Category: Uncategorized (Page 2 of 26)

Fall is here! We loved exploring the falling leaves. We learned a song to celebrate the things we notice about fall.

We took our math thinking outside to find and make patterns. What kinds of patterns do you notice in the photos? Can you figure out the core and pattern rules? Can you make more at home this weekend?

This week, we read Home and explored the vocabulary and connections to self that we can make. We had only a few minutes to find homes, but even in those few minutes we found many examples! Here are a few! Can you find other types of homes?

In Science, we learned about types of contact forces: friction, compression, and tension! We tried several different activities to understand how these forces work! Can you tell your families what you discovered?

Here is my little one listening and learning. We were so fortunate to be able to attend a beautiful and powerful event on National Day for Truth and Reconciliation this week.

We had Ms. Holliday join our class on Wednesday afternoon to spend time getting to know us and helping us connect with each other. After reading Ish, she had everyone talk about and then draw symbols that represented something new they learned that they didn’t know before. Then, everyone in the class connected one of their symbols to someone else’s symbol.

We got to know a new classmate during our story box story workshop time this week. I loved seeing the creativity and joy from each group.

Wishing you a wonderful weekend and look forward to our adventures next week!

A few reminders:

• Our first field trip notice has come home, please sign and return as soon as you can
• Please return your Poem of the Week folder and library books to school on Monday
• Our parents as Partners Conferences are this coming week. Please make sure you have booked a spot. If you are unable to attend, please send me an email to arrange another time.
• If you haven’t already, please fill out the survey by Monday, Oct. 6th
• Individual photo day is Oct. 7th

We spent the week reading and learning about National Day for Truth and Reconciliation through story, sharing, and reflecting. Each class in the school created a promise for the year that we shared at our Orange Shirt Day assembly on Thursday. Thank you to Bella and Santi for sharing!

Here are some photos of the classes’ promises that you can find greeting you at the main entrance. We also made individual hearts with our own personal hopes and goals that are greeting everyone who enters our classroom. Can you find more hearts around the school?

In math, we began our week learning how to play Target Thinking. We started at level one which focuses on addition of 3 numbers, and some of us already moved to level 2 which involves choosing the best equation to place our counter, using addition or subtraction!

Now, we are learning about patterns! On Tuesday, we created as many patterns as we could using geometric shapes to show what we know! On Wednesday, we learned, reviewed, and created different repeating patterns and their cores. On Thursday, we learned and created increasing patterns and their pattern rules.

Our school is working as a team to run the same distance that Terry Fox ran during his Marathon of Hope during Kilometre Club. We started this week and recorded our laps! As a class, we calculated that we ran 40.75 kilometres!! Then, we created  personal goals for our next run!

In Science Inquiry, we started learning about Force and Motion! With both our class and Ms. Dixon’s class, we read about what they are and about different types of motion! Then we took our learning outside to the playground to find different examples!

We had writing conferences with Ms. Carley to get our first or second drafts ready for our good copy “Best Part of Me”! We can’t wait to show you!

In art, we started our writing and painting of our portrait art projects!

I was away sick a few days this week but I was so proud to read our TOC notes. Ms. Chim said we were one of the best classes she has TOC’d for in the last 15 years! Ms. Dixon said we had the most lovely class! Wow! I love to hear that Div. 13 welcomed their guest teachers and showed them what a wonderful group of  students they are!

Hopefully I will have more photos to share next week, but in the meantime, I hope you have many things to talk about!

Reminders:

• If you haven’t, please fill in the short survey about your children here
• Tuesday Sep. 30 is National Day for Truth and Reconciliation (no school)

We have had such a wonderful first few weeks in Div. 13! Here are some snapshots of our learning as we get to know each other!

We have been doing a lot of reading and writing connected to our new classroom community. We shared ways our class will be the Best Class Ever!

We have writing about the Best Part of ourselves too! We have planned, written our first or second drafts, and we will be having writing conferences with Ms. Carley soon so that we can write our good copies!

We spent a few days starting to explore Story Boxes, and we even started drawing and writing our stories this week for Story Workshop!

In math, we started by graphing our birthdays! Here are a few examples of our pictograph cupcakes!

We created geometric shape designs! Then we solved design problems at geometric shape stations!

We learned several math games! We played “Bump”, practicing our addition skills.

We played “Beat the Teacher”, practicing our place value and comparing the size of numbers from least to greatest!

We played “Take Them” to practice our subtraction, addition, and turn taking!

We spent a few days exploring outside, walking around the garden, the school yard, and even to the forest! We played a game of camoflauge and then explored our favourite places.

We love explorations! We love to build, read, draw, craft, and create! Div. 13 is so creative!

On Friday, we started the first step of our identity art project!

We have loved getting to know each other and our spaces. We can’t wait for next week’s adventures!

A few reminders:

• Please fill out our short class survey
• Please return your information forms
• Please send indoor shoes and a change of clothes

Dear Families of Div. 13,

Welcome to our Division 13 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 are excited to bring our learning outside into the community!

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 came home today – please take a look together 🙂

Love,

Ms. Carley

On Monday, we came in to discover that many of our beans had grown! We loved seeing how they continued to grow throughout the week!

This week, we did so much amazing weaving! Here are some photos from day one of our learning journey! Thank you to all the parents who came helped us!

Day two!

Day three! Look at all the amazing progress we made througout the week!

On Wednesday, we went on our second big forest walk! During this walk, we heard so many birds! We also saw so many bugs, especially slugs! We saw that one of the paths is closed for habitat restoration, and by reading the sign, we learned about some ways that our actions can be harmful or helpful for the plants and animals. We also spotted nursing logs, mushrooms and fungi, and many plants we have been learning the names of! Div. 16 is so observant and thoughtful! Here are some more living and nonliving things that we noticed!

On Thursday, we got to see an amazing art exhibit put on by Ms. Yee and Ms. Taylor’s classes in collaboration with some SFU artists! They had audio, video, and mixed media displays! It was an incredible day! We can’t wait to go visit the exhibit when it opens in the fall at SFU!

We had sports day today! Div. 16 showed amazing sportsmanship and teamwork! Wow! I am so proud of you al!

I can hardly believe we are going to be starting our final week of school together! Your final week of grade one!

Please remember to:

• bring a bag to take your school work home!
• return your home reading and library books to school!

Other reminders about the last week:

Mon. June 23

• Final day of Weaving!
  • (If you are available to help a small group of students at 8:55-9:40, please let me know! We will try to have everyone finish their weave!)
• Picnic Lunch in the park at 11-12:10pm
  • (students will bring their regular lunch that we will eat outside at Richard Bolton Park, and Ms. Carley will bring some treats and activities to play with!)

Tues. June 24

• Forest Games at 1040-12pm

June 26th

• Last day 9-10am

We had such a lovely week last week!

Some of our highlights:

We had hot dog day on Wednesday! Thank you so much to the PAC for putting on such a wonderful lunch! And thank you to the parents who volunteered to help!

We loved continuing on with our money math! We made money dice and then have been playing many games to add up our money totals!

We went on a forest hike together! We found so many amazing plants and animals and talked about their names. Can you take your family back to this special forest walk?

I loved seeing your drawings of our time on our nature walk! Here are some that Div. 16 wanted to share on the blog!

We had big buddies and loved playing and building with them!

On the pro d day, I saw our beans started growing!

This upcoming week:

Mon. June 16

• Weaving at 9-10am
• Spirit day: Wear Red!

Tues. June 17

• Spirit day: Wear Yellow!

Wed. June 18

• Spirit day: Wear Green!
• Weaving at 9-10
• Nature Walk at 1:15-2:45pm
• Home reading books are due!

Thurs. June 19

• Weaving at 11-12am
• Spirit day: Wear Blue!

Fri. June 20

• Sports Day!
• Early dismissal at 1:30pm

This week we had so much fun exploring the plants and animals on Burnaby and Grouse Mountain!

On Monday, we learned that adaptations can be described as “structural” and “behavioural”! For example, bears going into torpor (sometimes thought of as hibernation) is a “behavioural adaptation”, and their big claws and other special body parts are “structural adaptations”.

On Tuesday, we explored the concepts of living and nonliving things and did a scavenger hunt to find them outside!

Then we had our garden day with Pablo and explored:

• Compost Bin Health – we learned ways to measure the health of a worm bin and encourage better habitat in the current bin
• Trees in trouble – we examined trees for signs of damage or poor health and investigate conditions that may cause trees and other plants to become unhealthy!

On Wednesday, we went to Grouse Mountain! After riding the gondola up, we visited the Feast House where Elder William told us stories, shared songs, and taught us dances of the animals (orca, raven, eagle, and wolf).

Then we had four stations where we explored life cycles, skull bones and footprint molds of animals, and the needs of living and nonliving things.

Next, we visited the Grizzly Bears, Grinder and Coola, and learned about their stories, the lives, and their bodies! We loved the bears!

Finally, we went to the Kid’s Treetop Canopy Adventure where we got to walk across treetop bridges and nets! It was like we were living in the trees!

We wrote reflections in our journals but make sure you share all the things you loved about your trip with your family this weekend!

Thursday – we loved doing money math this week!! (Financial literacy). We worked on our piggy bank booklets and we counted all our money for popcorn sale to see the different ways we can make one dollar! We also learned about making change if we had two dollars! See if you can find money math at home this weekend!

Friday – we planted beans! First, we observed the seeds with our magnifying glasses, asked wonders, made predictions. Next, we planted our seeds and watered them.

Some of us are finished our latest story workshop stories! We are excited to display them!

Our flower art is framed and ready for display too!

What an amazing week!

Here are a few special things about next week! Check out the Important Info tab for more dates!

• June 11th
  • Hot dog day at 11:30pm
  • Art walk 1-3
• June 12th
  • Library books are due
  • Twin/triplet day
  • Early dismissal at 2pm
• June 13th
  • Pro D Day (no school)

This week was full of adventures!

We had an amazing field trip to the Museum of Archaeology! First we visited the Wall of Namu. Then we learned about petroglyphs and cave paintings. Next we split into two groups. In one, we made our own cave paintings in the lab’s “cave”! In the other, we visited the Museum’s garden which was planted with only plants that are Indigenous to the land we live on. We even got to plant three different seeds there. We hope they will grow and be healthy! Finally, we went back to the museum to look around some of the exhibits. We were amazed at the weaving, the Indigenous art, and the other exhibits!

We started the Safe Bodies Safe Kids program this week. We will be exploring topics such as personal safety, personal boundaries and how to seek help when needed. For each lesson, I am sending home a note describing what we are discussing in class in greater detail. It would be great if you could continue these conversations at home.

We finished painting and writing drafts of our new stories!

We got to experience some new materials! Our school photo interrupted our stories a bit but we are looking forward to finishing these new ones next week!

In math, we continuing measuring with non-standard units! Then we started learning about financial literacy! Tell your families about the book we read about saving and spending!

Our parent appreciation day was on Tuesday – we hope the amazing family volunteers in our community feel loved and appreciated! Thank you so much for all you do!

Next week reminders:

• Garden day June 3rd (families are welcome to come join us!)
• Grouse Mountain field trip June 4th

Every week is such a joy to be in Div. 16!

We have been loving creating our new story workshop stories, and recording them with drawings! Next, we will be writing and paining our stories in a new way!

For teacher appreciation day, the PAC treated the teachers to such a lovely day, including making our own bouquets! So, of course we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to create art! We drew and coloured what we saw and will be putting up a new bulletin board with our gorgeous still-life flower art, with a focus on contour lines.

We loved connecting with our new big buddies. We made a Venn diagram together to learn about things we had in common and things that made us different.

We can’t wait for the fun adventures of the next few weeks!

• Museum of Archaeology visit on May 28th!
• Grouse Mountain field trip on June 4th!
• Forest Walks
  • June 11th 1-3pm, June 18th 1-3pm
  • (please let me know if you are available to join us outside!)
• Weaving
  • June 12 – 10:40-12pm, June 16 – 9-10am, and June 19 – 10:40-12pm
  • (please let me know if you are available to come help us in class! No experience necessary, we will all learn together, inspired by the weaving our school is making with Caitlin!)

Love,

Ms. Carley

(PS. I love the portrait of me from this week! Thank you, S!)

It was such a pleasure seeing so many families at Student Led Conferences this week! You did a wonderful job of touring your spaces and so much learning that you are proud of!

This week, we finished our Bear Art inspired by Indigenous stories and art techniques.

We created beautiful flower art using sharpie and pencil crayons.

In math, we started learning about measurement! We explored non-standard units of measurement, and Div. 16 had some very creative ideas! Some different ways we measured each other’s height was

• 9 pencil crayons long
• 7 books
• 4 blocks high
• 5 name tags
• 8.5 rainbow straws
• 10 animal toys
• 14.5 Keva blocks
• 12 stacked chairs

However, we found that it was hard to compare heights using these tools! We realized that standard units and tools could help us! So we learned how to use rulers, measuring tape, and meter sticks to measure the centimeters (cm) of items (and people!) around the room! We look forward to exploring measurement in many ways!

We started some new story workshop stories and look forward to continuing to build them and write about them! We are going to try some new story workshop routines next week!

We visited the special story workshop in the library for some new inspiration too!

Thank you so much for your interest in helping for our upcoming field trip to Grouse Mountain! There was overwhelming interest so we did a draw to determine who can join us! I wish we could bring more of you with us! However, we will be going to the SFU Museum of Archaeology on May 28th, so please let me know if you would like to come for this field trip, or if you would like to join on us on some other local walking field trips.