Category: We are artists.

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

Dear families,

It’s hard to believe we already spent 20% of our school year together! It is a pure joy to spend every day with your children. They make me feel so happy and well loved!

We are a community.

We meet as a community every single morning during our Community Circle time. This is one of my favourite times of our day after Heart Time because we get to share our stories. We always share how we are feeling and often something we feel grateful for. The more we learn about each other, the better we can understand each other. Biologically, we are over 99% the same but it is our history, culture and families, upbringing and environment, experiences and individuality that make us so unique.

Did you know that being in a positive state, our brain is 31% more productive than when it is at negative, neutral, or stressed? Happiness researchers have also found that gratitude leads to higher baseline levels of happiness. We learn better when we are feeling positive and have filled our hearts with spending time with people who bring us joy right from the beginning of our day!

So when we meet to connect during Heart Time (soft start) and in our Community Circle, it sets us up for an optimal level of learning together.

How to support at home: Talk about your understanding of community. What is a community? What does it mean to be a part of a community? How do you contribute to the communities you are in? How can they contribute to being a part of the communities they are in (e.g., school, sports teams, clubs, outside of school activities, families, etc.)

In Social Studies, we started learning about what makes a community by brainstorming. This was a starting point with some of our ideas shared. Click on the following links if you’d like to learn more about the curricular competencies and content learning standards for Social Studies for grade 2 and grade 3.

We are mathematicians.

We started learning about number concepts and place value. We learned the difference between a digit and a number. Digits are 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. Digits become a number when we give the digit a value. We created our own place value charts and using a deck of cards, worked with partners to compare who had the larger number.

How to support at home:

• Gr 2 – Quantities to 100 practice: Flip over 2 cards to make a number. Flip over 2 more cards for a second number.
  • Compare. Which number is bigger/smaller?
  • How many tens? How many ones?
  • Flip over two more cards for a 3rd number. Put these 3 numbers in order from smallest to biggest.
• Gr 3 – Quantities to 1 000 practice: Flip over 3 cards to make a number. Flip over 3 more cards for a second number. Flip over 3 more cards for a third number. Then ask the following:
  • Compare and order the numbers – Which number is the largest? Smallest?
  • How many hundreds, tens, ones in the first number, second number, and third number?
  • What is the value of the hundreds, tens or ones in each number?

Please check out our We Are Mathematicians page to see the differences in learning outcomes for grade 2 and 3.

We are readers.

On Wednesday, it was pajama day! 

In the afternoon, we built forts to read under. We had so much fun!

How to support at home: Continue to model and foster a love for reading. At this age, children still enjoy reading and sharing books with their parents. Visit the public library regularly. We are blessed that the McGill Library is nearby.

We are artists.

Thanks to Ms. Kapusta, we finished our zentangle pumpkins and cats and it is up in the hallway for everyone to enjoy since last week! On Hallowe’en, we also made jack o’ lantern bookmarks practicing following directions and folding.

Hallowe’en Experiences

Thank you to everyone for your generous contribution to our Hallowe’en party! We had so much fun on Tuesday! Ms. Santorelli, Ms. Kapusta, and I were very proud of their Dem Bones dance! If you haven’t checked it out already, I uploaded the video (thanks to Ms. Kapusta for taking it) on SpacesEDU. All parents should have access now.

After Hallowe’en, we worked on reflecting on our day by writing in our journals. We are learning to brainstorm ideas first and then write paragraphs with more details including more thoughts and feelings. I am proud that so many have shown improvement in their writing already! We will be uploading a sample of our writing in SpacesEDU, reflecting on our writing progress, and setting  personal goals. This practice will help us develop our core competencies of communication and reflective thinking.

How to support at home: When you do something as a family, have conversations about what your child thought and how they felt about it. This way, when it comes to their journal writing or talking about the books they read (especially when we get into our Reading Groups), they will have practice thinking and sharing about their thoughts and feelings.

• What did you think about _____? It was fun/awesome/great because _____.
• How did it make you feel and why?
• What are you grateful for?
• Share something specific that made you laugh or brought you joy.

ADST: We are technology wizards!

Almost everyone has memorized their login usernames and passwords, thank you! Please help them memorize it so they can login as soon as possible. This week, we practiced becoming more proficient at using the tools in Word to make our names bigger, bolder, italicized, highlighted, etc. We now know how to rename a file. We also learned how to add an image and resize it so that it keeps its proportion. Next, we will be learning how to add text boxes. All of these skills will prepare them for when I teach them how to use PowerPoint so they can create powerful slides to present their Passion Projects.

Since your child has an O365 account, they can use it at home. Please feel free to sit with your child and get them to show you what they have learned so far. Any extra time at home will help them become even more proficient! I love this time because I get to see so many kids step up as experts to help others. They have opportunities to support classmates and develop their leadership skills! They also feel good when they can help.

Soon, we will be starting to talk about Passion Projects. This is one of my other favourite things to offer. Last year, all but one student said this was their favourite thing to do in school! If you wish, you can start brainstorming and talking to your child about what they may be interested to research and learn more about.

Bowling on Friday, November 17

We apologize for the inconvenience of bowling not being added to School Cash Online until recently. If you can help drive, we would greatly appreciate your support! We are looking forward to our first field trip!

Hip Hop

You may have read that Hip Hop will resume this week. Unfortunately, it will be delayed. Once we have final dates, we will let you know. Thank you for your patience. We know your children are looking forward to dancing again!

Gratitude

Thank you for your continued support at home. The more you can bring in what we are learning about in school, the more it solidifies their learning. I appreciate you so much!

Gratefully, Ms. Chan

Dear families,

This past week really felt like our classroom community got even closer. Each week, students sit with different classmates to get to know each other better. On Monday, it was clear to me that many had made new connections as I observed different people comfortably talking to others they don’t usually talk to. It was such a heartwarming moment that brought the biggest smile to my face to listen to their conversations and see them giggle and laugh together.

Fire Drill

On Monday, October 30, we will have our first fire drill in the morning. Please feel free to front load your child to help them understand the reasons behind fire drills. This is a great opportunity to discuss what you would do if the fire alarm went off in your home too.

Hallowe’en Festivities

On Tuesday, October 31, we will be performing our dance to a song called Dem Bones at the assembly in the morning. We read a book called Dem Bones to learn about the bones in our body too! Many interesting facts about our bones!

In the afternoon on Tuesday, October 31, we will have a Hallowe’en party! Please feel free to bring snacks to share with the class. Please do not bring food that contains any nuts, tree nuts, cashews, or pistachios. Thank you! Your child is welcome to bring a simple board game to play with classmates.

This was posted on Kitchener’s website for Hallowe’en safety and festivities:

We had so much fun making our spooky hands! Thank you so much to Maissa’s mom for volunteering her time to help us in the class! We appreciate you! A class photo is now available on SpacesEDU.

SpacesEDU

You now have access to view your child’s ePortfolio in SpacesEDU. You should have access to two spaces:

In the Class Space, you will find posts I will add that everyone will be able to see. In the Individual Space, only you and your child (and I) will be able to see the posts they create here. Please feel free to share a positive comment! I am sure they will be excited to read it the next time we log in.

We had an opportunity last week to practice reflecting on our learning. What you should see is a your child explaining what we did, something they liked about their dot art, and something they would do differently next time.

Learning is reflexive and reflective. – First Peoples Principles of Learning

One of the fantastic things that was added to our revised curriculum was making Core Competencies explicit to our learners.

“The Core Competencies are sets of intellectual, personal, and social and emotional proficiencies that all students need in order to engage in deep, lifelong learning.” – BC Curriculum

Click here to learn more.

We are mathematicians.

We had our first introduction to whole class Number Talks. The purpose of Number Talks is for us to develop our flexible thinking strategies in math and to use numbers effectively to solve problems in a variety of ways.

We started with talking about the number 10. There are so many ways to represent 10. Although I didn’t record ALL of these ways for our first one, I wanted to show you examples of what we could have included.

Eventually, we will do number talks for addition and subtraction.

We are scientists.

We learned that materials can be changed in physical and chemical ways.

How to support at home: Ask your child to share the differences. We had a great critical thinking discussion about whether making ice cream is a physical change or a chemical change. I would love for you to continue the conversation at home.

We are authors.

We have been working on our Hallowe’en stories all last week! We started by considering the essentials of a basic story: Who is the main character? What is the problem? Where does your story take place? Then we brainstormed the beginning, middle, and end before using our creative thinking to communicate our ideas through writing.

Core competencies practiced: I can use my creative thinking to write a story. I can use words to communicate my ideas in writing.

We are readers.

Epic is a great way to access high interest books. Our class code is: ycr9510

Your child’s Epic passcode is the first 4 digits of their username. This is the same 7-digit number they memorized to log in to laptops. Your child has access from 7am to 3pm. If you would like access in the evenings, they have an option to pay for a monthly or yearly subscription. Click here to learn more.

Most of them have memorized their login information so they are able to login immediately and start right away. There are a few who do not have this memorized yet so please continue to work with your child to have their username (7-digit number) and their email address memorized as soon as possible. The delays hold up the whole class sometimes. Thank you so very much!

We are artists.

Thanks to Ms. Kapusta, we have a beautiful bulletin board in the hallway with our finished zentangle pumpkins and black cats.

I apologize that I did not remember to take a photo to share with you. The photo on the left will give you an idea of what they look like. I will take a picture and share it in SpacesEDU.

We hope you had a wonderful weekend! Unfortunately, I got sick on the weekend so I will not be at school on Monday but I should be back on Tuesday.

I am grateful for your continued support at home. Sometimes, students ask about homework. Here is what they can do daily:

• Read independently or with you. Talk about what they just read, asking them to make connections or what they think about what they just read.
• Find a real reason to write like write a note to me or write a story.
• Be curious together! Talk about and review what we are learning about in class. What else do you wonder about? Research and learn together.

Looking forward to another sensational week ahead! 🙂

In appreciation, Ms. Chan

Dear families,

We have such a dynamic and rich learning environment full of hard working children who enjoy learning together. Every day, I am energized and full of joy when I see them first thing in the morning. I feel so blessed and grateful to be their teacher!

The Multicultural Dinner was a great community building event. If you weren’t able to join us, please consider it for next year! I loved trying different foods from places all over the world! The limbo performance was incredible too!

We are artists.

One of Ms. Kapusta’s passions is teaching art. We are so fortunate and grateful for her dedication to planning meaningful activities for our class! Last week, they collectively worked on an Art Classroom Agreement. You can see the agreements in the picture.

This week, we were solidifying our understanding of patterns through art. Using the Zentangle method of art, students started working on using their creative thinking to design their pumpkins. We can’t wait to share the final projects with you!

Comfort Zone Circles

Teaching about comfort zone circles has been one of the more effective ways to teach students about productive struggle. We moved our green carpet to the centre of the classroom; this represented our “comfort zone”. Along the walls of the classroom represented our “not yet zone” and in between was our “stretch zone”.

Students were given different scenarios asking them their comfort levels in riding a bike, swimming in a lake, riding in a rollercoaster, speaking in front of the whole school, etc. This was a fun, interactive way where they moved to a part of the room that represented their comfort level. Then I invited them to come up with scenarios for their classmates. They loved it!

It is important to understand themselves when learning. I told them that they will be regularly pushed out of their comfort zone for optimal learning in their stretch zone. They grow the most in their stretch zone, not in their comfort zone.

• Comfort zone: unchallenged, bored, stable, safe, easy
• Stretch zone: This is the learning zone – excited, exhilarated, challenged, alive, willing to take risks
• Panic zone: fearful, tense, stressed

How to support at home: Use the language of being in their “stretch zone” at home when they may find something a bit challenging. Provide opportunities for them to be in their stretch zones at home or when you are out and about. Explain how being in your stretch zone is a great place to be because they are pushing themselves out of their comfort zone in order to grow. Some may feel uncomfortable and even a little frustrated but the more they push through these moments of discomfort, the more opportunities they have to celebrate their development! Can you relate? For me, I am proudest when I struggle with something, push through with perseverance and a positive attitude, and then succeed. Over time, my comfort zone expands!

This is an opportunity to teach young children affirmations. What do we say to ourselves to help us push through when things feel challenging?

• I can do hard things!
• When things get hard, I can work harder!
• You can do this! You got this!

When I shared this activity on Twitter, Teacher2Teacher thought it was an effective way to show students they are growing every day so they reached out to interview me and then they published a blog post about this comfort zone activity. If you are interested, please feel free to click here to read the article.

We are Mathematicians.

On our Wondering Wednesday, students went outside to create patterns with nature!

We solidified our understanding of increasing and decreasing patterns. What your grade 3 child needs to know is how to describe the pattern and state the pattern rule. For example, this is the pattern rule:

Start with #^. Add one more ^ each time.

Pattern : #^   #^^   #^^^   #^^^^   #^^^^^

How to support at home: Have your child create increasing and decreasing patterns. Ask them to describe the pattern rule. For example, this is a decreasing pattern:

Start with one fork and 5 spoons. Take away one spoon each time.

Looks like this: fork spoon spoon spoon spoon spoon  – fork spoon spoon spoon spoon – fork spoon spoon spoon – fork spoon spoon  – fork spoon

We are scientists.

We continued to learn about the three states of matter. We learned that liquids don’t hold their shape. Instead, they take the shape of their container.

We are communicators.

We read the story “The Name Jar” by Yangsook Choi. If you’d like to listen to the story with your child, click here. We had an opportunity to write about whether we like our name. Would we change it if we could? What would we change it to? Who gave us our name?

ADST

Thank you so very much to the many families who supported their child in memorizing their username and password. They felt SO proud of themselves when they could login successfully!

On Friday, we learned how to login to O365. If you would like your child to practice, feel free to visit Kitchener’s website and click on O365 on the top menu bar.

The key to logging in here is to memorize their full email address: #######@edu.burnabyschools.ca

At this age, they need help learning to spell “burnabyschools” correctly.

SpacesEDU

This is an online ePortfolio we will be using to record and reflect on our learning as well as set goals. SpacesEDU is such a phenomenal way for students to work on their core competencies of reflective thinking, critical thinking (analyze and critique own work), communication skills (present information and explain/reflect on experiences and accomplishments), and building a positive personal identity (personal strengths and abilities).

Each post, they will be encouraged to answer some standard reflection questions. I love seeing their growth over time and their comfort level develop with self-reflection and application of what they learn about themselves. When they are thinking about their learning, thinking about themselves as learners, and thinking about what they would do differently next time, they are empowered to do better next time because they set goals and understand themselves better.

Please read the letter that will provide you with more information.

Letter for Families (Spaces) SD41

Library Book Exchange

Every Friday after lunch is our Library book exchange time so please have your child bring their Library books to school on Fridays. If your child is finished with their book before then, they can bring back Library books anytime! They can exchange their books during Open Book Exchange times:

• Monday to Friday from 9:00 to 9:30am
• Monday to Wednesday and Friday from 11:30 to 12:00pm

Reminders

• Please return the student consent forms that were sent home on Friday.
• Wednesday, October 18: Ms. Chan will be at an all-day workshop. There will be a TTOC in my place.
• Friday, October 20: Pro-D Day; no school for students
• Hip Hop week: October 23 to 27
• Thursday, November 2: Photo re-takes
• SAVE THE DATE: Bowling at Revs on Friday, November 17. We need parent volunteer drivers, please, so please save the date. Thank you!

Thank you for your continued support at home. I appreciate you!

Gratefully, Ms. Chan