceries!!!! 🙂

We also read a book that was very enlightening for me as well as for the students.  We read a book by  an Indigenous author called ‘Our Community’… it was all about going for a walk along the river where the characters see the salmon swimming in the river.  At first glance I went back to what has been taught in schools for years: Community– who are the people who work in your community? And THEN I had a wonderful revelation that I should know by my age!  Our community is the creatures, plants, land, systems and stories that are all around.  They sustain us and we are all connected, and that is the meaning of community.  I am thankful for that book.

We will continue to explore this meaning of community through our studies of the fall season this and next week, and then some more with an upcoming project (foreshadowing: it will involve you too!)

Take care and stay dry,

Ms. M

Rain, rain and more rain…

Happy rainy weekend,

I hope everyone stays cozy and dry this weekend!

As usual, we have been busy in Division 9.  Here are a few highlights…

Math: We have been playing some place value games together in math.  I have been challenging the students with some higher numbers and with some beginning word problems.  They have really been rising to the challenge!  I’ve been so pleased.  We will continue to work on number sense for another week or two before starting some addition strategies. AT HOME: If you want to play with numbers there are so many ways to explore number at home—

1. Count stuff! Count items and group them in 10s, talking about what numbers would go in the tens place and ones space
2. play place value war- get a pack of cards.  With 2 people, each person flips 2 cards.  Make the biggest number possible.  Whoever gets the bigger number wins and takes the cards. (I suggest for grade 1s perhaps using cards 1-6, unless they would like a challenge!)
3. Look at numbers everywhere- identify the number, what do the numbers mean?
4. Make numbers in different ways…. in pictures, in tallies, in word problems, in groups of tens and ones
5.  Online games- I really like Starfall and they have some free ones

Writing- Division 9 has been writing up a storm. It’s been so fun to see and read.  We are continuing with our story workshop which as been great. We read ‘The Perfect Square” by Michael Hall and then did our own versions of: what can you create with just one square? We have also been working on our spelling program ‘Word Play’.  For each set of words I will send home some spelling practice homework, but at this point it is optional as your time at home allows. It’s a great idea to practice at home but more important to read, read, read! Enjoy reading and playing with words.

One particular highlight for me was introducing Indigenous seasonal rounds- the deeply traditional and sacred activities that would and do take place during the Fall in Indigenous communities in and around our local region. The children were so engaged and learned a little about collecting salal berries and salmon to dry for the upcoming winter months. We even tasted some dried blueberries and cranberries as part of our discussion. We will continue learning about this in the next couple weeks.

Thank you for your ongoing support.  Thanks, too, for sending bozes for the kids! We have a rather large project coming up using them! A few things to note:

Photo retakes are TOMORROW, Oct 18th

If you have dried lentils, pulses, barley, rice to donate that would be great! We are making weighted snakes for self-regulation. Not all students need them but they can be very grounding for many and most are keen to have one of their own. If you have sent materials, thank you! And if not, it’s no problem– I am working to acquire enough for all, but it is taking some time. In addition to the grains/pulses we need long knee socks, if you are able to bring them. No holes though please 🙂 They have to be able to hold a couple pounds of rice!

Lastly, I am pleased to start using Seesaw this week and for you to be able to see an ongoing portfolio of your child’s day. Individual invites will be sent home this week and off we go! As I mentioned, this is the first time I have used this particular platform so bear with me as it gets underway! Am very excited to give it a try and give you a window into a day in the life of your child at school.

Take care, and with gratitude,

Ms. M

Happy Long Weekend

Happy long weekend, y’all.  However you spend this long weekend I hope you are resting and enjoying with your family and soaking up the Sunday sunshine.

We ended the week on a high, celebrating our group win with an ice cream party, courtesy of Shifu 🙂 We ate ice cream sandwiches and watched the short film adaptation of the book ‘Room on the Broom’ (knowledgekids.ca). Lots of fun and a nice time to connect and reflect on how we earned stones for our group plan jar– the Group Plan is a way to talk about doing expected behaviours, noticing what the group is doing and joining in. (i.e., if we are all sitting on the carpet listening to a story, that’s the group plan). 

In literacy this week we started our spelling program, which is a great program called Word Play.  Some of you may have been introduced to Words their Way and it is very similar.  We look for patterns within the words, sorting them.  If you know bat, you also know mat, sat, that….and you will also know ‘caterpiller’ and ‘patted’ at some point! We are just getting into the routines of this program.  There is some spelling practice coming home, as I mentioned in my email.  No pressure, we want spelling to be playful and fun and having a feeling of accomplishment. 

We have also started ‘Story Workshop’, which is just the most fun.  The students were given a selection of fall materials- leaves, pinecones, sticks, wooden buttons and cutouts- and they created the most marvelous stories! It was just the best.  Part of Story Workshop is documenting the stories.  If you decide to download SeeSaw that will be a good place to post some of the audio files or videos.  It’s such fun! 

In Math we have been exploring number sense and place value, using some dice games and counting in tens.  Any kind of counting where kids are regrouping 10s at home will be a great complement to the work in class. 

We have also been starting a reading comprehension strategy called ‘Activating Prior Knowledge’ or Schema.  This strategy is a great foundation for beginning readers.  I love a website called ‘Into the Book’ which introduces reading strategies. At home a way to support this strategy is to look at a book and brainstorm before reading: what do I know about this book or the content?  What experience do I have? What have I read about before that might be similar? And then read, read, read! More reading with families encourages a love and curiosity of reading and books. This is the foundation for becoming a good reader!

It is difficult to get a lot of photos for the blog as I don’t post student’s faces, so thank you for your understanding with the few photos posted here! A few pictures of our days below 🙂

Please remember library is TUESDAY, so pack books from last week to exchange on Tues a.m.

Also, we are going to be building a project next week with boxes- please bring in boxes– amazon boxes, cereal boxes, the more interesting the better.  Thank you! 

It’s officially Fall!

October is here, folks! And it has brought beautiful fall colours and leaves, wet weather and chilly days.  We have had a short week this week, but an important one.  On Wednesday we all wore orange shirts to show our support for and understanding of the suffering of residential school survivors, and for many of us, to pledge our intention to live, teach and learn in a spirit of Truth & Reconciliation. In grades 1 & 2 we approach residential schools through stories of Indigenous people, particularly Phyllis Webstad (who created Orange Shirt Day), and continue through the year in a gradual and sensitive approach. Coming up in our curriculum we will be layering on the Seven Sacred Teachings which are beautiful ways to live in the world, tenets offered through teachings of the Ojibwe and Anishanaabe people, but that are expressed by many indigenous families in North America.  We will also be learning about the seasonal rounds of the Coast Salish peoples in our local area, in particular, the Fall season. Throughout the year we hope to gain a better understanding of how to live in a way that respects all people- that EVERY CHILD MATTERS- and to protect the whole wellbeing of all beings.

We also created some beautiful fall art to celebrate the colours of the trees, which you will soon see. In Math we are starting to learn place value and increase our number sense. This coming week we will be starting a wonderful course of study called Story Workshop, which will support us all to become better writers! We are also getting in the routine of the Daily 5, which is a way to teach independent literacy skills. As we continue on we are building on that, this week adding our word work (spelling) program to the mix.

As you can see we are very busy in Division 9!

Please don’t forget:

Library Day is Tuesday- bring back your books for exchange!

Thursday is Photo Day!

This week I will be sending home consent forms for Seesaw app- please read over the information and send back before the end of the week.

Please send back notice bags so we can send notices back and forth.  Also please check planners nightly in case there are notes.

Take great care and thank you for all your continued support in your child’s transition to grade 1 and 2 🙂

Majority government announced!

Okay, perhaps not in the Federal election, but in our class election it was nearly a landslide win for Shifu and the Red Panda party.  This means that if we are able to fill our group plan jar with rocks we will earn an ice cream sundae party! Thanks, Shifu!

This week, after the excitement of the election, we worked on our repeating patterns and then learned about fractal shapes and patterns in nature! It was incredible how many fractals we found outside! Leaves, flowers, tree branches… we found them everywhere using our magnifying glasses. We will be moving on in math to number sense and applying our knowledge of patterns to number as well.

We are also working on starting The Daily 5, which is an approach to literacy (reading, writing, spelling) and I like to add in fine motor work as well. We wrote a short poem based on the book “I am every good thing” by Derrick Barnes.  This book is so beautiful and a message for all our children that they are every good thing, worthy of respect and love.  (See our bulletin board below in the pictures).

We are learning about each other through opening up our take home About Me backpacks.  It is so fun to listen to the kids and learn about what makes them unique and special.

The Terry Fox run was on Friday and all the kids did a great job in the run and learning about Terry Fox’s amazing and heroic legacy.

It was so wonderful to meet all of the parents this week and to celebrate your children.  We have a wonderful class who are getting to know each other and start to bond as a team.  Thank you for your time and ongoing support– and your patience as we get things organized for the year 🙂 A few photos are below, but I am hoping to get Seesaw app going this week so you can start seeing more of your child’s school day! Take care.

Love and Joy,

Ms. M

First week together and ELECTIONS!

Happy weekend, all 🙂

Well, we did it! We are through week one of school in our class together.  The beginning of the school year is so important.  My goal and priority for September is to create safe, happy and supportive relationships between the students and me, their teacher, but also between each other.  We are a team and we will come together to have a great year. There is plentiful research to suggest that the indicators of success early in a child’s life are their social emotional health, literacy and wellbeing.  In the words of developmental molecular biologist: “You want to get your kid into Harvard? You really want to know what the data say? I’ll tell you what the data say! Go home and love your [family]!”(John Medina, Brain Rules for Baby: How to Raise a Smart and Happy Child from Zero to Five)

This being said, we are spending lots of time getting to know each other, develop the rules and values for our classroom, and build a safe and supportive learning environment for all.  We have also been working on patterns, inside and outside– see our photos below of an outside exploration.

It is voting time! Part of our learning this year is how to be in a community- what are our rights and responsibilities? We have both the right and responsibility to elect leaders who reflect our values.  We are learning about the election process through our class election, which will take place on Monday.  Will students elect a pet/representative that values more math or more art? They are working filling a ‘group plan’ jar with rocks, receiving one rock when they help the class community in an unexpected way, or support the group plan.  If they fill the jar they could either receive: a Sundae party or a popcorn party.  If elected, the Flamingo party will offer more math and popcorn- Lulu, the leader of the party proposed during the debate on Friday. Shifu, the leader of the Red Panda party, will offer more art and ice cream! The leader will be elected on Monday after students head to the polls. (See photos of the candidates below).

DONATIONS:

1. All the students are interested in making a weighted snake for grounding during carpet time. If you are able, please bring in a bag of lentils or rice and a long knee sock.
2. We are doing some relaxation and movement in class and are using yoga mats. If you or your child has a spare yoga mat at home you would like them to use, please send it in with their name on it.
3. We will do lots of inventing and creating this year, and a lot of hands on math. If you have any of the following, please send it in:  –

• buttons
• interesting bits and bobs (like at urban source! junk for repurposing!)
• dried beans
• beads
• bottle caps, washers, clothes pegs
• marbles
• fabrics
• books or games you don’t want

Thank you for your support this year. It’s been a pleasure getting to meet your children and it’s sure to be a great year 🙂

Love & joy,

Ms. Merkel

Newsletter content for translation

Hello! If you would like to translate the newsletter with the blog function, here is the content 🙂 :

Meet the teacher

Hello! And welcome to Grade 1 and 2! My name is Ms. Merkel and I am so pleased to be your child’s teacher this year. I was recently a district leader in Advanced Learning and a big part of my job was teaching the district Grade 2/3 challenge program. Before that. I have taught in a variety of classrooms, in Canada and overseas, in Grades K-3 and in teacher education programs in two universities. I have been a teacher since 2004 and have my Masters degree in Curriculum & Instruction. More importantly, I have a beautiful family with 2 young sons and my husband! When I’m not at school I am playing with them in the woods or at the library, learning and teaching yoga and cooking (or, let’s be honest, doing the laundry!) Read more about me in my class book, printed for the class or on the blog.

Class contributions

It takes a village to raise a child! There will be lots of

opportunities to be an intergenerational contributor to your child’s classroom this year if you would like to takepart. As parents, we are also exceptionally busy so your support and love at home is perfect and enough, as well.

This month’s invitations will be:

– become a ‘mystery reader’- surprise your student by

reading to the class (more information to come)

– donate some interesting boxes for an upcoming project (please keep them at home until called for 🙂

– donate indoor plants you don’t want anymore

– start to think about your child’s family history/culture/elders as we begin units on community, history, story and identity

Curriculum

Math patterns, Community building, Elections/government, Abstract art, weaving, seasonal rounds & Fall, Team building & class routines, philosophy cafe & more!

Connect

Class blog: https://sd41blogs.ca/merkell

Seesaw app: MORE information to come soon! An app where you can see and celebrate your child’s work at school!

email: liz.merkel@burnabyschools.ca

Important dates

Sept 13th- Welcome! First day in our new class

Tues Sept 21st- School photos

Wed Sept 22nd & Thurs Sept 23rd- Student intake meetings

Friday Sept 24th- Early dismissal (1:45pm)

Friday Sept 24th- Terry Fox Run

Monday Sept 27th- Pro-D day

Wed Sept 29th- Orange Shirt Day

Thurs Sept 30th- no school, Truth and Reconciliation Day