Category: Field Trips

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,

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