Category: Social Emotional Learning

Dear families,

It’s hard to believe we are in our last week of May!

We are mathematicians.

Students are progressing well with our division concepts! We continued to deepen their understanding of division by sharing and division by grouping through creating their own word problems. Ms. Kim had them create their own word problems including the solution. They really enjoyed using their creativity in math!

On Thursday and Friday, we learned how to divide by repeated subtraction. They learned that this is the opposite of repeated addition for multiplication. Here, they subtract the divisor until they can’t anymore. Then they count the number of times they subtracted for the quotient. Many found this strategy of dividing straightforward to understand so they quickly showed proficiency. Click here to watch a short video for review.

Ways to support at home: Reinforcing concepts learned at school is a great way to solidify learning especially if you ask your child to teach you. The process of teaching involves higher level thinking (analysis and synthesis) than to just do questions you give them as practice. This further develops  their brain through active retrieval which strengthens neural pathways, improves communication skills, opportunities to monitor their own understanding, and increased confidence.

We are creative.

We read a story called A Squiggly Story by Andrew Larson. After the story, students were given the choice to write their own or to continue the story from the end of this story where the boy leaves on a rocket ship with an alien.

We practiced being creative by using squiggles to help us be more creative. Ms. Chan modelled some creative thinking strategies by creating her own story on the board. One tip: use the phrase “All of a sudden” or “suddenly”. This creates an unexpected turn in the story and increases your audience’s attention.

Another goal of this writing exercise was to develop our writing fluency. This is how quickly we can get our thoughts onto a page. They were challenged to write as quickly as they can. After a solid 20 minutes, we counted up our words. We saw so many really push themselves!

Unleashing Imagination: Why “What If…” Poems Matter!

Our classroom buzzed with imagination this week as students dove into writing their own “What If…” poems. It was more than just a writing exercise; it was a deliberate push to spark their incredible creativity.

You might think creativity is something you’re born with, but the truth is, creativity can absolutely be taught and developed! It’s one of our core competencies too! I was an Odyssey of the Mind coach for five years and saw our team grow immensely in their creative thinking and problem solving skills.

Creative thinking is a fundamental way of thinking and approaching challenges that empowers children to come up with diverse solutions and consider different perspectives. When we encourage this kind of imaginative thinking, we’re not just fostering artistic expression; we’re building essential skills that will serve them well in all aspects of life to think flexibly and inventively.

Ways to support at home: Have fun co-creating your own “What If…” poems! See how creative you can be with your child! Here’s a challenge: Write one with your child or as a family. Have your child bring your family poem to school to share next week! We would love to see your creativity run wild!

Learning about perspectives

We had a discussion about the picture on the left, exploring how both interpretations can be correct—even if they’re different. It’s all about point of view and understanding another person’s perspective.

We then read They All Saw a Cat by Brendan Wenzel, a book that beautifully illustrates how various animals perceive the same cat in very different ways. For example, the way a fox sees the cat is completely different from how a mouse sees it.

Inspired by the book, we created our own “cat perspective” art. Students illustrated the cat from two different viewpoints, thinking carefully about how perception can change based on who is looking.

Our students have been working very hard, and they’re excited to share their artwork with everyone soon!

We are athletes.

Tennis lessons continued last week. This week will be their final sessions.

Passion Projects

Students are moving along with their Passion Projects. We reviewed the single-point rubric that we will use to assess. Click on the image or click here to view the PDF.

They are learning to analyze and synthesize the information they find on websites and decide how to present these facts on their slides.

They are becoming more proficient with inserting images and text boxes.

We love how excited they get when we pull out the laptops! We enjoy seeing how hard they work on learning and developing their ideas in a digital form. Here are some of this important skills they are developing:

• reading, researching, and information gathering to develop curiosity and independently seeking knowledge (Core competency: Thinking skills)
• organization and planning – students must decide on the information they want to share (synthesize), what information goes together, and how to organize the information like one idea per slide for clarity
• communication skills – writing skills to paraphrase in their own words, making it easy to understand, and being concise by using bullet points
• digital literacy and technology skills – navigating between website and PowerPoint project, inserting text, adding images, and resizing fonts, for example.

Save the Dates

• Thur. May 29 at 1:30pm – Volunteer Tea in the gym
• Fri. May 30 at 2:00pm – Early dismissal
• Fri. May 30 at 2:00pm – $2 Ice cream sandwich and $1 freezie sale. Click here to learn more. Cash only in the undercover area where we usually line up.
• Mon. June 2 – All library books are due
• Fri. June 6 – Pro-D day; school not in session
• Wed. June 18 – Book swap
• Thur. June 19 at 9:15am (all day) – Burnaby Public Library visit & Confederation Park travelling by public transit.
• Wed. June 25 –Last full day of school
• Thur. June 26 – Early dismissal at 10am

Our hearts are full of appreciation for your continued support.

Gratefully, Ms. Kim and Ms. Chan

Dear families,

As we said good-bye to Mr. Evoy, there were mixed emotions of celebrating a successful practicum of teaching and learning together for all of us and knowing we will miss his warm and kind presence. It wasn’t just students who learned from him but both Ms. Kim and I learned about our own philosophy and practices affirming why we do what we do as we supported Mr. Evoy so it makes us better teachers in the process too!

We are so grateful for Mr. Evoy’s dedication, hard work, and connection with us. We wish him continued success in his teaching journey! We hope to see him back as a Teacher on Call at Kitchener!

I, Ms. Chan, thoroughly enjoyed being back in the classroom on Thursday and Friday. What a blessing to spend time with your beautiful children. I am so grateful! It truly is incredible how much learning happens in one day, let alone a week, a month, and a year!

Student Led Conferences

We are grateful for your time to listen attentively to your child show you their learning across the curriculum. Thank you for being active participants and big supporters of their learning all year! We hope you enjoyed celebrating their successes. They worked so hard to prepare for these conferences and have continued to work hard since September. We are so proud of them and their perseverance!

If you haven’t done so yet, please fill out the Two Stars and a Wish sheet and return it to school tomorrow, thank you!

We are mathematicians.

Over the weekend, students were encouraged to teach you about division as we enjoyed our first lesson on Friday. If they haven’t yet, ask them to share what they learned. Pull out some candy, chocolates, or cookies with plates for each person in your family. Ask them to divide by sharing to practice what they learned. Reinforcing new concepts helps to solidify learning and builds a strong initial foundation for learning division.

Here’s what we learned so you can support at home:

Each lesson, it is important for us to post our learning intention so it is clear what they are to learn by the end of the lesson.

Two of the big curricular competencies for math is to communicate mathematical thinking in many ways and to represent ideas in concrete, pictorial, and symbolic forms.

The learning intention for our first lesson in division: I can understand equal groups in division. This concept involved the idea of sharing.

We had plates with our fake gummy bears and went, “one for you, one for you, and one for you” until they were all passed out equally among everyone holding a plate. They enjoyed the real life examples to experience the why and how of division. Then students were given questions to try with partners.

This learning through “play” is one of the most impactful ways for children to learn through discovery. It is one of our favourite types of hands-on and engaging learning where students learn together and practice communicating mathematical thinking with each other. Opportunities like these also help them develop their core competencies of communication, collaboration, critical thinking, and social awareness and responsibility. This also aligns with Indigenous ways of learning by de-centering the room with less teacher time talking and more student time exploring the new concepts.

Passion Projects

On Friday, we started talking about Passion Projects. We watched this video by John Spencer that introduced them to what it is although he calls it Genius Hour.

So I asked them to finish this sentence:

I have always wanted to learn more about…

We are at the beginning stages. During this week, please have a conversation about what they would love to learn more about.

Think about what you would really like to spend your time learning about. It should be a topic big enough that you can spend about six weeks on it. Here are some ideas and it’s okay to come up with their own:  

• Learn a new language
• Learn how to  do something  
  • Make a stop motion movie 
  • Photography  
  • Knitting/sewing  
• Learn about something  
  • Architecture  
  • A country or culture – design your dream trip!  
  • The Science of flight  
  • An animal or creature
• Learn about your family history 
• Learn about someone: an artist, athlete, scientist, activist, author , singer

What do you care about in this world? What can you do about “fixing” an existing problem? Think of something you can do that will make this world a better place.  

Next, we will begin to narrow it down . The idea is that they will become an expert and teach the class what they learned.

ADST

Students were introduced to PowerPoint. They learned how to create a new document, rename it, add a new title to the first slide, add an image, choose a design idea, and add a new slide.

How to support at home: Have your child login to O365, open their new PowerPoint project and add more slides. This was good practice to create slides and images. This was to prepare them for learning how to develop presentation slides for their Passion Projects. They loved it and were so excited!

Spring Concert

Our class along with our buddy class look and sound great! We are so excited for you to see them perform on Wednesday!

• Wed. May 7 @ 1:30pm – Afternoon dress rehearsal
  • Have your child wear yellow, orange, or brown tops and black or dark bottoms
• Wed. May 7 @ 6:00pm
  • Have your child wear yellow, orange, or brown tops and black or dark bottoms
  • Bring your child to the Annex, Room A6 (at the far north side of the Annex)
  • Doors to the gym open at 6pm
  • PAC will have cash only concession
• Wed. May 7 @ 6:30pm – Evening performance; bring your tickets!
  • Pick up your child at the end of the performance in the Annex, Room A6

Save the Dates

• Fri. May 16 – Sports Day; early dismissal at 12:30pm
  • Students will be travelling from station to station with our buddy class. They will be divided into 6 teams. More information to come.
• Mon. May 12 – Whole school tennis lessons begin
• Mon. May 19 – Victoria Day; school is closed
• Thur. May 22 – Community Dinner at 6:00pm
  • Everyone is welcome! Bring a dish to share.
• Fri. May 30 – Early dismissal at 2:00pm

We are so grateful for your time and support. It is hard to believe we have less than two months to enjoy each other’s company as we continue to learn together. Rest assured, we will continue to empower your child to develop their identity, be affirmed in their strengths, and grow in their stretch zone as we support them in the process. Can’t wait to continue to share our learning with you! Thank you for your time to read our blog posts!

As always, please reach out should you have any questions, concerns, or would like to share successes.

With hearts full of gratitude,

Ms. Chan and Ms. Kim

Dear Division 11 Families,

We hope you are having a wonderful weekend!

We had an amazing time on our field trip to Britannia Mine Museum. Thank you again to our parent drivers for making this trip possible! We’ve created a folder with photos from the field trip, which will be shared with you via email soon.

Here’s a glimpse into the fun learning that has been happening in class over the past week:

Science


This week, our class went on an exciting field trip to Britannia Mine! We learned all about the history of mining and how it has impacted local communities over the years. Students got to wear hard hats and ride an underground train, giving them a real sense of what it was like to work in the mines. They also saw live demonstrations of old mining equipment, which brought the experience to life. Inside the museum, we explored interactive exhibits that showed how minerals are extracted and processed. One of the biggest highlights was gold panning—students had so much fun searching for minerals and were thrilled to take home their discoveries. We left with a deeper understanding of Earth science and the effects of human activity on our environment.

The Smart Cookie

Among the many books we read this week, we reflected on The Smart Cookie by Jory John. This heartwarming story explores themes of self-awareness, growth, and confidence. As a class, we discussed how being “smart”   can mean different things to different people, and that intelligence comes in many forms. Students shared what makes them feel smart and created “I am smart because…” statements to celebrate their personal strengths. This activity not only helped students recognize their own unique abilities but also strengthened our classroom community by highlighting the diverse ways we all shine as “smart cookies.”

Here’s a link to the book: The Smart Cookie.

Language Arts

In Language Arts, we focused on building the structure of our stories and learning key writing techniques. Students began typing their first drafts, organizing their ideas into clear sections and creating a solid layout to support the editing process. A big focus this week was writing strong introductions that hook the reader and draw them into the story. This stage of the writing process gave students the opportunity to strengthen their work before moving on to peer feedback and revisions.

Math


This week in Math, we began learning about multiplication! Students explored the concept as “repeated addition” and “equal groups of” through games, real-world examples, and hands-on activities. One of the highlights was a new game called Circles and Stars, which helped reinforce the idea of equal groups in a fun and visual way.

Feel free to try playing this game at home to support your child’s learning—we’ve included a link here to show how Circles and Stars is played.

Happening This Week:

• April 8th – Science Workshop
  This workshop will take place in our classroom from 9:00–10:00 a.m. Please help your child arrive on time so we can begin smoothly. For this activity, we are looking for 2L plastic bottles. If you have any at home, we would greatly appreciate you sending them in for us to use!
• April 9th – Honeybee Workshop
  This workshop will be held in the gym from 2:00–3:00 p.m. Students will be dismissed from the gym afterward. Thank you, families, for sending in your forms!

We are always so appreciative of your support. Have a relaxing evening!

Warm regards,
Jake, Cailyn, and Livia

Dear Division 11 Families,

We hope you had a wonderful weekend! It’s hard to believe we’re already nearing the end of Term 2 and that this is the last week before Spring Break. It feels like we just met the students, but as they say, time flies when you’re having fun!

Vancouver Warriors
Our class had an incredible opportunity to learn from the pros; the Vancouver Warriors came to our school! We participated in a session where we learned about the history and fundamentals of lacrosse. Students learned the basics of passing, catching, and shooting, while also gaining insight into the sport’s connection to Indigenous history and culture.

Kindness Rocks!
This week, our class took part in a simple but meaningful project; Kindness Rocks! Each student painted a rock with inspiring words and creative designs. We talked about how small acts of kindness can make a big difference, whether it’s a kind word, a smile, or even a painted rock left for someone to find!

Science 
Exploring Ecosystems: Everything is Connected!
This week in science, we learned how everything in an ecosystem is connected! We explored what organisms look like, where they live, and the roles they play. We had the opportunity to observe them up close.

Language Arts

Our students worked on the introductions of their stories. We explored what makes an introduction engaging and focused on three key techniques:

• Sparking curiosity to make readers want to keep reading.
• Creating a vivid picture in the reader’s mind.
• Evoking emotions by incorporating sensory details.

After learning about these techniques, students applied them to their own writing. They also dedicated a day to editing and refining their introductions.

Math

We are wrapping up our unit on addition and subtraction. As a class, we reviewed the three strategies together before going on a scavenger hunt around the classroom to find math problems. Students had to solve each addition or subtraction question using a specific strategy based on the color of the paper. For example, if the problem was on pink paper, they used the compensation strategy.

To conclude, we reflected on which strategies they preferred. Many students chose multiple strategies, demonstrating their flexible thinking and problem-solving skills!

Social Studies

Our students participated in an invention scavenger hunt! Working with a partner, they read about different inventions and identified the need each invention addressed. They were excited to recognize some familiar inventions and discover new ones they had never heard of before.

Primary Days of Music Field Trip – This Thursday!

Thank you for submitting your forms!

Families, we are so grateful for your support! Thank you for being a part of our learning journey.

Warm regards,

Cailyn, Livia, and Jake