Dear families,

The week flew by! They say, “time flies when you’re having fun!” and fun we definitely had! There seems to be a time thief in our classroom. I love how they are often surprised that it’s already lunch or it’s already home time. We are SO grateful to have met almost all of you during our Parents as Partners conferences! Thank you SO much for filling out the questionnaire and for sharing your expertise about your child so we can better support them and their learning. We were happy to hear that they are enjoying coming to school!

Social Emotional Learning

Last week, we learned more about what it means to have a growth mindset. We continued to work on our comfort zone circles too. Hoping that once they are all done, this will be their first post in Spaces (our ePortfolios)!

We continued to learn each other’s names and listen well during our daily Community Circle time.

We are communicators.

We thoroughly enjoyed getting to know each other better by listening to classmates share what was in the All About Me bags! There are a few more to go this week. If your child presented, they should have come home with some feedback. Please review. Offer encouragement and help your child come up with a goal for next time! Thank you for supporting your child at home by helping them prepare for their presentation. Next week, we will be learning about our names and the importance of names. Stay tuned for more details! They will have another opportunity to present in the first week of October!

We are mathematicians.

This past week, we started Math on Wednesday! Then on Friday, we had our first Math Extravaganza in the school’s activity room! Our class along with Mrs. Pears’s class had SO much fun learning together! Ask your child to share all about it! Here are the concepts we covered:

• Digits and numbers are the same and different! Ask your child what’s the difference and what’s the same. This would be great review!
• Numbers have a value and worth.
• Game: We compared 2 digit numbers with a partner by using playing cards. (It’s like playing what most people are familiar calling “war” but we don’t call it that.) This is a GREAT way to reinforce learning at home! Here’s how:
  • NEED: Deck of cards. Remove J and K. A = 1, Q = 0
  • Divide deck evenly in two. One pile for you and the other pile for your child.
  • Both partners flip two cards from their deck to create a 2-digit number. The first card flipped must be in the Ones place. The second card flipped goes in the Tens place.
  • Compare the numbers. The one with the larger number keeps those cards. Keep playing until one person ends up with all of the cards. If there is a tie (same number for both), then place down 3 cards and then flip over two cards each to compare. The one with the larger number keeps all of the cards last played!
  • You might find it helpful to create a game board so it’s easier to compare numbers. One player always places their cards on the top row while the other always places their cards on the bottom row. Help them see that what is in the Tens Place is what we compare FIRST before the Ones Place. It’s great to have your child practice reading the numbers too.
  • 
• We ended our time together using a fantastic iPad app called Find Sums. You can download for free. Tap on the little blue “i” in a circle on the top right-hand corner. Choose 10. This only shows sums to 10. Students tap on the two numbers that equal 10. A few games a week will go a long way in helping your child develop ATOMATICITY with their math facts. We will be doing more learning around this so they will further develop knowledge and understanding of math facts and not simply just memorize the facts.

To learn more math games to play at home, check out our Mathematicians Play page. I will be showcasing these games as we move along in our curriculum.

We are scientists.

We started our learning about matter and how everything is made of matter. To solidify this concept, each child wrote “matter” on a sticky note and were challenged to go around the school to use their label to tap different things they saw that is considered matter. Yes, that is just about everything! You can imagine how excited (maybe a little too excited!) they were to do that! They were tapping all sorts of things including teachers! At the end when they returned to class, they thought it was hilarious to put all of their sticky notes on my pants. Too funny! We are creating our booklet on Matter. I love to have students create their understanding of concepts. This is at the top of Bloom’s Taxonomy! Click here to learn more.  

Getting to Know Me

I realize that you are still getting to know us as your child’s teacher this year too. If you are interested to learn more about what I believe in, please feel free to listen to a recent podcast episode I was on with Tom Schimmer. I feel that what I shared really encapsulates what I believe in about the importance of building strong relationships with not just students but everyone! Our interview starts at about 11:10 into the podcast.

• Apple https://apple.co/3xy52dE
• Spotify https://tinyurl.com/cef4rv84
• YouTube https://tinyurl.com/76bt3z5k

We are off to a fantastic start to our year together! Thank you SO much for your support this year! Sincerely, Ms. Chan (and Mrs. Paulich)

Reminders

• September 26 is the LAST day to order Hot Lunch for Term 1 (via School Cash Online). No orders will be accepted after this date.
• Monday, Sept 26 – Pro-D day – School not in session
• Thursday, Sept 29 – Orange Shirt Day – Wear orange
• Thursday, Sept 29 – Coffee & Conversation – All parents are welcome to go to the Community Room from 9-10am.
• Friday, Sept 30 – National Day for Truth and Reconciliation – School closed