Dear families,

It’s hard to believe it was Hallowe’en just under a week ago! The day started with a whole school parade, time in our Author’s circle to listen to each other’s Hallowe’en stories to enjoy, receive compliments, and suggestions on how to make our stories better. Many children stepped into their stretch zones to courageously read their stories to the class.

On Tuesday, we enjoyed our first field trip to Kensington Complex for an afternoon of ice skating! I felt very proud of everyone for being so responsible and kind to each other. I saw students helping, supporting, and encouraging each other. So heartwarming! Our beginning skaters were ALL moving around on the ice with more confidence than when they first stepped on!

Our sincerest gratitude for all of the parents who volunteered their time to drive us to the rink and help on and off the ice. We couldn’t have gone on this trip without you!

Thank you to Mr. Kwan, Mrs. Patel, Mrs. Karamessinis, Mrs. Proseilo, Mrs. Guan, Mrs. Lyseight, Mr. Wong, Mrs. Mohr, and Mr. Soo! We appreciate you!

Families will be receiving a refund since we are only going skating once. Sorry for the inconvenience.

We are scientists.

We are moving forward with our next topic of the water cycle. Students were taught with physical movements to help us remember our vocabulary better. Please ask your child to show you. Better yet, practice the movements with them!

Vocabulary: evaporation, condensation, collection (or accumulation), precipitation, transpiration

To learn more about the learning standards should you wish to enhance our learning at home, go to our We are Scientists page.

How to support at home:

• Curricular competency: Demonstrate curiosity and a sense of wonder about the world. Model curiosity. Frequently ask questions out loud so your child learns how to be curious. Ask your child what they are curious about in terms of the water cycle, clouds, and water in general. Come up with questions together and then research the answers.

Each week, we have been enjoying watching Mystery Doug videos. This past week, we learned about the biggest sharks. Then at the end, children from around the world get to vote on topics that most interest them for Doug to answer in the following week’s video! So far, he’s picked the same ones we voted on! This makes it extra exciting!

We are readers.

Last week, we started our reading groups. During this time, we gather in small groups to read books at our level that challenge us to become better readers. We learn skills and strategies for figuring out how to read more difficult words and also how to become more fluent and expressive.

How to support at home:

• Strongly encourage your child to read every day. Model the joy of reading. Talk about the books and articles you read. Read together and then discuss what you just read. Children this age are learning to make connections with what they read. Ask questions like
  • What was your favourite part? What surprised you in the story? If you could change any part of the story, which part and how would you change it? What do you think was the author’s message? What part of the story reminded you of a past experience, something that happened in another book or movie, or something that happened in the world?
  • Talk about the various characters in the story. Which character traits are similar to theirs? Which character would they wish to be if they were in the story? Why?

I Read Canadian. 

This past Wednesday was I read Canadian day. It is a national day to celebrate Canadian books for young people.

I chose to read a story that my past student, Kiana Sosa, wrote when she was in my class. Her story was entered into the Burnaby District’s writing contest and was chosen. Then as part of her Passion Project, she and her mom decided to publish her story on Amazon. She was 10 years old when she published her first book, Ellie and Lou – The Meaning of Friendship and inspired many others by her story! She is now working on her third book!

If you’d like to read an article to learn a little more about this and passion projects, click here. I am excited that we will be working on passion projects later this school year!

We are mathematicians.

The grade 2’s have been learning about shapes with Mrs. Paulich on Tuesdays and Thursdays. On the other days, we started learning about place value (tens and ones), comparing numbers,  and finding the largest and smallest number.

The Grade 3’s also have continued to work on place value with Mrs. Pears. Click here to go to our We are Mathematicians page for more information.

Reminders

It looks like cold weather this week. Please have your child dress in layers with enough warm clothing. They will be going outside for recess and lunch. If you have not sent a Ziplock bag with extra clothing to leave at school yet, please feel free to do so at your earliest convenience. Thank you.

This Thursday, we will have our Remembrance Day assembly.

My heartfelt gratitude for your support at home. Please feel free to leave a comment on this blog post or send a reply to the email notification. I’d love to hear about how your child is finding the learning in our class. These blog posts are meant to be conversation starters and connection builders between teachers and parents too. Please feel free to share how your child really enjoyed a particular activity or something they did at school.

Also, if you have an area of expertise that you would love to share with us, please let me know and we’ll make plans to make a class visit happen! Thank you!

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