What a fun-filled week of learning about different literacies!
On Monday, we celebrated reading, writing, and listening literacy. Our whole school listened over the P.A. to the story “I Hope” by Monique Gray Smith, an Indigenous author. Every class projected it for all to follow along. Then we talked about our own hopes and recorded one of our own. Every class was asked to place their response sheets on our classroom doors. It’s been great to walk around to see everyone’s hopes displayed. Click on the image for a closer look!
Also on Monday, we worked on our math literacy by completing our understanding of addition with regrouping. Their assessments went home today. For grade 2s, their goal is to be able to add 2-digit plus 2-digit number with a sum to 100. For grade 3s, they aim to have a proficient understanding of adding 3-digit plus 3-digit numbers with a sum to 1000. Student need to understand the idea of regrouping (or some may say carry over). How to support at home? Continue to practice their addition and subtraction math facts for fluency and accuracy. Using a random numbers chart or a deck of cards to review is fun and a great way to practice together!
On Tuesday, the focus was on social emotional literacy. Over the past number of years, learning about our emotions has become more important. This includes expanding our vocabulary for different emotions. On this day, my uncle also came to read “The Name Jar” to us and shared some stories about names and how our culture values names. They also had an opportunity to develop their artistic literacy by following a directed drawing of a dragon. Can’t wait for you to see it when it’s finished!
On Wednesday, we learned more about physical literacy. Stick to School came for a visit to teach us about the importance of education and lacrosse. During Wondering Wednesday, we walked around the school and then went for a story walk to read “The Snowy Day” which is posted along the fence by the flagpole. This day, we also tried some interesting yoga poses! Ask your child to show you “pretzel” and then give it a try with your child. Mr. Klarich walked in just at that moment so we got him to try it too. Fun times! 🙂 I always love it when kids say, “This is the best day ever!” and I heard a couple of kids express that.
Also on Wednesday, we learned about subtraction with regrouping. Please feel free to review at home to develop their proficiency level. A grade 2 example (2 digits only): 52 – 38 = ___. You need to regroup the 2 in the ones place. For grade 3s, they will have questions with 3 digit numbers like 521 – 439 = ___.
On Thursday, we welcomed families into our school for a reading time for cultural literacy. It was so heartwarming to see many of you join us and to see different books brought from home. For those who were not available, we will set up another day because they enjoyed it so much!
Also on Thursday, we had an in-class field trip hosted by Science World. We learned about our changing climate and what we can do about it.
We started talking about Passion Projects. Please have a conversation with your child about what it is they are so passionate learning more about. Their first passion project will be working with a partner so they can continue to develop their core competencies of communication, collaboration, and social competencies. Last year, all but one at the end of the year said that their favourite thing in school was working on Passion Projects! I am excited to see their excitement once they get going. One of the trickiest parts is discovering what they are passionate about learning and then coming up with questions that will drive their research. My hope is that they will learn how to learn, learn that developing passions can be a source of joy, and that they can eventually reflect on all of the core competencies and curricular competencies they are learning as a result!
On Friday, we celebrated all literacies. We met up with our big buddies to work on our Minecraft designs (digital literacy). Each group was given an opportunity to go in front of the class to present their creations. I was impressed with how they used their core competencies of communication, collaboration, and creativity!
Field trip: Ice Skating at Bill Copeland
I created a new Field Trip page. Here you can see information so it is easier to find, rather than hunting through emails or blog posts. Feel free to save the date for our field trip to the Aquarium. We will be travelling by school bus and will need some parent volunteers.
We apologize for the small error on the field trip form. Since our skating time is at 9:30am, parent volunteer drivers, please arrive at 8:55am with your children. School Cash Online is now open for payment. Thank you to parents who have already indicated you would like to be a volunteer driver. We are not able to have these field trips without your support, which we greatly appreciate!
In-class field trip: Telus Wise will be coming on Monday, January 29 at 1:00pm to teach us about digital footprint.
Family Movie Night
Kitchener School and the PAC will be hosting a family movie night on Friday, February 2 at 6:30pm. For more information, click here to check out the post on the school website. There is no registration necessary.
Thank you for your continued support. It is hard to believe that we are almost halfway through the school year already! Time sure flies when you are having fun! Have a wonderful weekend!
Thank you so much for your support for the Winter Concert. It brought so much joy to see them perform!
We would love to welcome Lydia and her family to our class! We are so glad you are here! Please help us make them feel welcome.
We are artists who communicate, collaborate, and work well together.
Ms. Kapusta says:
This week, students put together an amazing, Christmas-themed communal art inside the classroom. We had previously planned for this art a couple of weeks ago and now students were able to carry out their plans. We started off the day by going over the expectations for this art activity and what skills students would need to use in order to successfully accomplish the art. Many students answered with: leadership skills, flexibility, self-discipline, and collaboration. We went over examples of how they could use these skills and how they might come in handy if any problems came up with their partner. Students worked in randomly selected groups of 2s and 3s for this activity to practice working with different classmates. Students had most of the morning to create this artwork before their winter concert and as always, they blew me away with their creativity! In the art, you can a see a scene from the North Pole, including Santa Claus, a Christmas Tree, many presents, snow people, elves and even a reindeer. Even more so, I was so happy and impressed with the class’s leadership skills and self-discipline when it came time to clean up before lunch time. Many students took ownership of tidying their spaces and the classroom.
We are mathematicians who use our critical and flexible thinking.
We do Math Talks in our class. This is a fantastic way to have students learn to expand their understanding of numeracy concepts to see connections and develop flexibility in their mathematical thinking. They also get to work on their core competencies of communication and curricular competencies (reasoning and analyzing, understanding and solving, communicating and representing, connecting and reflecting). Look at how many learning standards this one activity fosters!
The content learning standards: Grade 2 students are expected to be able to add and subtract to 100 (2 digits) and grade 3s to 1000 (3 digits): using flexible computation strategies, involving taking apart (e.g., decomposing using friendly numbers and compensating) and combining numbers in a variety of ways, and regrouping. In the past, I taught addition and subtraction as separate yet related concepts. I learned from a few well reknown Math gurus that learning addition and subtraction at the same time is better. This is so that they see the connection between the two related concepts. Also, we want children to see that regrouping (carrying and “borrowing”) is not the only way we add and subtract.
Ways to support at home: (1) Review rounding numbers to the nearest 10 to ensure that your child has a solid foundation. This concept will really help in understanding how to decompose using friendly numbers, which is nearest 10, and compensating. (2) Review place value concepts to ensure they completely understand the value of numbers. For example: 56 = 50 + 6. (3) Feel free to review addition and subtraction concepts.
This week, we continued to add to our addition fact fluency tools the strategy of doubles + 1. Using a deck of cards, we first practiced our doubles and then made it more challenging to think about our doubles + 1. These are: 1+2, 2+3, 3+4, 4+5, 5+6, 6+7, 7+8, 8+9.
Ways to support at home: Please continue to review math facts regularly at home with your own random numbers chart or a deck of cards (Take out the Jack and King. The Queen can represent zero and the Ace represents 1.) Flip the card over quickly to practice the strategies learned so far: adding & subtracting 1, adding & subtracting 2, adding & subtracting 10, combinations that making 10, doubles, and now doubles + 1. This upcoming week, we will learn the +9 and – 9 strategy with the power of digital roots! Do you know this strategy? Try it!
We are authors.
We have been working hard on our stories. This week, we had an opportunity to meet in our Author’s Circle. This is a special time where authors who wish to, will share their story and ask for feedback or suggestions on how to make their story better. Through this exercise, we learned the the importance of building our characters so that readers have more ways to connect with them in the story. We also learned that adding descriptions to where our story takes place helps the reader paint a better picture in their mind. We are using sentences strips to write our story because I discovered over the years that it is easier for students to insert and add details as strips rather than written on a whole page. This helps them organize their story too.
Ways to support at home: Ask your child to tell you what their story is about. Ask them questions to help them think about adding details about character development, setting, problem and solution. Ask them about how they plan to end their story. Challenge them to be creative! Another option would be to have fun writing or telling a story together with your child!
Gingerbread Houses
Students had so much fun building their gingerbread houses with their big buddies. Thank you for sending treats with your child.
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 went home already. CLICK HERE if you need another copy. The cost is $2 which can be paid on School Cash Online.
Monday, February 12 & Monday, February 26 – Ice skating at Bill Copeland from 9:00 to 11:00 am. The notice will go home in January.
Learning Updates
These are also known as report cards but we now call them Learning Updates. I have enjoyed spending hours thinking about our class, each child, smiling with my heart warmed, and celebrating their achievements since the beginning of the year. I reviewed our blog posts too and feel so proud of all the learning we have done since September! Each child has shown improvement in many areas. In these Learning Updates, you will see that I wrote TO your child. This may be different from what you have seen in the past. This is based on the philosophy that we want to empower each child to deeply play and active role in their learning journey by recognizing and reflecting on their strengths, stretches, and to set attainable goals. These are all a part of developing their core competencies of communication, critical and reflective thinking, and personal awareness. You will also see some next steps for how we both can further support their learning at school and at home.
You will not be receiving a paper copy but instead, will be given access to view on Wednesday, December 20. Please check the emails from the school office for more information on how to access. I recommend that you download the PDF copy to save for your keepsake. This is what I did for my own children’s reports. I keep them in digital form in a folder in the cloud. If accessing the Learning Update is a barrier, please let me know and I can support you.
As part of their Learning Update, your child’s self-assessment of core competencies can be found in SpacesEDU. Thank you to all who have already initiated your access.
If you would like to have a conversation after you view the Learning Update, please send me an email and we can arrange a time. Thank you!
Wednesday, December 20 is also Pancake Breakfast and Pajama Day. Students are welcome to bring their favourite stuffed animals to school too! We will also have an after sing-a-long!
Thursday, December 21 is the last day of the 2023 year.
My heart is always so filled with joy to spend my time with your children and to compose these updates just for you. I appreciate you for your continued support at home. One of the best ways to support them is by reading these weekly blog posts so I appreciate you for your time.
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!
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
Use materials, tools, and technologies in a safe manner in both physical and digital environments
Develop their skills and add new ones through play and collaborative work
Explore the use of simple, available tools and technologies to extend their capabilities
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.
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?
amazing
and
appreciate
bathroom
beautiful
better
book
carpet
change
cold
come
cookie
dance
day
different
drink
eat
eight
excited
find
finish
five
four
go
happy
help
hot
hungry
hurt/pain
I love you.
jump
kindness
learn
learner
listen
Me too!
milk
minutes
more
name
nice
nine
no
one
pay attention
play
please
read
sad
same
safety
see
seven
sit
six
smile
sorry
stand
stop
ten
thank you
three
time
tired
two
wait
want
water
welcome
what
where
write
world
yes
you
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! 🙂
I hope you had a wonderful extra day with your family! This past week felt like an incredible one that energized me on many levels. In the classroom, it felt like we experienced so much great learning together and the love, care, and collaboration I noticed was heartwarming. On Friday morning, I was blessed to have the opportunity to present at a neighbouring Burnaby school on social emotional learning. The title was:
Relationships that Create Community Among Diverse Learners: Fostering Connectedness and Belonging (How to have joyful learners who thrive and LOVE school.)
I am passionate about building deeper connections as well as equipping and empowering students with skills to do the same as part of their social emotional learning. One of my most favourite and impactful activities is the Spider Web activity. Here’s the activity: Share something you love about being in our class.
I started us off by saying that what I love about our class is each person. I love everyone in our class because of their kindness and they just bring me such joy. Then each had a turn to share why they love being in our class before they passed the yarn across the circle. It created a powerful visual of how we are connected and how our interactions affect each other.
Then I asked them all to stand up. This was to represent how when we say and do positive things, we rise and lift each other up. When we sat down, I started shaking the web and gave an example of an unkind statement. They could see that the rest of the web was shaking too. This was to demonstrate that just ONE unkind act affects the whole community. This was such a powerful visual.
I followed this activity by reading The Energy Bus for Kids by Jon Gordon. He has an adult version of the book that I highly recommend too called The Energy Bus. This is a story about staying positive and overcoming challenges. If you’d like to check out the book, I found a video on YouTube with Jon Gordon reading the book himself!
I also shared this simple graphic. I noticed that I was sharing this with my own kids at home when they were young and with students in my classes so I eventually created this. How we interpret a situation is a choice. When we choose a positive lens, it will lead us to a happier disposition. While it is important to feel our raw emotions, after some time, we can learn to not allow ourselves to get stuck in negativity and instead, to let go of those feelings that don’t serve us well anymore. We need to practice our self-discipline to protect our hearts.
“You can’t tell where people will land from where they begin. With the right opportunity and motivation to learn, anyone can build the skills to achieve greater things. Potential is not a matter of where you start but how far you travel.” – Adam Grant
There are 4 character skills that lead to reaching your potential and achieving greater things:
Proactive: How often do they take initiative to ask questions, volunteer answers, and seek information from books, and engage in learning outside class?
Prosocial: How well do they get along and collaborate with peers?
Disciplined: How effectively do they pay attention and resist the impulse to disrupt the class?
Determined: How consistently do they take on challenging problems, do more than the assigned work, and persist in the face of obstacles?
This week, we talked about these character attributes and focused on learning about and practicing self-discipline, in particular.
How you can support at home: Use these character skills words at home. Encourage your child to practice and demonstrate self-discipline. Let me know if you decide to read this book too! I’d love to have a conversation about it with you! 🙂
Science In-class Field Trip
On Thursday, December 7, we are excited to have OWL in the Classroom present to us! This program follows the BC Science Curriculum and covers the following two Big Ideas:
Students will have the opportunity to safely meet two live raptors in our classroom – one owl and one hawk/falcon/turkey vulture, depending on the raptor that is available at the time. My daughter had this experience when she was younger and she absolutely loved it!
The cost for the OWL in the Classroom program is $6 and can be paid on School Cash online. Please pay and fill out this online form as soon as possible. Thank you for your support!
Last week, we learned about the transfer of thermal energy: conduction, convection, and radiation. Please ask your child to teach you these concepts!
conduction (touching — e.g., hold an ice cube)
convection (current — why do we hang mittens over a heat source?)
radiation (through space by a wave — e.g., heat from the sun)
We are mathematicians.
We reviewed the difference between odd and even numbers. The key is looking at how the number ends (in the ones place). Please review at home with this Ron Brown song called Even or Odd. You can do this by coming up with random numbers and ask your child to tell you if it is an odd or even number.
We also learned how to round numbers to the nearest ten. Please review at home. Grade 2s should be able to demonstrate they can round 2-digit numbers to the nearest 10 while grade 3s should be able to round 3-digit numbers to 1000. We watched a song on YouTube that showed us an image that helps us remember that any number that ends in 5 and above, you round UP to the nearest 10.
We continue to reinforce place value concepts like comparing numbers using < and > symbols. Each student brought home a pink < and > symbol last week to practice at home.
How to support at home: Take out a deck of cards to create random numbers. For grade 2s, give your child two 2-digit numbers like 59 and 83. They should be able to compare the two numbers and tell you which one is bigger and use the correct symbol and why (We compare the number in the tens place so 83 is larger because there are more tens). For grade 3s, give your child a 3-digit number. Many students were excited to be challenged with bigger numbers that went into the hundred thousands! One of the curricular competencies in math is to communicate mathematical thinking so this is great practice to explain why.
Continue to have your child practice addition and subtraction facts so they can become more fluent with accuracy. In case you missed a previous post with this recommendation, if your child has an iPad at home, please download Math Tappers. It’s free. Have them practice different sums up to 20.
We are artists.
Ms. Kapusta says:
This week, students participated in their first directed drawing. Students experimented with line, shape, space, and colour to create a winter-themed sloth. Despite following the same directed drawing instructions, everyone’s winter sloths turned out very unique! I am always delighted and amazed by the creativity and enthusiasm for art in this classroom. Each student always brings their own personality to the art that we are doing.
In the afternoon, students spent some time reflecting on their different art projects this term and their creative process. Students were asked to complete a written reflection on which art project they were most proud of and why, and which art project needed more work and what they could do differently next time.
Language Arts
We noticed that a number of students were not using prepositions correctly and confused about when to use “in, on, at” in sentences so thanks to Ms. Yaremko, our ELL teacher, we had an engaging, interactive lesson!
Using the anchor chart, students worked in partners to sort the silly sentences under “in, on, at” headings. Ask your child about this fun activity!
We are musicians.
Mr. Turpin has been working hard with our class and Mr. Kenney’s class in preparation for the Winter concert. I noticed that some students can really use some extra support at home to learn the words to our songs so please practice. Have fun by practicing with them! 🙂
Here are the links to the two songs we will be performing on Tuesday, December 12:
Just a reminder that your child has access to Epic anytime from 7 am to 3pm so on Mondays and Fridays when there is no school or when they are sick at home. Seb has shared with me that he reads books on Epic before school! All students have access to over 40,000 high interest books. Their passcode is the first four digits of their pupil number. Keep this in mind over the winter break which will start on Friday, December 22.
Please note that our last day of school in 2023 will be on Thursday, December 21.
This week felt like such a productive week of learning and growing together as a classroom community. The small gestures of care and kindness your children show each other and how well they work with random partners to learn together was heartwarming. Thank you for reading these weekly blog posts and for your continued support at home. I love and appreciate how your children are such keen learners!
What a fun-filled week of learning about different literacies!
On Thursday, we welcomed families into our school for a reading time for cultural literacy. It was so heartwarming to see many of you join us and to see different books brought from home. For those who were not available, we will set up another day because they enjoyed it so much!
