Dear Division 11 Families,

Thank you so much for joining us on Wednesday, even on such short notice. From identifying problems and needs, planning and sketching, to creating their cardboard prototypes, our students worked incredibly hard. It was wonderful to see how proud they were to showcase their work, and we truly appreciate your presence and support. We also had two other classes visit, and it was heartwarming to see how engaged the audience was with our inventions.

In this project, we developed so many of our core competencies of critical thinking, reflective thinking, creativity, communication, and more! Well done, Division 11!

We Are Mathematicians

In math, we have been learning about 3D objects and their properties. Through hands-on activities, such as building with toothpicks and plasticine and using magnetic rods, students explored how to count faces, edges, and vertices. As we worked through these concepts, we discovered patterns. For example, with prisms, we learned that the number of edges can be found by multiplying the number of sides on the base by 3. A triangular prism has a base with 3 sides, so it has 9 edges (3 x 3). A hexagonal prism has 18 edges (3 x 6). In a short time, our students have done an amazing job learning the names and properties of various 3D objects! 

We Are Artists 

Tying into our lessons on geometry, students explored how to use shading techniques to make their drawings look three-dimensional and realistic. They each drew a cone, cube, cylinder, and sphere, then arranged them into a creative “impossible stack.” Shading was a new skill for many, but students rose to the challenge and were excited to see their drawings come to life! 

Important Updates 

Market Day – Monday:
Students from Divisions 1, 2, and 3 are excited to share their amazing handmade products, from jewelry to stuffed toys made from scratch. Prices vary, with most items around $5 and a maximum of $10. Please send your child with an appropriate amount of money they can manage independently. 

Construction Update:
Fences will be going up around the school, restricting access to the back door from the annex/big gym side of the school. Please help your child line up at our usual morning spot by walking around the school close to Kitchener Street. 

Body Science presentations on Tues, June 17:
Students in our class will have their presentation on Tuesday afternoon. The parent information session will be on Monday, June 16 at 6:30pm on Zoom. Please see the email from the office for the zoom link. 

Book Swap on Wed, June 18:
Students who brought in at least one book will go to choose new to them books on this day! Might not be too late to bring in books on Monday! In my previous schools when we did this, almost every child brought in a book to swap. They absolutely love this event and went home super excited to share their books with their families! 

Field Trip to McGill Library and Confederation park on Thur, June 19:
We are excited to join Ms. Forbes and Ms. Rinaldo’s classes this Thursday! Please review the notice by clicking here. Children are usually extra hungry during active field trips so please bring extra snacks. It might be easier for them to wear their bathing suits under their clothes too. 

Thank you, families, for your continued support at home. We hope you have a wonderful weekend. And to our amazing dads, happy Father’s Day on Sunday! 

Warm regards, 

Cailyn and Livia 

Dear families,

Wow, it’s hard to believe we are in our last month together starting on Monday!

ADST – We are creators.

Last week, our students spent time in the making stage, using recycled materials to bring their ideas to life. They focused on selecting appropriate tools and materials, and used trial and error to make adjustments and solve problems along the way. On Friday, they created patents for their inventions, and we’re excited to share these creations in the coming week. Please check your child’s planner for details about when families will be invited to our classroom to see the inventions.

Last week, students were given time to work continue finding facts for the Passion Projects. They are becoming more confident with finding facts, adding websites to their Resources slide, and paraphrasing facts too.

We are mathematicians.

We completed our unit on division last week. Here are the concepts we learned:

• understanding concepts of division (e.g., sharing, grouping, repeated subtraction)
• multiplication and division are related

Students took turns reviewing how multiplication and division were related by visiting different “questions”. Check out our learning:

Your child brought their division booklets home. Please ask them to teach you how to divide by sharing, grouping, and repeated subtraction as well explain how multiplication and division are related. They were given an opportunity to practice teaching someone else these concepts so they can confidently explain it to you at home.

We started our unit on Geometry on Friday!

Save the Dates

• Mon. June 2 – All library books are due
• Fri. June 6 – Pro-D day; school not in session
• Mon. June 9 to 13 – Bring in books to swap next week
• Wed. June 18 – Book swap day
• Thur. June 19 at 9:15am (all day) – Burnaby Public Library visit & Confederation Park travelling by public transit. Click here to view field trip form.
• Wed. June 25 –Last full day of school
• Thur. June 26 – Early dismissal at 10am

Dear families,

It’s hard to believe we are in our last week of May!

We are mathematicians.

Students are progressing well with our division concepts! We continued to deepen their understanding of division by sharing and division by grouping through creating their own word problems. Ms. Kim had them create their own word problems including the solution. They really enjoyed using their creativity in math!

On Thursday and Friday, we learned how to divide by repeated subtraction. They learned that this is the opposite of repeated addition for multiplication. Here, they subtract the divisor until they can’t anymore. Then they count the number of times they subtracted for the quotient. Many found this strategy of dividing straightforward to understand so they quickly showed proficiency. Click here to watch a short video for review.

Ways to support at home: Reinforcing concepts learned at school is a great way to solidify learning especially if you ask your child to teach you. The process of teaching involves higher level thinking (analysis and synthesis) than to just do questions you give them as practice. This further develops  their brain through active retrieval which strengthens neural pathways, improves communication skills, opportunities to monitor their own understanding, and increased confidence.

We are creative.

We read a story called A Squiggly Story by Andrew Larson. After the story, students were given the choice to write their own or to continue the story from the end of this story where the boy leaves on a rocket ship with an alien.

We practiced being creative by using squiggles to help us be more creative. Ms. Chan modelled some creative thinking strategies by creating her own story on the board. One tip: use the phrase “All of a sudden” or “suddenly”. This creates an unexpected turn in the story and increases your audience’s attention.

Another goal of this writing exercise was to develop our writing fluency. This is how quickly we can get our thoughts onto a page. They were challenged to write as quickly as they can. After a solid 20 minutes, we counted up our words. We saw so many really push themselves!

Unleashing Imagination: Why “What If…” Poems Matter!

Our classroom buzzed with imagination this week as students dove into writing their own “What If…” poems. It was more than just a writing exercise; it was a deliberate push to spark their incredible creativity.

You might think creativity is something you’re born with, but the truth is, creativity can absolutely be taught and developed! It’s one of our core competencies too! I was an Odyssey of the Mind coach for five years and saw our team grow immensely in their creative thinking and problem solving skills.

Creative thinking is a fundamental way of thinking and approaching challenges that empowers children to come up with diverse solutions and consider different perspectives. When we encourage this kind of imaginative thinking, we’re not just fostering artistic expression; we’re building essential skills that will serve them well in all aspects of life to think flexibly and inventively.

Ways to support at home: Have fun co-creating your own “What If…” poems! See how creative you can be with your child! Here’s a challenge: Write one with your child or as a family. Have your child bring your family poem to school to share next week! We would love to see your creativity run wild!

Learning about perspectives

We had a discussion about the picture on the left, exploring how both interpretations can be correct—even if they’re different. It’s all about point of view and understanding another person’s perspective.

We then read They All Saw a Cat by Brendan Wenzel, a book that beautifully illustrates how various animals perceive the same cat in very different ways. For example, the way a fox sees the cat is completely different from how a mouse sees it.

Inspired by the book, we created our own “cat perspective” art. Students illustrated the cat from two different viewpoints, thinking carefully about how perception can change based on who is looking.

Our students have been working very hard, and they’re excited to share their artwork with everyone soon!

We are athletes.

Tennis lessons continued last week. This week will be their final sessions.

Passion Projects

Students are moving along with their Passion Projects. We reviewed the single-point rubric that we will use to assess. Click on the image or click here to view the PDF.

They are learning to analyze and synthesize the information they find on websites and decide how to present these facts on their slides.

They are becoming more proficient with inserting images and text boxes.

We love how excited they get when we pull out the laptops! We enjoy seeing how hard they work on learning and developing their ideas in a digital form. Here are some of this important skills they are developing:

• reading, researching, and information gathering to develop curiosity and independently seeking knowledge (Core competency: Thinking skills)
• organization and planning – students must decide on the information they want to share (synthesize), what information goes together, and how to organize the information like one idea per slide for clarity
• communication skills – writing skills to paraphrase in their own words, making it easy to understand, and being concise by using bullet points
• digital literacy and technology skills – navigating between website and PowerPoint project, inserting text, adding images, and resizing fonts, for example.

Save the Dates

• Thur. May 29 at 1:30pm – Volunteer Tea in the gym
• Fri. May 30 at 2:00pm – Early dismissal
• Fri. May 30 at 2:00pm – $2 Ice cream sandwich and $1 freezie sale. Click here to learn more. Cash only in the undercover area where we usually line up.
• Mon. June 2 – All library books are due
• Fri. June 6 – Pro-D day; school not in session
• Wed. June 18 – Book swap
• Thur. June 19 at 9:15am (all day) – Burnaby Public Library visit & Confederation Park travelling by public transit.
• Wed. June 25 –Last full day of school
• Thur. June 26 – Early dismissal at 10am

Our hearts are full of appreciation for your continued support.

Gratefully, Ms. Kim and Ms. Chan

Dear families,

It was another week full of fun, joy, and meaningful learning!

We are writers.

This week, we worked very hard on opinion writing and worked with Ms. Wong-Reinhardt too.

We are passionate about learning!

To practice our non-fiction reading and writing, Passion Projects is a perfect exercise! We learned about the importance of using reputable resources. Ms. Chan taught them about the tree octopus. They all believed it was true because it looked like an informative website with detailed information, images, and various pages. Feel free to check it out: https://zapatopi.net/treeoctopus/

We discussed the types of websites we would consider as reputable. For example, we would not use information from Wikipedia but we would use information from a site like National Geographic for Kids because it is a longstanding company with a good reputation for doing valid research and sharing it with the world.

In addition, we practiced so many critical thinking skills! (It’s one of our favourite core competencies we love having your child develop! We learned about plagiarism and how we cannot just copy and paste text into our PowerPoint presentations. Here are some of the higher level thinking skills we started using:

• evaluate which websites to use
• understand what we are researching and reading
• analyze to determine what information we want to include based on our inquiry questions
• decide which slide the information should be recorded
• change the words yet keep the facts and meaning (paraphrasing)

Students were instructed to add a Resources slide to record the websites they used to find their facts. They learned how to copy the web address and paste it into their last slide. (Triple click on the URL. Use shortcuts: Crtl+c to copy and then Crtl+v to paste.)

Working on our Passion Project helps us develop our core competencies of communication, reflective and creative thinking too!

Ways to support at home: It is like music to our ears to hear that many students are working on their Passion Projects at home!  It is important that they are the ones doing the learning and work. It is okay that you teach them PowerPoint skills, how to paraphrase, and help them read the information. Be the guide on the side and please refrain from doing anything FOR them. The more they do, the more they learn. It is still relatively early in teaching them all the skills they need to produce a good presentation. We are scaffolding their learning so the best way to help is to teach them the skills on a different topic, for example, so they are given the opportunity to practice critical thinking to APPLY their new learning to their own Passion Project. We appreciate you for supporting their learning!

We are mathematicians.

We continued with learning division. This week, we built on our understanding in representing division in multiple ways: sharing, grouping, and real life word problems.

Students had fun creating their own word problems. In order to do so, they needed to have a solid foundation of dividing by sharing and grouping. Here were some clear examples of proficiency that demonstrate their full understanding:

Ways to support at home: Have fun writing word problems together! Many found “division by sharing” word problems easier to create. However, there were only a few who truly understood how to write a real life word problem for “division by grouping” so if you can reinforce this at home, that would be greatly appreciated! If you need to review, look back at last week’s blog post or here is the link to the short video.

We are scientists.

Learning standard: observable changes in the local environment caused by erosion and deposition by wind, water, and ice

Students enjoyed the visible nature of discovering how erosion and deposition works. We blew the top of the sand hill and then slowly poured water on top of sand to demonstrate erosion and deposition. They watched the sand from the top of the hill be moved by wind and water to deposit the sand at the bottom of the hill.

Then we watched a short video to see cool examples around the world of how wind, water, and ice (through weathering) caused erosion and deposition (moved to a different location). Feel free to watch the video here to see examples. We learned from a song too! Watch it here.

Image by Laura Candler

We are athletes.

After two sessions of tennis with Marcus, they have demonstrated good perseverance, growth mindset, and skill development!

Sports Day

We enjoyed spending the morning together collaborating, cooperating, and competing in fun activities!

Save the Dates

• Thur. May 22 at 6:30pm – Kitchener Community Dinner; CLICK HERE to RSVP
• Fri. May 23 at 4:00pm – Karnival for Kids @ Burnaby North Secondary; CLICK HERE to learn more.
• Thur. May 29 at 1:30pm – Volunteer Tea; please RSVP asap
• Fri. May 30 at 2:00pm – Early dismissal
• Fri. June 6 – Pro-D day; school not in session
• Thur. June 19 at 9:15 (all day) – Burnaby Public Library visit & Confederation Park (Notice will be sent home next week. We will be travelling by public transit.)

Thank you so much for your continued support! We hope you are available to join us at the Community Dinner and Volunteer Tea! Everyone is welcome!

Gratefully, Ms. Kim and Ms. Chan