Category: Core Competencies

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,

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.

I started reading a book written by Adam Grant called Hidden Potential: The Science of Achieving Greater Things. It was published a month ago and has already received a lot of attention. Here’s a quote that so resonates with me:

“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: 

Living things have life cycles adapted to their environment (Gr. 2) 

Living things are diverse, can be grouped, and interact in their ecosystems (Gr. 3) 

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:

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:

Winter Sleigh Ride 

Hot Chocolate 

EPIC at home

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!

With much joy and gratitude in my heart, 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