Dear Division 11 families,

Although it was a short school week, we still fit in a LOT of learning and we had a FANTASTIC week! One of the sweetest comments from one of your children this past week really touched my heart. She said, “We have the sweetest class.” Every time I think of her comment, my heart was tickled with warmth and love. This lovely thought has visited numerous times since she said it! We DO have the sweetest class! 🙂

Names are important.

Our names are a very important and significant part of who we are. They have power. They can have deep personal, cultural, and historical connections too. It is a part of our identity, may be a part of the communities we belong, and our place in the world. 

We learned that many Indigenous peoples are gifted a traditional name or names that carry deep cultural meaning. We listened to a story called Thunder Boy Jr. Feel free to listen to the story again at home by clicking the image below. Then we did some writing about our own names and will be doing more activities with our names. These activities are meant to help each child learn more about themselves, their family, and each other as we share.

Because names are a person’s greatest connection to their own identity and individuality, it might be the most important word to them. This is one way that children are seen as a part of our  classroom community. This is the reason why your child is greeted by name each and every morning when I pick them up outside. Then during Community Circle, they are greeted by the person to their right so before recess, they would have heard their sweet name at least twice already! 

Since we have been learning about the importance of names and how the Indigenous peoples really value names, we would love to learn more about each other by sharing about our names.

This notice will be going home next week but I’m sharing it here in case you would like to get a head start. Please support your child to prepare a speech. Ideally, they are the ones doing the writing. They will not be presenting until October 11th after Thanksgiving.

Here are some guiding questions that will help plan what your child chooses to share: 

• • What is your full name? 
  • What do each of your names mean? Feel free to use Google to find out meanings of names. 
  • Where did your names come from? (country) 
  • Do you have names in two different languages? If so, what are they? 
  • Who gave you your names? 
  • How did your parents choose your name?  
  • Why was your name chosen? 
  • Do you have a nickname? If so, what is it? How did you get it? 
  • Are you named after anyone in your family or someone else? If so, who? 
  • What else can you share about your name? An interesting, funny, or heartwarming story? 

 Some things that students are working towards improving based on our first All About Me in a Bag presentations: 

• • Look at the whole audience. 
  • Speak loudly enough for everyone to hear. 
  • Come prepared by rehearsing a few times until they are confident. 
  • Share at least 3 ideas with some details, reasons, and explanations. 

Each child may be working on a different presentation goal based on the feedback they received last time. If your child has not returned their first feedback form, please write an encouraging message and help your child record a goal for next time and then return the green sheet to school.

So looking forward to more presentations and seeing their growth!

Orange Shirt Day & Truth and Reconciliation

Orange Shirt Day is an important day of remembrance and reflection. To help honour this day, our class, along with Div. 12, joined Joyful Learning on Tuesday, September 27th for a special author visit with Nicola I. Campbell. She is the award-winning author of Shi-shi-etko, Shin-chi’s Canoe. Please listen to the stories again at home and feel free to have conversations about what they learned so far this year.

We are mathematicians.

We continued to learn more about repeating patterns using different materials, letters, and movements. Many were simple ABAB patterns. Then we got fancier with ABCDABCD and AABCAABC patterns.

We also learned how to identify and describe the core pattern for repeating patterns. Next, we moved to learn how to create increasing (or growing) patterns like AB ABB ABBB ABBBB.

We have been building a class book using Book Creator to take pictures of our patterns and review them. We are looking forward to sharing this book when we are finished!

We are scientists.

We learned more about the three states of matter and the properties of each one.

• Solids hold their shape. They have different shapes, sizes, colours, and textures: smooth, rough, slimy,
• Liquids do not hold their shape. Instead, they have the same volume but take the shape of its container. We experimented with this too!
• Gases expand indefinitely. We experimented with water and were shown how air is matter and takes up space. We proved this by blowing up a balloon and putting it in a container of water. Each student brought home a balloon to replicate the experiment at home. So many thoughtful children. They asked for a second balloon for their sibling!
• We learned how molecules move in solids, liquids, and gases by physically moving around in our activity room acting as molecules. They loved this experiential learning!

Gratitude

Thank you for helping your child bring their planners to school each day. We have encouraged your child to be the one to place their planner into backpacks the night before AND to check that Planners and lunches are in their backpacks in the morning before they arrive at school. This is a great way for them to learn and practice some independence!

We are grateful for your continued support at home. While they may not officially have “homework”, we highly encourage them to read for 15-20 minutes every night, talk about what they just read (such an important part of connecting with what they read), and to do some writing if time permits too! If they don’t know what to write about, they can always write about their day or a note to their teachers! We will always be happy to receive them! 🙂

With much gratitude, Ms. Chan (and Mrs. Paulich)

Reminders

• Mon. Oct. 3 – Individual Photo Day: Odd divisions starting with Div. 1
• Tues. Oct. 4 – Hot lunch: Quesada
• Tues. Oct. 4 – Community Council Meeting @ 6:30pm (Community Room) All welcome!
• Thur. Oct. 6 – Coffee & Conversations @ 9am (Community Room) All welcome!
• Thur. Oct. 7 – Terry Fox Run (PM): Wear Grizzly gear! Learn more here about making donations.