Dear Division 6 family,

We had another great week! I love how quite a few wanted to celebrate how hard they worked this past week and recognized how hard everyone else worked too. As one student reflected and celebrated out today, “I’m celebrating a good month of learning and how hard we worked since we came back after the break.” (Paraphrased and I completely agree!). Your children are truly blessed to be with such a great cohort of kids and we are truly blessed to be their teachers!

We hope you enjoyed your extra day with your kids on Monday. I loved our Pro-D day as we invited a couple people from our Staff Development Team in Learning Support Services to refresh us on inclusion and the steps to planning for differentiation. We all have students in our classrooms with varying levels of skills and abilities so this was a valuable way to spend our day so we can better meet the needs of all learners.

Literacy Week
At the end of the week, we always share our celebrations. It was great to hear how many people appreciated having extra time to read this week! Today, they paired up to read to each other like they might have done in primary grades. I loved seeing their smiles as they read together and to each other! It reminded me of how important it is to continue to offer this as another way to enjoy books together even though they are intermediates!

On Tuesday, we had a guest reader, Mrs. Ballarin, read Mr. Peabody’s Apples (click link to listen to story). (Thank you so much for your time to read to us!) It is such a heartwarming story written by Madonna. Here’s a summary on Amazon: Tommy Tittlebottom sees Mr. Peabody taking an apple from Mr. Funkadeli’s fruit market and is very surprised that he doesn’t pay. Then Tommy sees it happen again and decides that Mr. Peabody is a thief. Word spreads quickly around the town. When Mr. Peabody arrives at the baseball ground, ready for the usual Saturday game, only Billy Little turns up and he soon explains what has happened. It is then up to Mr. Peabody to teach Tommy about the importance of truth and the power of words. 

On Wednesday, we read We are All Dots, which is a story about compassion. Here’s the summary on Amazon: With gentle wisdom and visual originality, this deceptively simple book makes the case that compassion is the solution to humanity’s challenges. The perfect book for any child curious about differences and diversity, this visually driven story bears a decidedly modern and inspiring message about compassion, cooperation, and a sense of shared humanity—all qualities that appear increasingly rare in recent months. With simple black-and-white drawings—little more than black and white dots and the images (of a hamburger, of a skyscraper, of a Ferris wheel, etc.) they make when arranged just so—this fantastic tale of neighbors tells a story of a world, much like our own, of haves and have-nots.

Beginning with a set of prosperous dots on one page and another set of impoverished dots on the other, the book takes us through their struggle to bridge their differences. Just when it looks look like the dots will be forever doomed, they work together to find a solution that will help them all. Great things happen when we learn to share and work together.

With such great stories, it provides you an opportunity to follow up at home on the lessons learned in these books. Watch the stories together. Talk about their thoughts and feelings. How would they feel if they were Mr. Peabody? How would they feel if they were Tommy? What do they learn from the author’s messages?

On Thursday, many students dressed up as a character! Just a friendly reminder that the Family Literacy Bingo “cards” are due on Monday, February 1st. Kids enjoyed the daily trivia! Congratulations to Princeton who won a prize!

Digital Portfolios
We have been working hard on getting our digital portfolios ready for you to comment on. Here are some tips on commenting and supporting your child’s learning process:

• Notice their thoughts, capacities, and growth.
• Connect with your child’s opinions, stories, or ideas.
• Share your intellectual curiosity; wonder aloud.
• Encourage
• Co-conspire… “You are interested in spiders? Me too, here’s an interesting website I’m reading about spiders.”
• I noticed you…
• The part I found most interesting…
• A few things you did really well here are…
• One thing I’m seeing about your work is…
• Have you considered…

If your child has chosen to use FreshGrade Connect, you will have your own login.

Here are the reflection questions that your child should have in each portfolio entry:

• Explain what the activity was or what you did.
• What are you most proud of? What were your strengths? They were asked to write an “I can…” statement.
• What did you find challenging or outside of your comfort zone?
• Next steps: What would you do differently if you were to do something similar next time? What did you learn about yourself?

If you find that your child’s reflection does not have these elements, please encourage them to go into their stretch zone and add in their reflections based on the questions above. Thank you for your encouragement and support!

Typing, Tynker, and Khan Academy
Just a reminder that we have All the Right Type (paid by the District) for students to learn how to type. Over the winter break, Hailey FINISHED the program! We are so very proud of her! The younger they can learn how to do touch typing like in grade five, the more efficient they will become as they move into upper intermediate grades as they prepare for high school. This may be a good year to learn how to be proficient before they have more and more homework next year and in grade 7!

Tynker is a website where they learn to code. Last weekend, I updated their OneNote profiles and added their username and password for Tynker.  In OneNote, go to their name > Handouts > Accounts to find their login information.

Students can always practice their math skills at Khan Academy! Login information can be found in OneNote.

Coming Up!
This coming week, we will be finishing our One Word canvases! Students will record a short speech explaining their One Word, why they chose it, and how they plan to live by it. Please have your child think about what they will say. They will be given class time too but having a conversation at home may really help some of them prepare!

Dates to note

• Tuesday, February 2 at 7:00pm – Gilmore Community Council meeting
• Friday, February 5 – Wacky Hair or Hat day!
• Gilmore swag! Go to School Cash online to buy a shirt for Pink Shirt day on Wednesday, February 24. The water bottles are stainless steel and only $10. There were quite a few kids who seemed to express interest! They are sold at or below cost. Masks are available for purchase too!

Thank you for your continued support! We appreciate you for all that you do to support us and your child at home. We would love to know, what are some of your favourite literacy activities you did at home for the Bingo card? Please leave a comment! Thank you!

With such gratefulness, Ms. Chan and Mrs. Paulich