I hope you had a lovely weekend! Last Thursday and Friday, I gratefully attended a two-day professional development opportunity called The Empowerment Ecosystem Summit with three leaders in assessment who travel around the world presenting for Solution Tree. With their broad reach, they can clearly see that BC is one of the leaders worldwide in standards based grading with an added focus on core competencies and curricular competencies. We are blessed in Burnaby because we have been a lead district in BC.
We measure student’s understanding of the learning standards based on the proficiency scale (emerging, developing, proficient, and extending), which is what you see on their Learning Updates (also called Report Cards) in the subject areas.
Another very important part of learning is focused on core competencies like communication (communicating and collaboration), thinking (creative, critical, and reflective), and personal and social (awareness and responsibility, positive personal and cultural identity). Here we do not assess their competency using a proficiency scale, but your child will do a self-reflection instead. In our class, I often use the vocabulary of core competencies to make this part of their learning more visible. These are the important 21 century skills that some call “soft skills”. I endorse Simon Sinek‘s take on calling these “human skills” because they need these skills to relate to one another. These skills will directly help them be better social beings which will lead to improved relationships in their lifetime.
How to support at home: Use the same language to point out this learning in themselves. Notice – Name – Nurture: Notice prosocial behaviours. Then name it to nurture it. For example, ask them to use their “critical thinking” brain to come up with solutions to problems or thank them for taking “personal responsibility” for making sure their planner is in the backpack.
Assessment is an area of passion for me. I read and listen to a lot of material on assessment and can talk shop all day with colleagues. There are many aspects to how we support our learners equitably, to accurately measure proficiency, and determine next steps to teach so that all students can increase achievement. My core beliefs in assessment are centered around children feeling empowered to take an active part in ownership over their learning through goal setting, reflection, and self-assessment while offering some choice. This directly increases their investment and engagement.
If you are curious about any of this and would like to unpack it some more, please reach out. I am happy to have a conversation with you to help you better understand.
We are mathematicians.
We continued to solidify our understanding of perimeter and area.
How to support at home: Please ask your child to teach you how to measure perimeter and area. In case they don’t remember, it is important to include the unit of measure (e.g., mm, cm, m, km for perimeter and mm2, cm2, m2, km2 for area).
We are scientists.
We are learning about the ladybugs life cycle! We did our first observation record last week. Tomorrow, I am excited to see how much they have grown since we saw them on Wednesday!
Before we went out for our Wondering Wednesday walk, we used our observation and critical thinking skills. We had a great discussion about maple seeds and how they may have adapted to increase their chance of survival.
How to support at home: Ask your child what they wonder about ladybugs. Feel free to come up with questions together to research. This is a great way to model questioning and researching skills.
Dates to Note
Fri. May 31 – Click here to order Pizza for lunch (order by May 28)
Fri. May 31 – 2 PM Early dismissal
Fri. May 31 – Click here to learn more about our PAC’s Freezie sale
Sat. June 1 from 9:30 AM to 4 PM – Hats Off Day. Click here to learn more about this great annual event that happens along Hastings street.
Fri. June 7 – Pro-D day; students do not attend
Fri. June 21 – Revs Bowling and Burnaby Lake picnic (All families are welcome!)
Thank you for your continued support at home! We appreciate you!
I could use this blog title every week because every week feels like a fond week! 🙂
I am so grateful to end a lovely week at the Vancouver Aquarium on a beautiful day on our field trip. Deep gratitude to our parents who generously offered their gift of time and effort to supervise a group. We are grateful to Maissa’s mom, Enma’s mom, James L.’s dad, and Senara’s dad for your help! Check out the images of some of the animals and creatures we saw there!
Thank you to the fundraising efforts of our PAC Executive, more than half of the cost of this field trip was covered.
Our next steps will be choosing an animal or creature we would like to learn more about through research.
Happy Mother’s Day to all of our lovely mothers!
We hope you enjoyed your special day!
From Ms. Kapusta: This week, we worked on a special art project: cards for Mother’s Day! We challenged ourselves by making 3D pop up cards using paper, recycled scraps, cardboard, and sharpie. We also challenged ourselves to draw different kinds of flowers. We ended off by writing a special message to our mothers. We also talked about the importance of all caregivers in our lives, including fathers, grandparents, aunts and uncles, siblings, etc. as every family is different and unique. We couldn’t be happier with how our cards turned out! You can tell that students put a lot of time and effort into their work and wanted to their best jobs. I hope you all have had a happy Mother’s Day this weekend! Mothers and caregivers, thank you for all that you do for your children.
We are artists. From Ms. Kapusta
April 30:
The students learned about a new Canadian Indigenous artist this week: Norval Morisseau! Norval was also called “Copper Thunderbird” and he was part of the Bingwi Neyaashi Anishinaabek First Nation. We observed some of his different artworks and discussed what we noticed, like his depiction of nature and animals and use of thick black outlines and abstract style. We also compared and contrasted this contemporary Canadian Indigenous artist’s work to some of the Coast Salish art we looked at last week. You can look at some of his work here and ask your child what they learned. We then began our very own Norval Morisseau art! We drew a copper thunderbird in sharpie and tried to emulate Norval’s abstract style through the use of soft shapes, curved lines, and symbols of nature. Next week we will be painting our work! The students were really excited about their copper thunderbirds and we can’t wait to see how they turn out once we add some bright, solid colours!
April 23rd:
This week, we learned about Coast Salish art. Students learned that traditionally Coast Salish people made their own paint, using natural elements like charcoal for black, copper for blue and green, ochre for red, clay for white, and moss for yellow. We also learned about the traditional Coast Salish shapes, including ovoids, trigons, u-shapes, circles, ovals, crescents, and extended crescents. We viewed some traditional and contemporary Coast Salish artworks and discussed how the use of shape and colour (Elements of Art) makes this type of art very identifiable and unique. Lastly, we reviewed the different local Coast Salish animals, including the bear, salmon, eagle, hummingbird, and whale, and their special meanings to Coast Salish people (like how whales symbolize community and family). Taking what we learned, students were given Coast Salish shapes to cut out and make into their own animal collage art. The students had a lot of fun arranging their shapes into different animals and creating backgrounds.
Butterflies are free!
We had a great opportunity to join Ms. Rinaldo’s class on their butterfly release at Willingdon Park on Wednesday. These were painted lady butterflies.
One of the butterflies was not able to survive because the wings did not expand to dry properly so their wings did not develop the way they should have. We did a farewell to honour its life.
We read a picture book that celebrate Indigenous culture and traditions. Then we had an opportunity to write our own connections to the story.
This is taken from Amazon: The Governor General Award shares a story that honors our connections to our past and our grandfathers and fathers.
A boy and Moshom, his grandpa, take a trip together to visit a place of great meaning to Moshom. A trapline is where people hunt and live off the land, and it was where Moshom grew up. As they embark on their northern journey, the child repeatedly asks his grandfather, “Is this your trapline?” Along the way, the boy finds himself imagining what life was like two generations ago — a life that appears to be both different from and similar to his life now. This is a heartfelt story about memory, imagination and intergenerational connection that perfectly captures the experience of a young child’s wonder as he is introduced to places and stories that hold meaning for his family.
How to support at home: What were some of your stories of spending time with your grandfather or grandmother? Share some fond memories with your child.
“Fond” was one of our new words this week. Many didn’t know what the adjective meant so using this word in your vocabulary this week can help solidify their understanding of the word fond.
We are mathematicians.
This week, we learned about measurement and the relation between centimetres and millimetres. They learned how to convert a measurement from cm to mm.
Then we extended this by learning about perimeter and how to measure it. Please feel free to review perimeter with your child at home. We will continue this week and move into learning about area as well. You are welcome to look for videos on YouTube that can help your child review this new concept.
Word Work
For our work work last week, we practiced past tense and learned that with regular past tense verbs, they ALL end with “ed” even though they have the /d/, /id/, or /t/ sounds.
Wondering Wednesday
We joined Ms. Santorelli’s class and Ms. Tai’s class on our shape search walk. They had so much fun looking and tallying all sorts of shapes in our environment.
This upcoming week
We have Sports Day on Friday! We will be telling students more about what to expect this week. There will be an early dismissal at 12:30 pm. Students on the hot lunch program will receive their hot lunch on this day. Your child is welcome to bring a lunch as well or eat at home after sports day is over. Families are welcome to attend and cheer students on!
Thank you so much for your continued support at home. You are an essential part of our learning and we appreciate you!
I am the luckiest teacher ever to get to work with your children! Every week seems like a busy week full of learning but that’s not the best part. The best part is that we get to do it TOGETHER! What a blessing and pure joy to spend my time with them! Of course, you already know how much joy your children bring. I am always so grateful for their love, joy, and the fun we have as a classroom community.
Habit #5: Seek first to understand. Then to be understood. The lesson this time was about the importance of listening. Take a look at the image for the I statements, in particular: “I don’t interrupt whenever someone is talking.”
This has been an area that needs improvement so one thing we have been working on is being more patient by not interrupting my teaching or conversations. For example, when I am in the middle of a conversation with another adult or classmate. If you experience this at home, please remind them to be patient and to wait their turn to speak. We are working on doing this independently without reminders. Thank you!
The other thing we have been working on is responsibility for our belongings by picking up after themselves. We have many people who are willing to help clean up our classroom but if everyone did their part to begin with, there would be less to tidy up. Any opportunities at home to independently pick up after themselves will be great practice. Thank you!
Jump Rope for Heart
We started the week with Jump Rope for Heart. There is still time to donate. Please click here to learn more. Thank you if you choose to donate.
Thanks to our organizing committee, students had an opportunity to try six different stations with their big buddies and Ms. Allocca’s class. They had so much fun and were sweaty when it was all done!
We are mathematicians.
We continued to solidify our understanding of division and as it relates to multiplication. Further learning this week had us practicing the concept that we can do division by subtraction. After the lesson, we almost always practice the new concept with a partner first. Here it gives them an opportunity to practice their core competencies of communication and collaboration skills. I appreciate how quickly they set themselves up, how well they work together, and how engaged they ALL were in their learning! So proud of them!
It is also a fantastic opportunity for children who don’t know each other well yet or have had differences to learn together. This was what happened last week. A partnership between two people who had preconceived notions about each other ended up asking if they can be partners again in the future. This warmed my heart. This is one of many reasons why we explore new concepts together and with partners chosen randomly. Students have an opportunity to develop relationships and learn with others while developing their personal identities and social competencies.
How to support at home: Please review this video and ask your child to explain this concept to you. When learners can teach you, they demonstrate proficient understanding.
We were also introduced to measurement (mm and cm) and measured things around the room.
How to support at home: Take out a ruler and have fun measuring things around the home! Have your child estimate the length and then measure the items.
We are scientists.
Each week, we continue to check on the growing chum salmon in the library. This past week, we were blessed and grateful to have Ms. Reid give us a lesson on the life cycle of the salmon and to answer our many questions! I really enjoyed how curious they were by asking so many interesting questions.
They went from the egg to alevin to fry stage which is the current stage they will stay in at Kitchener until they are released in a few weeks.
The book We Are a Community was a great way to mesh science with Social Studies and learn more vocabulary about landforms and water sources. Here is an excerpt from Strong Nations website:
This book is about a river. Most rivers start high up in the mountains. As the water comes downhill, it makes little pathways in the rocks and gravel. As the pathways get bigger, they join to make streams. When several streams join, they make a river. Some rivers have waterfalls and deep pools. In some places, fast moving water tumbles over rocks forming rapids. When a river leaves the mountain for flatter ground it starts to slow down. Eventually, a river ends when it flows into the sea. Where the fresh water and the salt water meet is an estuary.
The area in and around an estuary is a good place for plants, animals and people to live because we can all find food and water there. The salmon is an important food for many of us.
People have paid attention to the life cycle of salmon for thousands of years. We have learned that sometimes we can help salmon survive by building a salmon hatchery along a river. Some hatcheries are huge while others are quite small.
There are many sizes of rivers in the world. Some are wide. Some are narrow. Some are deep. Some are shallow.
We are readers, listeners, and writers.
We read a story called A Simon for Salmon about a boy who saves a salmon by helping it get free.
If you would like to listen to the story with your child, click here.
We reviewed the three different ways we can make connections to the stories we read: text to self (a personal connection or something that reminds them of a personal experience), text to text (something that reminds them of another book or movie), and text to world (a connection that reminds them of something that happened in the world).
The Two Sisters is another book we read that is a story about the twin mountain peaks we see to the west of our school. We actually have quite a beautiful view of it from our classroom. Here is a synopsis from Amazon:
For the first time, Pauline Johnson’s “The Two Sisters,” a First Nations legend, is accompanied by sumptuous illustrations that showcase the splendour of the Salish Sea. The universal themes of Creation, courage, and peace run through this legend of two little girls who grow up to be courageous young women who help to bring lasting peace to their world. The story is supplemented by a reference section that will enable a reader, parent, teacher, or visitor to the coast to immerse themselves in the rich history of Coast Salish cultures.
The last few weeks, we have enjoyed our time with big buddies at Willingdon Park. This past week because of the rain, we visited their classroom. After helping them with their entrepreneur project, we played two games of Kahoot! We reviewed questions that tested our understanding of various life cycles and practiced multiplication with arrays. They have SO much fun playing as a team against each other!
Vancouver Aquarium Field Trip
So far, we have more than enough parent volunteers to help supervise. We are so grateful to those who have offered to spend the day with us! We can only take four parents on our trip because of our field trip funds and the number of free chaperones based on the number of students we have. If you have your own membership, please let me know. I know that some of you will need to take time off work so if you indicated you can volunteer but would like to change your mind knowing that we have more than enough adult supervisors, please let me know. Thank you!
Prior to our visit, we will be learning about some of the sea creatures we will see. This week, we started with learning about the sea otter. They really enjoyed viewing the live cam! Click here to watch them live!
Enjoy the long weekend! I am excited for our Pro-D day on Monday! One of the greatest joys this year was working alongside fellow colleagues like Ms. Hardie, Ms. Forbes, Ms. Chung, and Mr. Hunter on the Pro-D Committee to plan our learning days. We have worked hard this year in moving the school forward in terms of our two school goals of social emotional learning and reading comprehension. I love collaborating with others, using creativity, and connecting to improve the learning that happens at Kitchener!
We continue to have fun so time is flying by way too fast! It’s hard to believe it’s May this week! I am deeply grateful for your continued support at home. I love and appreciate you all!
Dates to add to your calendar
Monday, April 29 – Pro-D Day; students do not attend
Skating on Monday was SO much fun! I felt so proud of the improvements in just two sessions. Thank you again to our parent volunteer drivers for your generosity of time. We appreciate you!
Hip Hop
This upcoming week, Hip Hop returns! Please have your child dress in comfortable clothing and shoes that will help them be more successful in dancing freely. We have Hip Hop lessons every day from Monday to Thursday. Once we find out what our theme colours are, I will let you know so they can wear those colours for our performances. Our dress rehearsal will be on Monday, March 11 in the morning and the final performance for families to enjoy after recess. All are welcome to attend that performance!
We are mathematicians.
We went back to review subtraction to check for understanding and also learned about compensating. This is when you adjust one number by adding to it to simplify the subtraction process. It is to make the equation easier to mentally compute. When you look at the example in the picture, you can see that it is easier to subtract 10 than 9.
How to support at home: Watch the YouTube video on Compensation together. Then give your child some questions to practice to ensure they have a solid understanding.
Continue to have your child practice addition and subtraction facts to increase fluency and accuracy to work towards memorization of all facts. The time they invest in memorizing will surely make a difference in their intermediate grades. This goes a long way in helping them feel successful when learning about computations (addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division). Thank you for your time!
We are artists.
From Ms. Kapusta:
This week, students reflected on their creative process in art this term. We successfully completed many different kinds of art this term, including: paper snowflakes, paper chains, 3D snowflakes, penguins, a communal winter scene, New Year’s Resolution tape art, Lunar New Year dragon drawings, wax crayon painted hearts, and heart weavings!
Students used their reflective thinking skills and shared what they thought they did well and why (their strengths), and what they would do differently next time (their stretches).
Using our new weaving skills, we also began weaving on some mini spring-themed paper weaving looms, which we will finish next week.
How to support at home: Ask your child about what they learned so far from the book. Also, if your school experience is different from here in Canada, have a conversation about similarities and differences.
Pink Shirt Day
Pink Shirt Day was on Wednesday, February 28. As we learned the history about how it began and why we acknowledge the day, we emphasized the values of kindness and compassion, acceptance, and belonging. While these ideas are crucial as a foundation to our conversation about the day, we deepened the discussion to include homophobic bullying, which is the specific reason for commemorating the day.
At the February Celebration of Learning, we enjoyed presentations about Black History Month by the grade 6/7s in our buddy class (Mr. Kenney), listened to poems about friendship, and listened to a book called My Shadow is Purple by Scott Stuart, to name a few. There were many powerful performances with a clear message to have the courage to celebrate the shine in us.
Primary Days of Music
This is a longstanding Burnaby School District tradition where all grade 2 and 3 students at participating schools will gather with other schools to sing together and perform two songs. Thank you to Mr. Turpin, students will be performing on Thursday, March 14.
How to support at home: Play these songs and have your child practice singing plus the actions. Here are YouTube links for EACH of the songs:
Report cards will be available on Wednesday, April 3. Just like in Term One, you will not be receiving a paper copy. Instead, you will be given access to view and save as a PDF from the MyEd BC website. If you need your password reset, please go to our school website to request for a password reset or click here.
Mark your calendars
Monday, March 4 to 8 – Hip Hop lessons
Monday, March 11 – Whole school performance (AM)
Thursday, March 14 – Primary Days of Music for all grade 2/3s at Kitchener
Monday, March 18 to Monday, April 1 – Spring break, school closure, and Easter Monday
Thursday, April 11 – Student Led Conferences from 3 to 6 PM (Families are invited to celebrate learning. Your child will lead the conversation and show you what they’ve learned so far.)
Friday, April 12 – Early dismissal at 2 PM
Monday, April 29 – Pro-D day. No school for students.
Friday, May 10 – We will be going to the Vancouver Aquarium by school bus with Ms. Santorelli and Ms. Tai’s classes. We will need parent volunteers to help supervise. Thank you!
Friday, May 17 – Sports Day and early dismissal during lunch
We are grateful for your continued support at home.
