Category: We are communicators.

Dear families,

Last week, our students learned about Remembrance Day and its significance. Their understanding of the day’s importance was evident in the respect they showed during Friday’s assembly. They also did a fantastic job on our wreath art project. After reading Todd Parr’s The Peace Book, each of us wrote on a leaf to express what peace means to us.

Math

Our students have been expanding their understanding of place value by using base-ten blocks. We’ve also been practicing comparing numbers by playing a fun game called Beat the Teacher. As a class, we roll one die, and each player decides whether to place that number in the ones, tens, or hundreds place. I then reveal my combination, and if they have a larger number than mine, they get points for that round. This time, they didn’t manage to beat me, but I don’t think that will last long; they already came up with so many brilliant strategies!

We’ve also continued our lessons on fractions. On Friday, our students worked in groups on a matching activity, then challenged themselves to see how quickly and accurately they could sort the cards.

Ways to support at home: Review concepts taught at school. Ask your child to teach you what they learned so far.

Social Studies

Our students now have pen pal buddies! We’re connecting with Grade 6/7 students in North Vancouver who are inquiring into ancient civilizations with topics similar to those we’ve discussed in our classroom. Our students wrote letters sharing what they’ve learned about different cultures and some questions they have about certain ancient civilizations. They’re excited to hear back from their buddies soon!

Thank you for your continued support at home.

Sincerely, Ms. Kim

Dear families,

We hope you enjoyed your extra hour today!

We are writers.

On Monday, Ms. Kim and I had our second opportunity to team teach. We carried on with our lesson about paragraph writing (about gratitude) to learn about how to reflect on our writing to make it better. We introduced DYRIO? This stands for “Did you read it over?”

This is something I created many years ago when I was on Staff Development teaching writing strategies. I noticed that when I taught it to other teachers, many would message me the next day telling me they tried this and loved it because it worked immediately! In my own practice teaching grades 1-5, I noticed that student writing greatly improved with this one small change: Ask students to re-read their writing at least three times before handing it in.

Click on the DYRIO image to view the full PDF.

On most days after Heart Time (soft start), we review a morning message where we fix Ms. Kim’s or Ms. Chan’s mistakes. We practice editing so they are developing editing skills when they look at their own writing.

When students hand in work, they are asked, “DYRIO?” This is what it means:

• Read – 1st time: Read it like a reader as if you are reading someone else’s writing. The key to any writing is clarity. You can have the right spelling or use proper punctuation but if the message isn’t clear, it is difficult for your audience to understand.

• Read – 2nd time: Read it like a revision expert. Your job is to look for ways to improve your writing. We have many mini-lessons planned to help with this like learning about adjectives, adverbs, synonyms, word choice, etc. Often, I will ask them to show me what they made better. Last week, Ms. Kim taught them how to write “super sentences” to learn how to add more details and “triple scoop words”. “Triple scoop words” is a term used to encourage students to choose rich, descriptive vocabulary, similar to getting a “triple scoop” of ice cream instead of a single. These words go beyond basic language (like “good” or “nice”) to provide a fuller, more vivid picture, adding “extra flavor” to writing.For example:
  • Instead of saying “happy,” students might choose “ecstatic” or “overjoyed.”
  • Rather than “big,” they could use “enormous” or “gigantic.”

• Read – 3rd time: Read it like an editor looking for capitals to start sentences and for names, proper punctuation, spelling and grammar.

This process is actually what publishing companies do when they edit books to be published. Check clarity, make it better, and lastly, editing.

Ways to support at home: For all students, we have a goal to improve written communication skills so writing at home is a great way to improve. Students can keep a journal or write a letter to someone (This is so novel now!). You can have fun co-writing a story together! Bookmaking is one of our student’s favourite activities in school so try it at home with them! Then after they write, ask them to DYRIO to reinforce reflecting on their message clarity, working on improving it, and then editing. Read it with them and talk through your thought processes. You are modelling what a writer thinks during revision and editing stages.

Comfort zone circles

I have been wanting to teach this lesson since September. This is one of my signature lessons on growth mindset! Teacher2Teacher loved my story that they interviewed me and published a blog post about my Comfort zone circles lesson. Feel free to read the blog post. It is titled “A Simple Way I Show Students They’re Growing Every Day.”

I don’t call the red zone the panic zone anymore. It’s now called “Not Yet Zone” which is more appropriate for a growth mindset approach.

We played a game where I moved the carpet to the middle of the room to represent our comfort zone. Then I called out different scenarios for them to decide how comfortable they were doing it. Then they had fun taking turns to come up with scenarios for their classmates. For example:

• riding a bike
• going swimming in a pool, lake, or ocean
• speaking in front of the whole school

Afterwards, students created their own comfort zone circles listing things that were in their comfort zone, stretch zone, and not yet zone.

The key to this lesson is learning that we want to be in our stretch zone. This is optimal and where most learning happens. When things are too easy, we don’t feel challenge and we don’t grow much. But in our stretch zone, we experience productive struggle, take risks, and overcome the hurdles and learn that we can do hard things. We talked about affirmations and shared ideas about what affirmations we can say to ourselves:

• You can do this!
• I am doing my best.
• You can do hard things!

Follow up story: We read a story that one of my friend’s wrote: Cannonball In by Tara Martin. From Amazon:

From the shallow end of the pool, Olivia watches the flippers, the graceful divers, and her favorite—the cannonballers! Wave after wave, she wishes she could make a splash.

But she’s afraid! In the deep end of the pool, she can’t reach the bottom. Plus the dabblers are there, sitting on the side of the pool and laughing at her!

With a little encouragement from her dad and a whole lot of gumption, Olivia heads to the diving board. But will she be brave enough to take the leap?

In this beautifully illustrated picture book, Tara Martin inspires young readers to find their courage and cannonball in—no matter what the naysayers (and the voice of fear) are chanting.

Ways to support: Have a conversation about being brave to take risks.

Diwali

We greatly appreciate Ziya who shared how she celebrates Diwali with her family. We learned about who celebrates around the world, when, why it is celebrated, what it means, and how they celebrate while also learning some variations depending on where they are in the world.

Diwali, the “Festival of Lights,” celebrates the triumph of light over darkness and good over evil. Families decorate with oil lamps and colorful rangoli, light fireworks, share sweets, and exchange gifts. It’s a joyful time of gratitude, reflection, and togetherness.

We are mathematicians.

Students finished up their personal pattern books by doing their self-reflection on their learning. They are proud of their books!

This week, we will begin our unit on number concepts and place value. There will be opportunities to play games and support at home. Stay tuned!

From Ms. Kim:

Dear Division 11 Families,

I hope you are having a wonderful weekend so far!

Here are some of the fun learning happening in our classroom:

Math: Our students have been practicing reading fractions. We took our learning outside, where they drew fractions on a large number line and then jumped to each fraction after reading it aloud. Some were so proud of how long their number lines were and how they could divide them into so many equal parts!

Social Studies: This week, we explored how different cultures honour the passing of loved ones. Many students shared how their families or friends’ traditions they know connect to the traditions we’ve been discussing. I love when students make connections to the real world, so please continue having conversations with them about topics we discuss in class.

Art/Writing: For Halloween, our students were asked to create the “best pumpkin in the patch.” They then worked on descriptive writing about their pumpkins. We were so impressed by their creativity and the detail in their writing!

We are always so grateful for your support too. Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Warm regards,
Cailyn

Patterns Art with Ms. Kim:

Field Trip: Ice Skating!

The field trip notice was sent home on Friday, November 1. Please consider helping us out by being a volunteer driver. If you can skate, it would be very helpful if you can go on the ice to support. Thank you!

We are so grateful for your continued support at home. We are always available to speak to you about how we can work together to better support your child.

With much gratitude, Ms. Chan

Dear Division 11 Families, 

I hope everyone had a fantastic weekend and enjoyed some Halloween festivities! We’ve been getting into the Halloween spirit in class with creative activities and spooky decorations. 

Our students explored positive and negative space in art, creating pumpkin designs that creatively incorporate both. They were so creative with their designs, and now their pumpkins are hanging on our wall, making the classroom wonderfully spooky! 

The students were thrilled to learn that our next unit in math is fractions! We practiced writing fractions on the whiteboards, and they created their own fractions using coloured strips. Some even managed to divide their strips into 32 equal parts! 

I am incredibly proud of the progress our students have made in showing their thinking with Venn diagrams. In small groups, they matched cultures with similar wedding traditions and chose a pair to show what they have in common and some unique things about each culture. 

Sincerely, Ms. Kim

We are writers.

On Monday, both Ms. Kim and Ms. Chan had an opportunity to team teach! As you may recall, students were working on their I Am Thankful poems modeled after the book by Todd Parr (shared in Week 5’s blog post.) They were encouraged to take only one of the things they feel very grateful for to develop their ideas into a paragraph.

One of the things that students in grade 3 need to be able to do by the end of the year is to write a paragraph that contains opening and closing sentences with ideas that are clear, organized, and developed. They should include details, reasons, or explanations that show some critical thinking about the topic. We can’t wait for you to read their paragraphs! We will continue to work on improving our paragraph this week.

This term, we are working on our personal, impromptu writing. This week, they will be introduced to a rubric as part of assessment so they can see how they are doing, to set some goals, and next steps.

Ways to support at home: Practice writing paragraphs together with your child modeling opening and closing sentences along with supporting statements that develop your idea.

Learning About Diversity

On Thursday, my friend, Ms. Woelders, visited our class. She is the Outreach Coordinator working at the B. C. Accessible Resource Centre. 

We learned about celebrating diversity, disabilities, and the new law: Accessible BC Act. She highlighted the importance of lowering barriers so everyone can learn. They got to see and touch a picture book with braille which is meant for people who are visually impaired or blind. She told us that the book costs $300!

She read us a story called “Ish” by Peter Reynolds and did a 4 square activity with them. This is actually one of my favourite books.

Check out some of our work!

 Digital Literacy and Digital Citizenship

Last week was our District’s Digital Literacy and Digital Citizenship week. We learned about what digital literacy means and what is a good digital citizen.

This video (The Power of Words) is designed to help students build empathy by teaching them that the words they use on the Internet can be powerful. It also covers what to do if they encounter cyberbullying.

Some of your children are playing on websites (like Roblox) where they can communicate with others. We talked about ways we can keep ourselves and our personal information safe and private. We do not share our full names, birthdays, where we live or go to school, etc. We also discussed how we can be HAWKS (Helpful Accepting Welcoming Kind and Safe) online with people we don’t know. What we shouldn’t say to someone face-to-face, we shouldn’t say to someone behind our screens. We can be great digital citizens.

Ways to support at home: Click on the video image to visit the page and watch the video at home with your children. Have regular conversations about how they treat others online and how they want to be treated online. If anything ever feels uncomfortable, leave that online space and tell a trusted adult right away. Take time to regularly check their communication with others online. They are or will be learning to navigate this online space and will need your guidance and coaching. Teach them how to be a kind and responsible digital citizen.

Hallowe’en

On Thursday, children are welcome to come to school wearing a costume. We are learning to be culturally responsive, inclusive, and respectful. Please review the poster shared by our District office.

Also, please let us know if your child and family do not partake in Hallowe’en activities so we can find alternate activities. We will be integrating other cultural festivities around this time like Diwali. Please feel free to send me an email so you can share with us so we can learn from you too! Thank you!

There will be a parade and short assembly in the morning on Thursday, October 30.

In the afternoon, we will have a class autumn party. Children are welcome to bring healthy treats to share. They will have more than enough sweets afterwards so I would like to encourage healthier snacks, please. They can also bring a simple board game they may want to play with their classmates. Thank you!

PJ Day

Friday, November 1 is PJ Day! Students are welcome to wear pajamas and bring a stuffed animal and blanket (or bed sheet). We will turn our classroom into forts to read with each other and our furry friends.

Field Trips

We are planning for three morning sessions of ice skating this term. If we get the dates and times we requested, these skating sessions will be on Tuesday mornings. We will leave right after the morning bell. We will need parent volunteer drivers, please. Stay tuned! We will share the dates as soon as they are confirmed by the City of Burnaby! So excited!

We are grateful for your support at home. I would like to suggest that you read these weekly blog posts WITH your child or have them read it TO you as practice. This way, you can ask direct questions about what they learned and then ask lots of questions to model curiosity (and in so doing, you model lifelong learning). Look up the answers online as part of your learning together! Ask them to explain their understanding. If they can teach you and explain it simply, then you know they comprehend it.

Looking forward to another fantastic week full of joy and learning!

With great appreciation, Ms. Chan

Dear Division 11 Families,

I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend!

We are continuing our focus on family, and this week our students will be exploring different wedding traditions around the world. Please have a conversation with your child about some wedding traditions from your culture or other cultures you have experienced. Since we are focusing on “aspects of life shared by and common to people and cultures,” discuss the similarities and differences in wedding traditions from your experiences. We will continue using a Venn diagram in class to help illustrate our thinking.

In math, our students are becoming experts at analyzing graphs. They are starting to show more confidence when interpreting bar graphs or pictographs and sharing what they have learned. This week, we will be wrapping up our data analysis unit. Students will go through the entire process on their own: coming up with survey questions, collecting data using a tally chart, representing their data with either a bar graph or a pictograph, and sharing their findings.

In art, our students have been learning about warm and cool colors and have created two watercolor paintings using patterns. This week, we will dive deeper into how patterns are used in art by weaving these two paintings together to create one unique piece!

Thank you, families, for your continued support!

Warm regards, Ms. Kim

We are grateful.

There is so much to feel grateful for. We have many opportunities throughout our day to consider what we are grateful for. We worked on our Thankful Poems inspired after we read The Thankful Book by Todd Parr and Feeling Grateful: How to Add More Goodness to Your Gladness by Kobi Yamada. Watch this book here.

One of my most favourite videos on YouTube is titled Gratitude. This video reminds us to find beauty in the simple things in life like how each day is a gift and the beauty in our world. “Nature’s beauty is a gift that cultivates appreciation and gratitude.” We started watching this video at 4:30.

Many happiness researchers found that practicing gratitude and focusing on the positive aspects of life can enhance happiness. This leads to an improved sense of overall well-being and a mindset we can cultivate. One way we can develop our social awareness and build positive relationships is by noticing and expressing gratitude.

This also reminded me of how Indigenous People honour the land and have a deep sense of place. Louie Schwartzberg stated, “We protect what we fall in love with.” Imagine if everyone fell in love with nature and the unceded land we have the privilege to live on.

Ways to support at home: Regularly practice gratitude by modeling what you are grateful for. I wrote a blog post called The Gift of Gratitude if you are interested to read it and if you’re curious about how gratitude is taught and modelled in the classroom, I wrote a post that was published on Edutopia called Teaching and Modeling Gratitude in Elementary School. These posts may provide you with some ideas on how our gratitude practice at school can be aligned with what you do at home.

We are mathematicians.

We continued to learn about patterns. Last week we reviewed increasing patterns and learned about decreasing patterns. Here are some examples during play and in our Patterns Books.

Students are expected to know the following:

• increasing and decreasing patterns using words and numbers, based on concrete experiences
  • creating patterns using concrete, pictorial, and numerical representations
  • representing increasing and decreasing patterns in multiple ways

Repeating patterns

Increasing patterns

Decreasing patterns

Ways to support at home: Reinforce their learning about patterns – repeating, increasing, and decreasing at home by creating their own and asking them to describe their pattern.

We are scientists.

This week, we learned about the three states of matter.

We watched this video and then practiced being molecules. On the carpet, we were solids where we (as particles) are in a fixed position. Then we were liquid particles moving around on the carpet area only. Finally, we were free to roam around the room in a completely random and much farther apart like in a gas; they loved this one the most!

Students were given the opportunity to add to their Matter Science Books to show understanding in their own way.

Applied Design, Skills and Technologies (ADST) Curriculum

Your children are fast learners! On Friday, we logged into the laptops for the first time. They quickly learned how to login and shut down. All students brought home a blue sheet to memorize their login information and password.

Ways to support at home: Please help your child find a strategy to memorize their username, email address, and password. The next lesson will be to learn how to communicate through email so it will be important to learn how to login to Office 365 with their email address. Thank you!

Stream of Dreams

Have you had a chance to look at all of the fish students of Kitchener painted? They are now on the fence at the front of the school. Enjoy finding the fish your child painted!

Kitchener’s Family Movie Night is this Friday, October 18 at 4:00 PM! Doors open at 3:30 PM.

Please click here to learn more. If you plan to attend, CLICK HERE to RSVP. Hope to see you there!

If you ordered apples, you can pick them up before the movie.

Reminders

• Friday, October 25 is Pro-D day; students do not attend

We are excited to share that starting next week, Ms. Kim will be in our class on Mondays as well! I am looking forward to having some opportunities to be in the classroom to team teach with her on Monday and Wednesday. Thank you for your continued support at home. Should you have any questions, please feel free to ask. We are here as partners and we appreciate you!

Sincerely, Ms. Chan