Category: Indigenous Education

Dear Division 6 parents,

We had a productive week with lots of learning and connection! Your child’s personal information sheet (from the office) went home on Friday. Please review and return as soon as possible. Thank you!

Almost all students are arriving at school on time. Thank you for respecting our start time of arriving before our first bell at 8:50am. We appreciate it!

CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE VIDEO UPDATE

Here are some updates from Mrs. Paulich on the subjects she teaches:

Social Studies

We spent much of September getting ready for the year, organizing our binders, and developing a growth mindset. Each student created their own motto to turn to when they need that extra push and support. We spent time discussing and reflecting on Truth and Reconciliation and what that means to Indigenous and Non Indigenous Canadians. Most recently, we have been digging deep into our roots and origins with a look at Canadian Immigration.

Physical and Health Education

Students have most recently begun developing their Volleyball skills.

French

We have been looking at simple conversation and greetings.  Students are encouraged to practice this simple conversation at home!

We are writers.

This week we dove further into paragraph writing. We learned about opening and closing sentences along with adding details, reasons, and explanations that include our thoughts and feelings too. They were introduced to a single-point rubric for personal writing. This helps them truly see what areas they need to improve, where they are proficient, and strong aspects of their writing (which are strengths and they should keep doing these things!).

Grade 4 – click image to view PDF

Grade 5 – click image to view PDF

We are mathematicians (Grade 5).

I am SO enjoying teaching math this year! They keep me hopping but it’s so much fun teaching math! I was very happy with how they did on their pre-tests because of how proficient they showed themselves to be. I am so very proud of how hard they are working and learning.

This week, we continued to learn about expanded notation and counting up and down by 10s, 100, 1000, and 10 000. HOMEWORK: Finish page 43 & 44. Review Pre-test and worksheets. Test on Monday, October 18. It will look similar to the pre-test. Continue to practice Math facts +1 -1 +2 -2 strategies.

We practiced our math addition facts and comparing numbers by practicing on a new website: 99Math. They absolutely LOVED it! They are enjoying Math Tappers: Finding Sums too. If you have an iPad, please download this FREE app and have your child practice regularly to improve speed and accuracy. We started a tracking sheet this week. You can do the same at home. Thank you!

Career Education

One of the things I really believe in is that every child can develop leadership skills. On Friday, there were a few examples of how people stepped up on their own volition to demonstrate caring behaviours toward others and our classroom. Feel free to ask your child how they have contributed positively to our classroom community and space.

This week, we came back to the book written by Steven Covey: The 7 Habits of Happy Kids (same author as The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People which some of you may know). The lesson focused on planning and setting goals. Here are the first two habits covered so far:

1. Be Proactive – take initiative
2. Begin with the End in Mind – focus on goals

They wrote three goals plus small action steps and chose one to record in their planner for next week. Please have a conversation about the goals they set and in particular, the one they chose to record in their planner. Next week, ask them to reflect daily on their goals.

I love the image I showed them. It’s about making seemingly small steps that amount to a big change over time! They can get 1% better every day! We are building healthy and effective habits.

Click here to learn more about the 7 habits we will be learning about.

Personal Information Test

Thank you for taking the time to help your child study. We had 6 students get all of their information correct! Please continue to have your child memorize their O365 email address (login) and password. We will start using the laptops next week! The true test will be whether they can successfully log in.

As for memorizing their address and your cell numbers for safety reasons, we will leave that for you to decide the importance of keeping that by memory. Students will not be tested on this again in class.

Passion Projects

After having three opportunities to share what topic they chose as they went milling to music (ask them what that is!), they had an opportunity to share their 30 second elevator pitch about what they want to learn about. If you are not sure, please ask them what topic they decided. Hopefully it’s something you would LOVE to see them explore too!

Masks – Please have your child keep an extra mask in their backpack plus wear one to school. Thank you!

We appreciate your continued support at home!

Gratefully, Ms. Chan and Mrs. Paulich

Dear Div. 6 families,

Wow, has it already been 3 weeks? I thoroughly enjoyed my full days with them on Wednesday and Friday. Being with them brings me such joy!

CLICK HERE to watch the video recap about our week!

This week we learned more about Truth and Reconciliation by reading a book and watching a video. We had deep conversations about residential schools too.

We also learned about Terry Fox and had a fabulous sunny afternoon for the run. Click here to make a donation. To learn more, click here.

Gr. 5 Math

We started the week by sharing how they feel about math. I was thrilled to see so many of them have positive attitudes and quite enjoy math! Math is one of my favourite things to teach because it is so much fun! I will have a series of math videos teaching you and your child some activities you can do at home to practice math facts, strategies, and various concepts. I recognize it does take time to practice and memorize them but learning them makes ALL calculations quicker with greater accuracy in their years ahead even into high school. It’s worth the time spent so your child isn’t struggling with newer concepts AND calculating facts at the same time.

We learn through play. Click here to visit our Mathematicians Play page. The strategy we learned this week:

• +1 and -1 strategy (click to watch video) – Take a piece of paper. Write numbers 1-20 randomly on the page. Point to different random numbers and say the answer out loud. Example: Point to 15. Think 15 + 1. Say 16. Repeat and watch them become quicker and quicker! Make it fun! Take turns or do it together!

If your child builds a habit of practicing 2-5 minutes every day, imagine how much quicker they can add, subtract, multiply, and divide by the end of the year! We are working on speed and accuracy for automaticity!

Looking Ahead

We will begin learning research skills with Mrs. Papapanagiotou, our Teacher-Librarian, on Mondays and Wednesdays. We will learn how to become a more effective researcher, about plagiarism, and how to cite resources properly.

We will begin to talk about Passion Projects this week. Excited to start thinking about possibilities! Feel free to start talking about possibilities at home too!

Reminders

Masks – Please pack an extra 1-2 masks in your child’s backpack. Thank you.

Planners – Please help your child take ownership and build independence by bringing their planner to school every day. Tip: Have all materials packed in backpack the night before.

Snacks & Lunch – Please send enough food to keep your child nourished throughout the day. Especially with warmer weather outside, they are more active and get hungry in the afternoon. We prefer they bring healthier choices to school. Thank you.

Thank you for your continued support at home. We appreciate you for being our partners!

Sincerely, Ms. Chan and Mrs. Paulich

Dear Division 6 families,

What a wonderful week of learning! Students have been investigating whether chocolate is a natural resource. Yes, you read it correctly chocolate! Students began their inquiry with background knowledge and understanding the importance of referencing and citations when researching. We took a closer look at cocoa beans as a natural resource. Students participated in guided group work that investigated how the production of cocoa beans contributed to the economy. Students learned about working conditions in first and third world countries, fair trade, and direct trade. They particularly enjoyed their taste testing homework. Completion of this activity allowed them to participate in an interactive zoom call with the owner of Truffle Pig. This was such a powerful activity that had students asking thoughtful questions. Over the past few weeks with the support of Mrs. Papapanagioutou and myself, the inquiry process led them to the question: What are the pros and cons of cocoa beans as a natural resource? I am so proud of the research that has taken place thus far and there is more to come! Next, we look at how media is connected to our findings. – Mrs. Paulich

To echo Mrs. Paulich, it has been a great week of learning! I feel like I say this every week but as I reflect at the end of every week, I can’t help but feel proud of their accomplishments and learning!

This week, we had a deep conversation about the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc Kamloops Indian Band Residential School where they detected the remains of 215 children. We also read the book Race Cars. From Amazon:

Race Cars is a children’s book about white privilege created to help parents and educators facilitate tough conversations about race, privilege, and oppression.

Written by a clinical social worker and child therapist with experience in anti-bias training and edited by a diversity expert, Race Cars tells the story of 2 best friends, a white car and a black car, that have different experiences and face different rules while entering the same race.

Students then had an opportunity to do a free-write to unpack their thoughts and feelings about the news. Journalling is a great form of writing to sort through emotions and events that are hard for us to understand.

Speeches

This week, we continued working on our speeches. Click here for the single-point rubric we have been using all year for personal writing. The lessons and tips to help improve our writing:

• One thing I noticed was that some students started to write one very long paragraph with many different ideas. Instead, break down ideas into separate paragraphs. One paragraph = one idea to dive into. Then dive into “magnifying glass” writing where you lean into the details by adding reasons, explanations, and examples. Here, you may also include a story. See next tip.
• Tell your story: It’s important to add personal stories to help your audience make connections. Add stories that evoke emotions or helps them understand your point better.
• Your opening sentence should introduce the audience to the topic of the paragraph. End your paragraph by restating your opening sentence. We will dive further into closing sentences next week.
• Know your central theme. Aim for paragraphs to point back to your central theme. It’s like a flagpole or target that you want to make sure you’re always headed towards. Your paragraphs should help your audience better understand your main author’s message.
• To spark your audience to think. Feel free to insert a question here and there to inspire critical thinking or reflection but don’t overuse it!
• Every time you sit down to write again, re-read everything you wrote first before you continue writing. This refreshes your memory as to what you already wrote. Read it over for different purposes. They were reminded of DYRIO (click image to view PDF):

As you support your child at home with their speeches, please review these tips. At any point, should you have any questions, please email me! I am happy to help!

Speeches are to be a minimum of 3 minutes and a maximum of 5 minutes. Next week, we will co-construct our criteria that will be specific to the delivery of these speeches. It will be similar to but not exactly the same as the single point rubric for our Passion Projects.

Passion Project presentations

We celebrated many things this week during our Passion Projects! Oscar and Kingston collaboratively presented on the video game named Battle Cats and Quinson talked about the history of video games. Both created a Kahoot game that all enjoyed! Vienna worked hard on her presentation about Italy. Gabriella and Iman came all the way from Australia to teach us about Quokkas; they had a creative idea to have me introduce them as experts from Australia and had the kids play a quiz game as review of the facts. Olivia H. enthusiastically shared How to Read the Body Language of a Dog. Maya presented an informative on Snow Leopards. Dante shared so many facts about Minecraft.

NOTE: All presenters brought home their single-point rubric assessments. Please sign and return to school. Thank you!

Oscar’s book was officially released! It is titled Fate’s Mirage, The Ultra Blade. Oscar has worked on his story since the beginning of the year. Great tenacity and perseverance. He wrote a five chapter story that classmates excitedly took turns reading to the class! I am so grateful to Oscar and his mom, Jen, who made a copy for me to keep and included me in his Acknowledgements, thank you! One thing I complimented him on what his ability to effectively use dialogue to move the story along and help us get to know the characters better. Oscar had a great blend of dialogue between characters and then a paragraph that explained what was happening. He did this throughout the story so I wanted to point out the effectiveness of this. Then Oscar shared that this was something his mom taught him! Jen is a talented writer who has published many of her own books so I thought it was so cool that we were learning how to become better writers through Oscar’s work with the support of his mom. Thank you, Jen!

Speaking of Passion Projects, one of my passion projects is writing just like Oscar and his mom! I am now a contributing author to a book called 100 No-Nonsense Things that Teachers Should STOP Doing. It was released three weeks ago. I wrote a chapter called Stop Boredom at All Costs and had the great privilege to talk about it on the Pushing Boundaries podcast. This is the second time my writing has been featured in a book. I am currently working on writing my own book with a couple of principals in the US. We signed a book contract a few months ago! It’ll be my summer passion project!

Mathematicians

This past week, students finished their patterns book using Book Creator, an app on the iPad. They had fun testing out whether they wrote their pattern description correctly. They had to describe it to a partner using only words to see if their partner can replicate it without seeing the pattern. Next week, we will begin learning about quadrilaterals.

Anyone who still needs extra review and explanations about long division, please reach out. I am happy to set up a Zoom call to work with your child.

Self-assessment for the year

Students were assigned a self-assessment to complete in Teams. If your child did not finish, it was assigned for homework to be completed this weekend. Sorry, it was not recorded in their planners. Please remind them to work on it. Thank you!

We are always so grateful for your continued support at home. We are nearing the end but not slowing down. As I preach to the kids often, I equate the end of work time and learning time to the same feelings as the end of a marathon. While I’ve never run one, I can imagine how exhausted people may feel or at least how I would feel! It is in these moments that I push them outside of their comfort zone to challenge themselves to push on and to finish off strong. We will continue to do that until the end.

Gratefully, Ms. Chan and Mrs. Paulich

Dear Parents,

Wow, what a fast two weeks! A lot has happened! Click here to watch the video update. No time to watch? Feel free to read our summary here.

This was two weeks ago but on Monday, September 21, we had a great turnout at our Meet Ms. Chan over Zoom. Thank you so very much for being there. I felt so blessed and honoured to meet so many of you! Then on September 23 and 24, we had the privilege to connect for our Meet the Teacher Conferences. Your sharing and insight are invaluable to us!

We continued to build our community and relationships through our Community Circle time. One day, we played Car & Driver. This activity helped us experience trust. Trust in each other. We talked about how trust is generally and generously given until there’s a reason to take it back. Our goal is to live our lives with integrity so that there is no reason for others not to trust you. This goes back to our three essential questions:

1. Will you do the right thing?
2. Will you do today’s best?
3. What will you do for others today?

If we regularly ask ourselves these questions, and reflect on our mindset, language, and actions, then we will be well on our way to being positive role models and good citizens of the world! We have been using these questions after our tasks and reviewing them before beginning our new related tasks. We have seen improvements already!

On October 1st during our Community Circle, we shared our September highlights. It was so heartwarming to hear that almost all of them shared how grateful they felt to be back in school with their friends, learning, and in our class! I so love how comfortable they feel to share!

For Reading, we learned about the Say Something strategy. It is important for readers to have opportunities to talk about what they are reading in order to develop deeper understanding of text, characters, and meaning, for example. This is why we spend time practicing our “Say Something” strategy. Here, they practice their communication skills – speaking and listening, as they dive deeper into the book like what adults do during Book Club talks. They also will practice critical thinking skills as the year progresses. Many students continue to enjoy reading books on Epic. If you need more information, please reach out!

Last week, we read the story A Walk in the Rain with a Brain and tried our hand at sketchnoting, which has become very popular in the past few years in education. Here, students record key words and draw images that help them remember. It was my first time sketchnoting too! This story was about the importance of discovering how our brains are different and that everyone is “smart”. We need to spend time to figure out how we are “smart” and not compare ourselves to others.

For Math, we have been doing Number Talks. Through doing these, we used our critical thinking skills to learn what digits are, what the commutative property is (2+3=5 and 3+2=5, 3×5=15 and 5×3=15), the all about digital roots! I have loved seeing critical thinking in action during these math times as we processed our new information! We will be moving into learning Place Value this week.

For Science, we started our Rock unit by recording what we think we know and what we wonder about rocks. For this inquiry-based unit, we will learn about and dive into what interests them most!

In the Computer Lab, students have learned a lot in a short time. In the last couple weeks, they learned how to write an email using proper etiquette, became familiar with Assignments in Teams, learned how to navigate their online Class Notebook (which looks like a binder with tabs), started their Digital Portfolios in PowerPoint, and started writing their stories. We finally have our Computer Lab times set. We have the lab booked on Tuesdays and Fridays.

Students had a chance to spend some time flushing out what their Passion Projects will be. They spent some time talking to different classmates about their ideas. The hope was that the more they talked about their plans, the more excited they would get! That’s how we can tell if we have found the right Passion Project for us!

Ms. Paulich did a cool art activity with them that shows what is Behind My Mask. They wrote words that described them.

Last week, we went on our Terry Fox Run in the neighbourhood. As a school, we decided to walk as a class to keep our cohorts safely together. We walked the route twice and everyone represented Gilmore well. It was such a beautiful day! I absolutely loved all of the social interactions I saw happening as we walked!

We also acknowledged Orange Shirt Day. In the past couple weeks, they learned about residential schools and the meaning behind this day with Mrs. Siu and Ms. Paulich.

We are looking forward to a fantastic October! Thank you for your continued support at home! As always, should you have any questions, please ask! We are here to support you and your child as we work as partners! We feel SO fortunate to be teaching your wonderful children. We have the best class family ever!!

Gratefully, Ms. Chan & Ms. Paulich