We were so excited to have our first two presenters sharing about their families and cultures today: Zoya shared about why her Shalwar Qameez is so important to her family and culture; and Bunny shared about how he has a special tradition of making dumplings with his family. Thank you for being such brave presenters! Div. 13 did a great job as an audience as well, and shared lovely appreciations, connections, comments, and wonders!

We are learning about families, communities, cultures, and traditions in Social Studies. For Show and Tell, we are sharing something special from our family, culture, or community.

Your children have their presentation date, rubric, and project description in their planners – please take a look and support them in preparing for this special show and tell 🙂

We had a visit from the Burnaby Mountain Secondary school band! They shared about the different programs that student can join, and taught us the names of their instruments! They played us two wonderful songs that we loved dancing to. We were so inspired to follow our musical passion!

On Friday, Caitlin came to our school to unveil the beautiful weaving she created with us! Now is hanging at the front of our school to welcome everyone.

We have been doing so much place value math! Here, we were created a picture and then calculating its value! We have been learning about ones, tens, hundreds, and how they compose larger numbers! We have been ordering and comparing too. Math is being sent home a few times a week so you can see what we are working on! And don’t forget to check the math tab to find out more about some of the math, language arts, and other curriculum connections we have this term!

We had the opportunity to learn from Indigenous Knowledge keepers who shared about the “Greeting of the Day”. We learned so many things about the story of the song and the instruments they played. We look forward to the next session!

Our buddy bulletin board is up and ready to admire! It highlights all the learning we did about each other, and the creative projects we collaborated on so far!

Our School mural is also up on the walls, welcoming everyone as they walk up the stairs!

Reminders:

• Your children’s show and tell date is soon! Please help them prepare 🙂
• Please feel welcome to order scholastics for your holiday presents, with the code:
  

  RC161145

• Spelling and Poem of the Week are two programs that will be coming home regularly

We hope you had a restful and reflective Remembrance Day! Div. 13 created a beautiful wreath for our assembly.

We have been studying nocturnal animals this past month. Learning about adaptations, habitat, and then about specific animals. First, we learned about Racoons together and now we are learning about bats! After watching some videos and doing some group reading, we are working in small groups to research and wonder about specific types of bats! Tell you family which ones you chose! We started doing research on the ipad. Feel free to look up more facts and videos at home with your parents! Thursday, Nov. 13 is our bat workshop from Douglas College!

In math, we have started a new unit! We have been learning about place value. Last week we took our thinking out to the forest. First making groups of 10, then 100, and then working toward 1000! Students chose different materials to count – some chose sticks, needles, leaves, cones! Then they realized they could work together to add up their numbers faster. At first counting by ones but then adding groups of tens to increase! We have been working on representing, recognizing numbers, as well as comparing and ordering them!

We have started a spelling program. On Tuesdays, we will get new spelling words (with a sheet to practice) and activities to practice understanding their patterns, spelling patterns, etc. On Thursday, we will practice a dictation to listen and spell, and we will bring home our spelling sheets to practice. On Monday, we will have a spelling test.

Come by and visit our beautiful art. Our Diyas for Diwali are in the classroom and our Calaveras for Day of the Dead are in the hallway.

Div. 13 sounds so beautiful as they play “Doggie, Doggie, where is your bone?”in music class!

Reminders:

• Tomorrow is our Douglas College Bat Workshop – it takes place in our classroom!
• You can participate in Spelling activities at home
• You can practice you Poem of the Week (please bring your duotang home each Monday or Tuesday to bring home our new poem)

Last week was full of exploring nature and fall celebrations!

We read My Dog is as Smelly as Dirty Socks and created self-portraits inspired by the beautiful natural treasures around us. We explored how each treasure can be used as a simile to describe parts of us. Here are a few examples.

“I used rocks for my arms to show that I am strong.”

“I used helicopters to show that I am growing.”

“I am as clever as a clover.”

“I used helicopter seeds as my legs to show that I am fast.”

“I used maple leaves for my hair to show that I am colourful.”

Do you recognize your child’s portrait? We will write the poems that go with this beautiful art soon!

Tuesday was our first garden day of the year! We learn so much in the garden! Even though it was a rainy day, there were so many things to find and observe.

We learned about the amazing things growing in the garden. Brocolli had the hand-like leaves, cabbage had round leaves, and kale was frilly! We transplanted leek plants to protect them!

We loved the smell of sage, lavendar! We thought the chives were delicious! We were surprised by what the brussel sprout plant looked like!

We split and put strawberries into new pots with soil and prepared to transplant them to different places!

Here we are planting our leeks!

On our scavenger hunt, we found many living things! We looked closely with magnifiers!

Here are some of the garden reflections Div. 13 wanted to share on the blog!

We learned about the celebration Day of the Dead, which is celebrated in Mexico on November 1st and 2nd. We read stories and created art inspired by candy skulls.

We had so much fun with our buddies! We made haunted houses with so many intricate pieces and designs!

We had a costume parade and walked and watched with our big buddies!

The UHE Green Team introduced a new challenge to learn and practice our recycling system! We are excited to do our best to help the environment!

Wishing everyone a wonderful weekend!

Here are a few snap shots of our learning recently!

We loved extending our Science unit of Forces and Motion (Physics) to our SFU Field trip! We learned about Newton’s Three Laws of Physics and did experiments to strengthen our understanding! Newton’s three laws of motion for kids explain how things move:

• First Law: An object in motion stays in motion, and an object at rest stays at rest, unless a force acts on it
• Second Law: Heavier objects require more force to move, and a greater force creates more acceleration
• Third Law: For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction, like when a rocket pushes gas down and the gas pushes the rocket up

Tell your family about what we did to explore these concepts! What did you notice?

Here is the first experiment where we pulled paper from between the cards to see if we could stack them together! What did you notice about what made this harder or easier to do?

The second experiment we used cars, added various weights, pulled them with magnets to “drive” across varying materials with different levels of friction. What did you notice made the cars go farther or faster?

The third experiment we made rockets with special “rocket fuel”! What made your experiment successful or meant you needed to try again?

On the way back to school, we loved stopping at the fish pond! Div. 13 loves nature and being in the community!

In science (Biology), we read the story, Not a Daffodil and observed daffodil bulbs and learned about all their parts. Then we planted our daffodil bulbs and can’t wait to see them sprout in the spring! Can you show your family where you think you planted your daffodil? How deep did you need to dig and which direction did you need to place the bulb?

We have been learning all about apples and each other with our buddies! This week, we brought in apples to make and eat delicious apple sauce, and created art inspired by Andy Warhol! We can’t wait to show you our buddy bulletin board.

Wishing a Happy Diwali to everyone who celebrates! We have been learning all about the stories, traditions, and celebrations of Diwali, and connecting to our understanding of celebrations in our own lives. We drew diyas and look forward to sharing them with you. We love when Social Studies and Arts Education intersect.

In math, we have been working hard learning about repeating, increasing, and decreasing patterns! We learned about pattern cores and practiced recognizing and writing pattern rules. We have been exploring patterns in the world around us. We have been sending some of the students’ booklets home where they have been practicing these new skills on paper. Please take a look to see how your child is doing with learning, practicing, and building upon these skills! Some of us started extending our thinking into patterns in multiplication!

In Div. 13, we are learning about growth mindset and feelings with tools such as Everyday Speech and Mood Meter. Over the last month, we learned about how having a growth mindset can help in everything we do!

We have started brainstorming feelings and understanding which zone they might fit in for us.

We are continuing to focus on Self-Awareness, which is a measure of how accurately learners can recognize their feelings and thoughts and learn to understand how those influence their behaviour.

Some goals we have:

Recognize and label our feelings
Describe our emotions and the situations that cause them
Recognize intensity levels of our emotions
Recognize how emotions can change
Recognize how thoughts are linked with emotions and emotions are linked to behaviour

Many Div. 13 students are creating a spooky Halloween village with the boxes that our portfolios came in! They are so creative!

Here is a sneak peak of our collaborative art mural that Ms. Carley, Ms. Dixon, Ms. Yee, and Ms. Tsang have been working on putting together for the main stairwell! Every student and staff in the school created a fish and we will all be swimming together!

We look forward to so many more wonderful learning adventures!

A few reminders:

• Oct. 29 – Photo Retakes
• OCt. 29 – Family Movie Night
• Oct. 31 – Halloween – you can wear your costumes!
• Nov. 2 – Day of the Dead

It was such a pleasure meeting with so many families this week at Parents as Partners meetings this past week! Thank you so much for sharing your time and connecting about goal setting for your wonderful children! I am so grateful to be part of your child’s learning journey and lives.

This week, we went on a gratitude walk, noticing and thanking the flora, fauna, and biota. We were inspired by the Thanksgiving Address by Chief Jake Swamp in Giving Thanks. 

The next day, we wrote and drew about what we were thankful for in more detail. I hope you had a wonderful weekend sharing gratitude with your families.

In science, we continued our study of force and motion by exploring non-contact forces, gravity, magnetism, and electrostatic force. We used various items to drop and compare, balloons, and many different magnets! Tell your families what you noticed! Were you able to find any more examples this week?

We met our big buddies on Wednesday! We learned about apples and then created some sharing about our favourites! We can’t wait to get to know them better as the year goes on!

We created new stories this week in story workshop and started our drawings and drafts! We even used our spelling dictionaries to collect and look up words.

Our All About Us art is finished! We love seeing it up on the walls and sharing it with our families at Parents as Partners!

We also put up our beautiful Best Part of Me writing. From brainstorm planning, to drafts, to writing conferences, and good copies, Div. 13 worked hard to express their unique selves.

Please feel welcome to visit our classroom to see our space and our art if you haven’t had a chance already! We look forward to putting up  our new art soon!

Wishing you all a wonderful next week!

Reminders:

• Forces and Motion Field trip to SFU on Wed. Oct. 15th
• Please complete the Getting to Know your Child survey if you haven’t already!

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