Category: ADST

Dear families,

I had the greatest pleasure to present to 250 educators in Nevada over Zoom yesterday morning! I shared about how we can shape our mindsets to see CONNECTIONS as the key to being an effective educator and teach students how to build positive relationships with each other, inspire them to see their own POTENTIAL as we lift them up by believing in them and providing opportunities to grow in their stretch zones, and cultivate leadership skills to EMPOWER them to be the best versions of themselves each day.

Every atomic interaction is a moment of connection that offers an opportunity to intentionally uplift others through our love, kindness, and gratitude. We not only brighten someone’s day but also create lasting imprints on their heart, cultivating joy within them and ourselves. I strive to live by this motto and encourage your children to do so too as we work together to foster a connected community of caring learners and leaders. 

Ways to support at home: Have conversations about how every interaction can be a positive one to build the kind of relationships we want to have. It takes great self-discipline especially when we are in the midst of challenging situations to have grace for others and to speak with love and kindness so that others feel heard and supported. “I can solve problems in peaceful ways.” Getting along with others and effective communication is key to our well-being. It begins with our mindset about how we value relationships.

It’s always interesting to learn what resonated most with participants in my sessions. Today, it seemed that sharing love and joy struck people most. Here are four of the most powerful statements I shared and say to your children regularly:

• I love you.
• I appreciate you.
• I believe in you.
• You bring me joy.

Brushing with Cedar Leaves

Last weekend, I had the greatest pleasure to join our Mentorship Network at Loon Lake in Maple Ridge for an overnight retreat. I have been a part of the organizing committee for five years as a supporter to beginning teachers in our district. One of the sessions was led by Ditta Cross who led us into to the forest to teach us about the Indigenous ways of connecting and respecting our land. One lesson that deeply resonated with me was called brushing. Here’s an explanation found on ChatGPT:

The Coast Salish people have a deep cultural connection with cedar trees, considering them sacred and using them for various purposes, including ceremonial practices and crafting. Cedar leaves, with their aromatic scent, are often used in brushing ceremonies.

Brushing ceremonies involve gently sweeping or brushing a person with cedar leaves to cleanse and purify their spirit, mind, and body. The fragrant essence of the cedar is believed to carry healing properties, removing negative energy and promoting balance and harmony.

This practice is conducted with reverence and respect for the cedar tree, acknowledging its significance in Coast Salish culture. The act of brushing with cedar leaves is considered a form of spiritual cleansing and renewal, often performed as part of traditional rituals or ceremonies within the community.

This practice has really resonated with many of the students too! There is something very calming about this.

We are scientists.

Water is really important to us!

We are grateful to have had a guest speaker, Diana, from Skye Consulting, come to teach us about the water cycle, local watersheds, water conservation, and to answer these questions:

When we turn on the tap, where do you think this water comes from? What are different ways we use water?

We learned that our water in Burnaby comes from the Seymour Watershed.

Then we had an opportunity to draw the water cycle and do a sort to figure out the order with images.

Ways to support at home: Ask your child to explain the water cycle and tell you about watersheds. Practice water conservation!

Candy cane crystals

Watch a video to learn more about how our Borax crystals formed! If you like, make some more at home following this recipe. I enjoyed seeing the creativity. We didn’t just see candy canes, we saw beautiful crystal stars, snowflakes, and a heart too! Please note that these are made from Borax so if you have young children in the home, it is best to put it out of reach.

OWL (Orphaned Wildlife) in the Classroom

On Thursday, we had an informative session to learn about falcons and owls. We met a barn owl named Alba and a American kestrel, Willa. Check out the videos and more images in SpacesEDU. Students learned:

• The function of the OWL Society
• The basic biology and behaviour of raptors
• Sizes and types of raptors
• Dangers to raptors and other wildlife
• What students can do to help raptors and other wildlife

Ways to support at home: Ask your child to share five facts they know about owls. Be curious! Model curiosity and tell them what you wonder about. Visit the public library to take out books on owls, go online to look for more facts, or watch videos on owls. Anytime you search online, this is a great opportunity to talk about staying safe as they search and to teach them about using key words to type in the search bar. Adding “for kids” is a simple way to narrow your search, for example.

If you’d like to learn more, visit: OWL Rehab. They offer 30-60 minute guided tours on the weekends (by donation). Be sure to make an online reservation before you go.

They are located at 3800 – 72nd Street Unit 3, Delta, BC.

Self-reflections and Goal Setting

Two of our core competencies is reflective and critical thinking:

Critical and Reflective Thinking encompasses a set of abilities that students use to examine their own thinking and that of others. Students apply critical, metacognitive, and reflective thinking in given situations, and relate this thinking to other experiences, using this process to identify ways to improve or adapt their approach to learning. They reflect on and assess their experiences, thinking, learning processes, work, and progress in relation to their purposes. Students give, receive, and act on feedback and set goals individually and collaboratively. They determine the extent to which they have met their goals and can set new ones.

We spent some time reflecting on how we are as learners, what we feel proud of, and set some goals to work on for next term. I also gave them an opportunity to give me feedback on what I am doing well and how I can be a better teacher for them individually and for the class. I want to model reflective thinking and am in constant pursuit of learning and betterment. So, if you have feedback for me, please let me know too. I appreciate your support!

Winter Concert on Tuesday, December 12 (Two Performances)

We have been working hard with our buddies and Mr. Turpin on the songs and actions! Please have your child wear a white top and black bottoms on Tuesday. You should have received two red tickets to attend the evening show on Tuesday, December 12 at 6:30 pm. Please bring your tickets to the evening concert.

6:00 pm (or later) – Bring your child to the Annex – A2 (Strong Start room)
6:00 pm – Gym doors open (The PAC will have a concession stand. Thank you for supporting them!)
6:30 pm – Concert begins
After the performance – Pick up your child from the Music room in the Annex.

*Please let me know if you do not plan to attend so I can expect their absence. Also, we can release your tickets to other families when you return your unused tickets to school.

1:30 pm Concert – An option for families with young children or if you don’t have enough tickets for the evening performance. You do NOT need a ticket for this concert.

To practice the songs at home, check out our Musicians page. Here, you will also find the overview of what was taught this term by Mr. Turpin, which you can refer to when you receive your child’s Learning Update on December 20.

Gingerbread House Making

This Friday, December 15, we will be making gingerbread houses with our big buddies. Please have your child bring small assorted candies (nut free) in a labelled bag to decorate their own houses. They can start bringing them to school anytime next week.

Every student will be provided with a paper plate, royal icing, and graham crackers to build their houses. We are looking forward to this fun community building activity and can’t wait to see the creativity and joy that this activity will bring! Thank you for your ongoing support in making these moments memorable for our students.

Field Trips in the New Year – Save the dates because we will need parent volunteer drivers, please. Thank you for your support!

• Friday, January 12 – South for the Winter at Michael J. Fox Theatre (Collaborative dance performance with four Burnaby secondary schools). The notice will come home early next week.
• Monday, February 12 & Monday, February 26 – Ice skating at Bill Copeland from 9:00 to 11:00 am.

Every time I get to present to educators, I cannot help but feel so appreciative that I am your child’s teacher. Thank you for sharing them with us and for your part in supporting their education with me. I appreciate you!

With love, joy, kindness, and gratitude, Ms. Chan

Dear families,

We continued to use the word “self-discipline” to practice self-regulation skills so we can build the habit as a character trait. I encourage you to use this word at home to remind them to follow expectations even though they may not feel like it. Remind them this is to build a healthy habit of focusing on doing what they need to do despite distractions.

Here’s how ChatGPT would explain self-discipline to an 8 year old. Perhaps it resonates with you and you’d like to share it with your child:

Self-discipline is like having your own superpower! It means being able to control yourself and make good choices, even when something fun or distracting is around. It’s like being a superhero who can focus on what needs to be done, like finishing homework or chores, even when you really want to play or do something else.

Just like a superhero follows a plan to save the day, self-discipline helps you stick to your plan or goals. It’s about staying determined and not giving up easily. So, when you want something, self-discipline helps you work towards it step by step, even if it’s hard sometimes.

Having self-discipline doesn’t mean you can’t have fun or enjoy yourself! It’s about finding a balance between having fun and doing what you need to do. It’s a skill that grows stronger when you practice it, and it helps you become really good at things you love doing!

We are authors.

We wrote a letter to Santa or to our family. On Thursday, we walked with Ms. Santorelli’s and Ms. Tai’s classes to drop off our letters in the mailbox. Please check SpacesEDU for our picture! There are a few more families who have yet to initiate access to SpacesEDU. I re-sent an invite on Thursday evening so you can view the reflection posts your child has created.

We are mathematicians.

We started learning about fractions. Here is the grade 3 curriculum on fraction concepts.

Big Ideas:

• • Fractions are a type of number that can represent quantities.

Students are expected to know the following:

• • Fractions are numbers that represent an amount or quantity.
  • Fractions can represent parts of a region, set, or linear model.
  • Fraction parts are equal shares or equal-sized portions of a whole or unit.
  • Provide opportunities to explore and create fractions with concrete materials.
  • recording pictorial representations of fraction models and connecting to symbolic notation
  • equal partitioning

They are quick learners! We learned that the top number is called the numerator and the bottom number is the denominator. One key understanding is that fractions must be equal parts.

We first learned about fractions of a whole like pies and pizzas. We can slice these whole items into equal parts.

Then we learned about fractions in a set. I absolutely love to plan hands-on, interactive activities where students use higher level thinking which include two of our core competencies: critical thinking skills and communication skills. They created increasing levels of difficulty for classmates to practice naming the fractions.

How to support at home: Find items at home your child can use to create fractions of a set. Ask them to tell you what the fraction is and to explain how they know. See if they can remember that the top number is called the numerator (how many as part of the set) and the bottom number is the denominator (how many total in the set).

Addition Fact Fluency

This week, we have been practicing our doubles: 1 + 1 = 2, 2 + 2 = 4, 3 + 3 = 6, 4 + 4 = 8, etc. to 10 + 10 = 20

If you don’t have one yet, please create a random numbers chart to practice 3-5 minutes every day. I can tell you that this goes a long way in helping your child feel more confident with learning their facts. In December, we will start learning about addition so having these facts solidified will allow your child to focus on addition concepts and not have to also worry about accuracy when calculating. So far, here are the ones we learned:

• +1, -1
• +2, -2
• +10, -10
• Making tens

Next will be practicing our doubles +1 (1 + 2 = 3, 2 + 3 = 5, 3 + 4 = 7, etc.) so learning the doubles will be the key to success to learning doubles +1.

Alternate game to practice doubles: Take a deck of cards. Remove the Jack and King. The A = 1 and the Queen = 0 (zero). Shuffle the cards and divide them equally. Play Doubles Race. Each player takes a turn to flip over one card at a time. The first person to call out the sum for the double, takes the card. For example, I flip over a 5 and I call out 10 before my partner. Then I keep the card. Then my partner flips over the card. Whoever calls out the doubles sum first gets that card. Take turns flipping over one card at a time. Have fun!

We are scientists.

We learned about different water sources including local watersheds like oceans, lakes, rivers, wells, and springs. We discovered that the majority of fresh water is stored underground and in glaciers. We also learned that less than 3% of earth’s water is fresh water and only about 0.5% of this fresh water is accessible so we need to do our part to conserve it. Our fresh water is a limited resource and is not being replaced at the same rate as it is being used.

We learned about the water cycle. Check out this video that explains the water cycle. Students loved dancing to this song by Blazer Fresh on GoNoodle! Me too!

Please feel free to check out this song: The Water Cycle Song.

A Special Scientist Visit

On Wednesday, Ms. Cramb, our grade 5 teacher down the hall, gave us a special presentation! Thank you to her dad and her dad’s friend from SFU, she was given some liquid nitrogen to share with almost all of the primary classes.

She taught us about states of matter and introduced us to dry ice or liquid nitrogen.

They got to witness how it froze a banana, strawberry, blueberry, eraser, pencil, rubber tube, metal rod, and balloon!

I was impressed with not just the questions they asked, but the many meaningful sentiments of appreciation they individually shared with Ms. Cramb at the end of the presentation.

Ask your child what they thought and how they felt about the presentation. Then to push their curiosity, ask them to come up with three more questions they are wondering about. Then feel free to learn together by researching the answers! I wonder what you can learn together! Have fun!

ADST & Science inquiry

Each week, we have one to two opportunities to learn with the laptops through thoughtfully planned scaffolded learning. On Friday, we learned some tips on how to do effective researching and how to keep us safer.

Our curricular competencies for ADST: Applied Skills & Technologies

First, we sparked curiosity by brainstorming questions about owls. Then we practiced how to search facts about owls. Within minutes, they were sharing cool facts about owls with each other!

How to support at home: Ask your child what they learned about owls so far and record 3-5 new things they wonder about. Encourage them to use their core competency of critical thinking skills to come up with new questions. Then have fun researching and learning together!

We are artists.

Ms. Kapusta says: This week, students began planning for a communal art project we will be making together as a class in the upcoming weeks. We will be using coloured paper to create a dynamic winter scene inside the classroom. We took a vote on what we wanted the scene to be and we settled on Santa’s North Pole! Students used their Creative Thinking skills to plan out what they want the scene to include and sketch out their vision. Through this communal art project students will “create an artistic work collaboratively and as an individual using ideas inspired by imagination, inquiry, experimentation, and purposeful play” (BC Curriculum, Arts Education 2/3).

It will also be a great way for students to grow their Social Awareness skills as they’ll be working together towards contributing to the classroom community in a positive way. In the afternoon, we practiced some community-building by working together to decorate the classroom for the holidays with paper chains and snowflakes. You might be able to catch a peak of students’ snowflakes hanging in our classroom windows. They turned out really beautiful! 

We are musicians.

For the past two weeks, we have been practicing our songs with Mr. Kenney’s class. Some students can use some extra support at home to learn the words to our songs so please practice. Thank you for your support at home.

Here are the links to the two songs we will be performing on Tuesday, December 12. There will be an afternoon performance at 1:30 pm and an evening performance at 6:30 pm. Students are asked to return to school at 6:00 pm (not earlier, please). Mr. Turpin would like them to wear black bottoms and a plain white top, please.

Winter Sleigh Ride 

Hot Chocolate

Sign Language

Since the beginning of the year, I have been teaching them different American Sign Language signs. They love it! Here are some of the ones they learned so far. I wonder how many you can learn from them?

Ways to Support at Home

A great way to connect with your child about what they learn in school is to read these blog posts together! If your child is ready, have them read the blog post to you. This is a meaningful way to have them practice their reading while also talking about what they learned. Ask your child to teach you what they learned. Being able to teach a concept to someone requires a deep understanding of the material. When they explain something in simple terms or teach it effectively, it can also solidify their knowledge which makes it easier to recall and apply the information in different contexts too.

Also, when you see a note in the planner stating what we learned that day, this is a phenomenal opportunity to ask them to teach you about it. If new concepts are reviewed within 24 hours, their understanding sticks better and if you ask them to teach you, it’s even better!

Next week

We have some exciting things happening next week!

• On Monday at 9 am, we have Metro Vancouver visiting our class to present a workshop on the Watershed Water Cycle! This is a free workshop and will directly enhance our Science curriculum.
• On Wednesday at 11:15 am, we will be making crystal candy canes. We will need some parent volunteers. If you are available from 10:30 to 11:15, please send me an email at Livia.Chan@burnabyschools.ca to let me know and I will send you more details. Thank you so much for your help!
• On Thursday, we have our OWL in the Classroom workshop! If you haven’t paid on School Cash Online yet, please do. Then please fill out this online form as soon as possible.

We will also need your child to bring in a glass jar, please. If you have extras, please send those to school too in case others do not have one. Thank you so much! We need these to make our crystal candy canes on Wednesday, Dec. 6. Your glass jars will be returned after the activity.

I am deeply grateful for your continued support by encouraging daily reading and writing, practicing math concepts and addition/subtraction facts, talking about what we learned at school, and using the same language we use for social emotional learning (for example: stretch zone, self-discipline, teamwork, determination). The more we notice and name what we see, the more effective we are at nurturing the character skills that will become habits through to adulthood. Being able to master self-discipline has the potential for future success in many areas of their lives. If this resonates with you too, let’s both work together to use the same language for consistency! 🙂

Grateful for your and our connection, Ms. Chan

Dear families,

What a great way to end the week with bowling at Rev’s for our first field trip of the year with Ms. Santorelli’s and Ms. Tai’s classes! Thank you to all of the parents who helped drive and supervise during our stay. When I looked out to the back of the classroom and saw so many parents standing there, my heart felt instantly grateful.

I appreciated seeing the support, encouragement, and celebrations throughout our time there. So many smiles too!

We are mathematicians.

We worked on solidifying our understanding of place value to develop our number sense. We learned how to expand the numbers into expanded notation. For example, 563 = 500 + 60+3.

Ways to support at home: Check that your child understands the following concepts. Give them random numbers and have them fill in the place value chart, expand the number, and draw the base 10 blocks. Generally, where it gets tricky for students is when there is a zero in the tens or ones place. They need to zero to “hold its place”. Here’s what they need to know:

• 100s, 10s, and 1s
• understand the relationship between digit places and their values (e.g., the digit 4 in 342 has the value of 40 or 4 tens)
• understand the importance of 0 as a place holder (e.g., in the number 408, the zero indicates that there are 0 tens)

Grade 2’s are expected to demonstrate a complete understanding of place value concepts to 100 and grade 3’s to 1000 in order to be considered proficient on the proficiency scale.

We love our Big Buddy time!

On Friday, our big buddies came to our room for a visit! We started by reading together. Then we practiced our math facts with our newly learned random numbers chart.

How to support at home: We are encouraging all children to practice their math facts at home. This is a fantastic way to practice at home! You’ll notice that on the left-hand side, there are digits from 0-9. On the right, there are numbers from 10-19. So far, we practiced the following:

• +1 and -1 which is just counting up or down by one number
• +2 and -2 which is counting by twos up or down. I want to see children trying NOT to add with their fingers for these. Please practice skip counting forwards and backwards so they can become fluent: 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18, 20 and 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15, 17, 19.
• +10 (only use the left side) and -10 (only use the right side)
• Making 10s (only use the left side) so when you point to 6, they say 4. When you point to 2, they say 8.
• Coming up: Doubles. Get ahead and have your child practice 1+1=2, 2+2=4, 3+3=6, 4+4=8 and all the way through to 9+9=18, 10+10=20

Then we did a paper chain challenge! Students connected with another buddy pair for this challenge. Everyone was given one sheet of paper, scissors, and an arm’s length piece of tape. They were given 20 minutes to come up with the longest chain. We saw great communication, teamwork, and excitement!

Some teams had tape left over so they turned these pieces into more chain links. Way to use your core competencies of critical and creative thinking! So resourceful!

Diwali

Diwali is a “festival of lights”. We read a book and watched a short video on this celebration. Please ask your child what they learned!

Save the Dates

• Monday, December 4: Metro Vancouver Watershed Water Cycle (free in-class presentation)
• Tuesday, December 12: Winter concert at 6:30pm and an afternoon dress rehearsal
• Thursday, December 7: OWLS presentation (paid in-class presentation; look out for more information to come next week)
• February 12 & 26 from 9:30 (1 hour): Ice skating at Bill Copeland (paid field trip; we will need parent volunteers, please. Ice skate rentals are available.)

As always, your children bring me such joy and I am ever so grateful. Thank you for your continued support at home every day. If you can help make sure your child can understand the math concepts, that would be greatly appreciated!

With a heart full of gratitude, Ms. Chan

Dear families,

We have some exciting news! This week, we welcomed Azaan to our classroom! Please feel free to introduce yourselves to his parents when you see them before or after school and help us make them feel welcomed, thank you. 🙂 We are thrilled you have joined our class, Azaan!

We continue to focus on gratitude and appreciating the many things we take for granted like peace. We read a few books about Remembrance Day.

We learned the art technique of tearing to create poppies to decorate our classroom wreath that was displayed at the assembly.

Thank you to Ms. Kapusta, we made beautiful poppies too. It’s in our hallway for all to admire.

We also shared and thought about what peace means to us and presented our ideas at the assembly. I felt so proud of them. Check out what they shared:

So many shared how they felt nervous. I taught them that physiologically, our brains don’t know the difference between nervous and excited. This was the perfect opportunity to be challenged in our “stretch zone” to overcome it. In the past few years, I have really tried to retrain my brain to see nervous feelings as excitement and it works! See it as opportunity to grow and embrace it. Also, the more we challenge ourselves, the more we grow. Click here to watch the Simon Sinek video that helped me better understand this concept.

Chunk Spelling

For the past few weeks, we have been having fun reviewing sounds and word endings. They all enjoyed discovering the new words they could make with the “at” ending while using their sound boards. It also helped them think critically when they came to a beginning sound that sounded like a word but wasn’t one or was a word but it didn’t have the same sound as in the word family. For example, dat (not a word) or what (has “at” at the end of the word but makes a “uht” sound rather than “at” sound).

Week after week, students will be introduced to a new word family to create words with different consonants, blends and digraphs. After they review, they work with a partner to challenge themselves to think of larger fancy words with the word family. Some examples of bigger words were: scatter, flatten, and attic.

So far, we practiced with “an, at, and, ash, ack”.

We are mathematicians.

One of my favourite things I love as a teacher is coming up with engaging and meaningful ways to teach concepts instead of a worksheet. We had a LOT of fun going around the room to practice our place value concepts! Numbers were randomly placed around the room. At each number, a different combination of base ten blocks were there. Students had to figure out how many hundreds, tens, and ones and record it in a place value chart. Then they had to write the number down.

We had some challenging ones where there were more than 10 ones and more than 10 tens! So we had to use our critical thinking brains to figure out that 11 ones means that there is an extra “ten” and one “one”.

Next, we were given numbers, like 325 and we had to represent the number using base ten blocks. We worked with a partner to show we can represent the number by drawing the value of each digit in the number. Practicing this concept is a great way to support at home!

We learned the Place Value Rap song to help us remember that the “Ones are on the right. The tens are next in line. Look once more to the left for the hundreds every time.” Have a listen and sing along with your child at home!

Bowling & Pizza Lunch

We are really looking forward to our first field trip on Friday, November 17! Thank you to all of the parent volunteer drivers who have offered to support us. On last count, I still need one more parent to help drive.

On the same day, there is a pizza lunch offered to everyone. This is a fundraiser that our dedicated PAC has organized. If you would like to order pizza on Friday, November 17, please CLICK HERE to learn more. Last day to order is Tuesday, November 14.

ADST

On Friday, Mr. Klarich stepped into our classroom when we were working on our newest post in SpacesEDU for our e-portfolio and was so impressed. Students were asked to choose a piece of writing they felt proud of, share what made them feel proud, and include what they want to improve on in their writing. Take a look at your child’s account in SpacesEDU. Some may still have their post as a draft because they weren’t quite finished.

Some students noticed comments left for them by their parents in a previous post. They were SO excited to see that so thank you so much for taking the time to review and leave a comment.

Absences

If your child will be away, I always appreciate an email. The office is requesting that sending an email is a more efficient way for them to record absences and they much prefer it over leaving a voice mail on the school main line. Please email kitchener.info@burnabyschools.ca. Thank you for supporting our office staff with this request.

Weather

The weather is turning. It’s a great idea to have a change of clothes for your child at school. Please bring a labelled bag at your earliest convenience. Thank you.

Also, please click here to check Burnaby District’s information on school related closures.

Deep Gratitude

Last week, I checked to see how many families open these email notifications to learn about what we covered the past week. Wow, my heart was so warmed and touched by the high percentage. Thank you SO much for your interest and for being my supportive partner in your child’s learning. You made me feel valued for the time I spend on writing these weekly blog posts. I am deeply grateful for you.

If there is something more you would like to see, please let me know. These are written for you so you can be informed and more importantly, so you can extend your child’s learning at home. The more support your child gets at home, the more they develop a love for lifelong learning and develop the habit of having a curious mind that is a critical thinker (one of our core competencies) who reflects on their learning (another one of our core competencies). As they share what they are learning about, they have an opportunity to practice their communication skills (yes, yet another core competency).

One way to think of these core competencies are what some say are 21st century skills. This is such a very important part of our curriculum! Learn more here.

I feel so blessed to be your child’s teacher. They bring me such joy every time I see them! I love seeing you during morning drop off and pick up too! 🙂

Enjoy the rest of the long weekend!

With a heart full of gratitude, Ms. Chan