Category: Uncategorized (Page 26 of 27)

Our Cultural Inquiry Projects are coming along beautifully! Thank you for taking time as a family to share stories and answer questions with your children. Here are a few of our questions we brainstormed throughout the project: CIP Question Brainstorm. This weekend your child will be bringing questions for the final 2 slides: Our Cultural Events and Traditions, and then any other details or stories they would like to share about.

Please use these questions as a starting place for conversation. You can decide as a family what you would like to appear on the Powerpoint to share with the class. 

This week we learned that even though it looks like the Sun is moving across the sky every day, it is actually the Earth that is spinning (rotating) around its axis. In our activity, students became models of the Earth and spun around to understand how this movement is responsible for the Sun rising and setting every day. We also discussed how the speed of the Earth’s rotation affects the length of one full day.

You can support learning at home. The next time you’re travelling by car or bus, you can point out that it doesn’t feel like you’re moving at all – even if you’re travelling at really high speeds. This is the same reason that even though the Earth is spinning incredibly fast, it never feels like we’re moving. Because the Earth is always spinning at a constant speed, we never feel it moving.

Here are a few fun activities you can explore at home:

Over the course of the day, compare the light on your globe to the light shown on this interactive map.

Check out these time-lapse videos of sunrise and sunset. Here are some discussion questions: Why does it look like the Sun is moving? Which way would you face to look in the direction of the Sun in the morning? In the middle of the day? In the afternoon? Do any other objects in the sky seem to move in the same way as the Sun? Explain. Does the Sun really move this fast? Why do you think it looks like it’s moving fast in the video?

Thank you to the families of Div. 4 for joining us at Parents as Partners Conferences last week! It was wonderful connecting with all of you. I am looking forward to this year with your child and your family!

The garden is the perfect place to explore growth mindset! Learning that growth takes patience, time, and support. In our first week back at school, we came up with some supportive ideas, inspired by our garden learning.

The Group of Seven is famous for creating unique, Canadian art, celebrating the beauty of the land we now call Canada. Last week, we began our exploration of the Group of Seven with a gallery walk of some of their famous pieces. We were mindful of our observations of colour, techniques, movement, themes, content, and emotions that were evoked for us. We are excited to be creating our own multi-media art inspired by the Group of Seven!

Div. 4 and 5 have started a journey to explore our families’ history and stories in our Cultural Inquiry Project. 

Some of our main goals for this project are:

• To celebrate our cultures, heritage, and families
• To appreciate the diversity in our class and learn about our classmate’s families
• To embrace different perspectives

Below is an outline for our project:

Cultural Inquiry Project

Students will be bringing their questions sheets home after each lesson, where they brainstormed 4 questions they would like to start asking. This is a starting point, so please feel encouraged to go beyond these questions! 

At University Highlands, we are so fortunate to have a beautiful school community garden. On Monday, Sept. 16th, Div. 4 had our first gardening session with Pablo and the Roots2Grow Program. We explored how garden produce (fruits, veggies and herbs) can be preserved. In particular we focused on dehydration methods.  We also harvested vegetables, tilled garden beds, planted cool season crops, and even created our own salads out of the beautiful vegetables we harvested. On Tuesday, we shared a giant zucchini we found in our garden with the school! We are looking forward to our next garden day in October! 

Congratulations for being designated BC’s first “Fair Trade School”, University Highlands! A small group of students accepted the award on behalf our green team and school at the Street Fest opening ceremonies. Then fair trade committee members spent part of their afternoon volunteering at a Fair Trade booth in collaboration with SFU Fair Trade ambassador, Elysha Fong. 

Read more here: https://burnabyschools.ca/blog/2019/09/07/university-highlands-first-bc-school-to-earn-fair-trade-designation/

We are excited for our first day of gardening this year with Pablo and Roots2Grow! Please remember to wear clothing and footwear appropriate for the weather! 

I would like to take this opportunity to welcome you to the Division 4 community! We have a very exciting year ahead of us. Our goals for this year are community, collaboration, and creativity. The learning in our class will take place across curricular areas, and is based on inquiry, experience, and exploration. We will be taking our learning outside and on field experiences 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.

There will be many opportunities for you to be involved in your child’s learning and in our classroom community, by accompanying us on field experiences, spending time in the classroom and garden, and joining us in celebrating our accomplishments. Please let me know if you would like to share your time or your expertise with our class!

I am looking forward to getting to know your child and your family as we spend this year together. Please feel free to come say hello before or after school. For a longer conversation, please email or call me to arrange a time. I can be reached by phone at 604-296-9036 or by email at Kristina.Carley@burnabyschools.ca. We will be having Parents As Partners Conference meetings on Sept. 25th and Sept. 26th, and I look forward to seeing you then, if not sooner!

All the best,

Ms. Carley