Week 22: Pink Shirt Day and Working together as a Team
Dear Division 11 Families,
We hope you enjoyed the beautiful weather this weekend!
Here’s a look at the fun learning happening in our class:
Team-Building Activities
Mr. Evoy planned engaging collaborative activities to help our students develop their group work skills, such as taking turns, making decisions as a team, and resolving conflicts when disagreements arise.
One of the activities was building a marshmallow tower. Many groups asked for a piece of paper to sketch their ideas before starting. They persevered through challenges and demonstrated great sportsmanship—even when their towers fell over!
Another challenge was the human knot. We started with groups of 3–4 students and gradually increased to around 10 students per group. They learned the importance of communication and how calmly taking turns to share and listen to each other’s thoughts helped them succeed.
Pink Shirt Day
For Pink Shirt Day on Wednesday, our students brainstormed ways to show kindness. Each student decorated a puzzle piece with words or drawings that reminded them of kindness. We are putting the pieces together to create a large pink shirt in our classroom as a daily reminder to spread kindness. A photo of the completed shirt is coming soon!
We also met with our kindergarten buddies and helped them deliver ‘You’re Amazing’ keychains to every staff member in the school. Our students loved guiding their little buddies around our school.
Math
In math, we continued working on the decomposing strategy, focusing on subtraction when the minuend (the larger number) has a 0 in the ones or tens place. We also introduced the compensation strategy this week. To learn more about this strategy, please refer to the following website: Compensation Strategy.
Social Studies
In social studies, our students explored architectural innovations and inventions. As a class, we examined the Haudenosaunee longhouse, identifying its purpose and key characteristics. Students then split into expert groups to study one of the following innovations: Inuit igloos, Egyptian pyramids, and Roman aqueducts. Afterward, they shared their knowledge with classmates from other groups to deepen their understanding.
Language Arts
Our students learned about contractions by becoming contraction surgeons. They started with two words like ‘can not’ and ‘you are,’ writing them on a prescription pad. Then, they performed ‘surgery’ by carefully cutting between the words and adding an apostrophe bandaid to connect them into contractions like ‘can’t’ and ‘you’re.’
Primary Days of Music
Our students did a fantastic job at rehearsal on Thursday—they are looking and sounding great! We will be traveling to Marlborough Elementary for Primary Days of Music on March 13th. We will be departing at 12:25 by bus and will be returning to school at around 2:30.
Please join us for family reading tomorrow and reminder that we have Vancouver Warriors joining us tomorrow for gym.
Thank you for your continued support!
Warm regards,
Cailyn