We are artists. – Ms. Chan's Class Blog
 

Category: We are artists.

Dear Division 11 Families,

February is the Month of Love!

Remarkably You: Miller, Pat Zietlow, Barton, Patrice: 9780062427588: Books  - Amazon.ca

We are launching our Month of Love, starting with “Love Myself.” We read Remarkably You by Pat Zietlow Miller, encouraging our students to embrace what makes them unique and special.

 

Next, we brainstormed messages to write on paper candy hearts—messages students wanted to send to themselves.

 

For our art project, we designed our hearts with a base layer of oil pastels, followed by a layer of wet acrylic paint. Then, using sharp pencil crayons, students scratched their messages onto each heart. Our classroom wall is now filled with these heartfelt reminders, reinforcing positive self-talk and self-love.

 

 

Social Studies

We are wrapping up our We Are All Connected unit by exploring our connection to the land. We began by studying the moon—its phases, their names, and the science behind them. Then, we read Taan’s Moon and learned how the people of Haida Gwaii named the moon phases based on knowledge passed down through generations.

Math

We are so proud of the growth our students have shown in the past few weeks! Many are challenging themselves with three-digit addition and subtraction problems. They are doing a fantastic job communicating and representing their learning in different ways. This week, they will focus on another strategy, decomposing.

 

Story Writing

Our students are becoming skilled at writing dialogue using quotation marks! We worked on making our writing more engaging by using descriptive words instead of repeatedly writing “said.” We also explored how to describe a character’s actions and emotions while they speak.

A great example of this is the book How I Met My Monster (part of a series—check out the other books by the same author!). This book does an excellent job of showing how dialogue can make writing more dynamic and engaging.

📖 How I Met My Monster Read-Aloud:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YunBFPyF37U

Please join us tomorrow for our weekly Family Reading in our classroom from 9:00–9:15 AM.

Thank you so much for your support!

Warm regards,
Cailyn & Livia

Dear Division 11 Families,

We hope you’ve been enjoying the beautiful sunny days we’ve had recently—it’s hard to believe we’ve had nearly a full week of sunshine!

This week (January 20–24), our school will be celebrating Literacy Week by exploring different types of literacy, such as media literacy and numeracy literacy. Students will learn how each type of literacy plays a crucial role in navigating the world, empowering individuals to communicate effectively, think critically, and engage with various aspects of life.

Family Reading Cancelled on Tuesday:
As part of Literacy Week, Family/Sibling Reading will take place in classrooms on Thursday from 9:00–9:30 a.m. Please join us on Thursday this week instead of our usual Tuesday session. Students are encouraged to bring their favorite book from home.

Art:
Our Jasper Johns-inspired 2025 art bulletin board is now up! We are so proud of the hard work and creativity the students have displayed.

Last week, the students learned about Jean-Michel Basquiat and have been busy creating drafts and sketches for their Basquiat-inspired “One Word” art. Basquiat often used text and symbols in his artwork. Please take some time to discuss with your child the words, phrases, and symbols they are planning to incorporate into their project. We will continue working on this exciting art piece in the coming week.

Writing:
To make their writing more interesting and engaging, the students have been exploring how to add dialogue to their stories. They investigated how dialogue is written in picture books and chapter books from our classroom library and then shared their discoveries as a group. The students have enjoyed applying this knowledge to their own writing and watching their stories come to life!

Math:
To improve their efficiency with addition and subtraction, students have been practicing doubles facts and doubles +1/-1 strategies. We will be learning strategies that our students can use for double digits addition and subtraction.

How to support at home: Ask your child about the doubles and doubles +1/-1 game we’ve been playing in class—they’d love to share!

Thank you so much for your continued support with their learning at home.

Upcoming events

  • Friday, January 24 – Family movie night @ 6 PM
  • January 20 to 24 – Literacy Week
  • Tuesday, January 28 – Bowling at Rev’s

Gratefully,
Ms. Kim and Ms. Chan

Dear Division 11 Families, 

Our skating sessions have officially come to an end, and it has been amazing to see how much confidence and skill the students have gained over the course of our trips. Thank you for your support in making these sessions such a success! 

Thank you for parents who came today on Tuesday, as we resumed our Family Reading. We had materials ready for some of the math games that the students have been playing in class. What a fun time!

We are writers.

In writing, we’ve been focusing on making our stories more engaging for readers. The students have been using creative similes and are learning to think like writers by pausing to consider ways to add more details to their work. See the chart (This will continue to grow.) that we use at the start of our lessons to help set writing goals. 

We also read the book If I Built a School by Chris Van Dusen. Students were very creative! They learned about nouns and adjectives that describe nouns.

Ways to support at home or try this during your car ride: Name different nouns and challenge your child to come up with interesting adjectives. Be playful with your words and have fun together! Then it’s your turn! Ask your child to give you a noun for you to come up with interesting adjectives. Have fun!

For example: cat (noun) and here are some adjectives to describe the noun:

  • Color: fluffy, striped, golden
  • Size: tiny, enormous, chubby
  • Personality: curious, playful, sneaky

We are mathematicians.

In math, we have been continuing our learning on rounding. We want our students to understand why we round down with 0, 1, 2, 3, and 4, and round up with 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9. To help with this, we’ve been using number lines to provide a visual understanding of the concept. Now, many students have progressed beyond the number line and are able to round numbers quickly and accurately in their heads. 

We continued to practice our math fact fluency by learning about working with a 10.

Ways to support at home: Continue to practice all of the strategies taught so far.

 

A simple way to practice at home is to create a random numbers chart.

Hannukah

On Friday, we had the greatest privilege and blessing to have Juliette’s mom, Anna, come into our class to teach us about Hannukah, the Jewish Festival of Lights with Juliette. They told us about the miracle of the oil that lasted eight nights when it only had enough to last one. The menorah (special candle holder) was lit which illuminated our classroom. We learned about what each one represents. Students were given an opportunity to play with the dreidel. Anna and Juliette also surprised us with delicious latkes (potato pancakes) served with apple sauce! They were scrumptious!

Thank you so very much, Anna and Juliette, for sharing with us. We are grateful for your time and hard work!

 

Art

Our students have also been working on creating 3D snowflakes. Although there were many steps involved, they picked up the process quickly and created some beautiful finished pieces. 

On Friday, we met up with our little buddies! Thank you to the hard work and dedication of Ms. Pasqualetto, the Kindergarten teacher, children were given 5 cookies to decorate. They did a great job of making sure their little buddies received help if they needed it.

Learning Updates (aka Report Cards)

Your child’s Learning Update will be available on Wednesday, December 18. You should have access to login to MyEducation BC to access it. If you cannot, then you can request for a password reset by clicking HERE. Should you have any questions or would like to meet with us, please let us know.

We are incredibly proud of all the learning your child has demonstrated since the beginning of the school year. We hope that you enjoyed listening to your child teach you about patterns, place value, matter, and the transfer of thermal energy last week when they brought home their learning. They practiced by pretending to be each other’s parent and had fun doing it!

Feel free to scroll through the 14 weekly blog posts since we started our journey together at the beginning of September. We commend each child (and you) for your contribution to our cohesive and caring community. These blog posts are a great way to connect with your child about what they are learning in class. When I asked them how many have seen them, not many said they did. These posts are written for you both to share in their learning so feel free to have them read it as practice for reading. When students can tell you what they are learning about, they have to remember and explain; this exercise helps them solidify their learning.

Pancake Breakfast 

This Thursday, it is pajama day! Your child doesn’t have to change in the morning and is welcome to come to school in the same clothes! Our pancake breakfast time with our little Kindergarten buddies is at 9:05 AM. Please be on time so that our class can go to the gym on time.

Snacks

Your children are growing!! We are noticing a number of students going to the office asking for snacks. They are saying that they finish their snacks but are still hungry. In January, please have your child bring extra snacks. Thank you!

Sing-a-long

On Thursday at 1 PM, there will be a sing-a-long for odd divisions. The Intermediate Choir will also perform. You are welcome to join us in the gym at this time!

Friday Party

On Friday afternoon, we will be having a class party. Children are encouraged to bring a board or card game from home to teach and share with their classmates. It’s a great way to introduce a fun game to others so that they may buy it to play at home too! It’s also a phenomenal way to practice their verbal communication skills as they try to teach others how the game is played.

If your child would like to bring a treat to share (nothing with nuts, please), they are welcome to as well! Thank you so much for your contribution!

In case we don’t get a chance to see you, we wish you and your family a wonderful winter break. Enjoy this extra time with family and friends. Thank you for reading these blog posts each week and for your continued support. We appreciate you! We love your children and care deeply for them. What a joy and blessing to be their teachers!

With grateful hearts, Ms. Kim and Ms. Chan

 

Dear Division 11 Families, 

We hope everyone is having a wonderful weekend so far! 

Family Reading on Tuesday
This coming Tuesday is our first Family Reading session! Please join us in the classroom on Tuesday morning until 9:15 to read with your child. We will be holding Family Reading every Tuesday and look forward to seeing you there! 

Here are some of the fun learning activities our students explored this week: 

World Kindness Day
We celebrated World Kindness Day on Wednesday. Our students brainstormed words, phrases, and actions that spread kindness. Then, we partnered with Division 18 to decorate the undercover area with words and pictures to brighten someone’s day and remind everyone to be kind. 

Social Studies
Our students reflected on their learning from the past few weeks. They practiced self-reflection as learners by: 

  • Identifying what they are proud of as learners 
  • Sharing interesting or memorable things they’ve learned 
  • Considering what they would do differently next time 
  • Writing down any wonderings they have 

Developing the ability to reflect on their learning is something we are working on in Grade 3 across all subject areas. Through guidance and modeling, our students are making great strides in becoming reflective learners! 

We are writers.
We continued working on descriptive writing this week. The students wrote about their homes, focusing on adding details, examples, and emotions to make their writing more vivid and engaging. 

We are readers.

We also reviewed letter sounds: short vowels (with hand signs to remember) and long vowels, blends where you hear both blended sounds (bl, cl, sl, br, cr, st, sw), and the difference between digraphs where the combination of letters changes the sounds (ch, sh, th, wh with hand signs to remember).

It is common for many readers at this age to set goals to read bigger words successfully. When readers look at longer words, sometimes they don’t know the strategy for how to break up the word into smaller chunks. So we learned one strategy by looking at the consonants and vowels in the words. Look at this example: carpenter

What we know: Every syllable has a vowel sound. Label whether each letter is a vowel or a consonant. Split the longer word in between the two consonants:

car – pen – ter

Now, they can see the word as 3 smaller combinations and it makes it easier to sound out.

Ways to support at home: When you are reading with your child, have a piece of paper at the ready to write down words they may struggle with sounding out. Ask them to figure out the consonants and vowels like we did with carpenter. Ask them to split the word in between letters where there are two consonants. Then ask them to read each syllable at a time. We know this is just one strategy but it gives them another tool in their toolbox.

We are artists.

Our students learned about how perspective is used in art to make drawings on a flat surface, like paper, appear more realistic. We explored the work of Patrick Hughes, an artist who creates reverspective (reverse + perspective) art. The students were fascinated by his work! Currently, they are sketching their own rooms, and in the coming week, we’ll begin transforming these sketches into three-dimensional artworks. 

We are mathematicians.

We continued learning about fractions and learned how to compare numbers using our place value place mats. Next week, we will review how to order numbers from smallest to greatest and vice versa.

We started learning about number concepts and place value. Each number has a value depending on where they are placed.

How to support at home:

Set aside deck of cards specifically for math games this year. Remove the Jack and King. The Ace = 1 and the Queen = 0 (zero) because it looks like a 0.

GAME: Create two place value charts like this to practice comparing numbers to 1000 (and later ordering numbers to 100):

  1. Divide the deck into even piles. One for you and one for your child.
  2. Sit side by side so it’s easier to compare numbers. You may wish to place one place value chart above the other one so it’s even easier to compare.
  3. Both flip over 3 cards to make a number on your own place value chart placing the first card in the Ones place, the second card in the Tens place, and the last card in the Hundreds place.
  4. Compare the numbers in the hundreds place. Which number is larger? If it is the same, then compare the number in the Tens place. Discuss why you compare the number in the hundreds place and not the ones place.
  5. Whoever has the bigger number gets to keep all of the cards.

Help your child see that these numbers also represent: 823 = 800+20+3 and 409 = 400+9 so 800 is greater than 400 even though the 9 is bigger than the 3 in the ones place.

We can reflect.

Students worked so hard last week on their self-reflection on their learning this first term. We had an opportunity to think about their work habits, how they contribute to our classroom community by being good listeners, helpful, and kind. We also reflected on what we are proud of, how we improved, and set specific goals for further development.

ADST

We used the laptops on Friday. To streamline our log in experience, please help your child memorize their login username, email address, and password. It takes up valuable time to troubleshoot and look up IDs and passwords which affects their experience and that of others who have memorized theirs. Please send Ms. Chan an email if you need it sent to you again. Thank you so much for your support!

SpacesEDU

Thank you to parents who filled out the SpacesEDU online form. If you haven’t yet, you will be receiving an email reminder. Thank you!

Ice Skating

We are so grateful to the families who volunteered to help drive our skaters to Bill Copeland on November 26, December 3 & 10th. It truly is incredible to see how first time or beginning skaters step on the ice for the first time go from feeling fear to skating around in just 3 sessions! It’s a great lesson on growth mindset!

Thank you for your continued support. To see the number of people reading our weekly blog posts makes us feel valued for our time to share about the fun, engaging, and meaningful things we are learning in our classroom. We appreciate you!

Sincerely, Ms. Kim and Ms. Chan

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