Category: We are communicators.

Hello Division 6 families!

I hope you had a great week like we did at school! I feel like a broken record but the love and joy we share is so appreciated. Today during our Community Circle, we shared something grateful we are looking forward to on the weekend and something we appreciate about our class. Such heartwarming responses with thankfulness for classmates and me. Our daily gratitude practices are a part of our being together as a community. Just yesterday, I had the greatest honour to have my writing published by one of the biggest education websites in the world! Edutopia shared my article about how gratitude is embedded in our classroom. I’d LOVE for you to read it so you can get a glimpse into our day – Click here!

Practicing gratitude is an important part of our social emotional learning! It improves mindset, builds a positive classroom culture, and fosters social awareness. How can you naturally embed gratitude into your daily routine at home?

We are creative.

The theme at Gilmore this month is creativity so we are fully embracing ours with our dragster cars and poetry! This week, we continued to work on our affirmations and CREATIVITY acrostic poems. Today, a student shared that she was feeling a little on the grumpy side when she woke up. Then she read her affirmations and it turned her day to a positive start! I even noticed she came in this morning with big smiles and I was truly thrilled to learn why! As your child is finishing up their affirmations, they will have two copies – one for home to read in the morning and at night for 30 days and one at school. May I suggest that you write affirmations too? Share it with your child and read it as a way to connect. Perhaps you can do the 30 day challenge together! I am excited to see how that changes your child’s belief in themselves and how it builds their personal inner strength.

We are mathematicians.

So far, the grade 5s have learned about division: sets, sharing, how division and multiplication is related, knowing when to multiply and divide, and dividing with remainders. Today, we had such a great lesson in working collaboratively, communicating our mathematical thinking, and using our critical thinking skills as our first discovery lesson on long division. We were placed in three groups to practice our math discourse by explaining, reasoning, and justifying our process and answer.

It warmed my heart how well they worked together and how engaged they were! I may have been smiling the whole time! I loved and appreciated how once they gained a certain level of understanding, I was able to push them a little more to stretch their thinking and build connections to what they already know about addition and multiplication. They got to come to their own discovery and understanding of how they are all related!

Next week, we will break down the algorithm of long division. Please continue to work with your child to practice their math facts. I had a student today feel SO proud of herself because she now knows all of her x6 facts! All it takes is some dedication, commitment, and time. Eventually, with practice, they will learn them all! Thank you for your support!

ADST

This week, we had our sanding party! Many of the cars are much smoother than when they brought them back in. Next week, we will paint. I am so looking forward to seeing their creativity shine through! If your child still has their cars at home, please ensure they are brought back to school on Monday. Thank you!

Outdoor Education

What an awesome day we had with the grade 5s at Camp Jubilee! They had an opportunity to do archery, low ropes, and kayaking. We ended our day with a campfire and of course, silly campfire songs! We are already looking into the possibility of booking for the grade 5s next year (that’s this year’s grade 4s)! Thank you to the fundraising efforts of parents who covered half of your cost. We appreciate you!

It sounds like the grade 4s enjoyed their day too with the others in Mr. Anchor’s class. 🙂

We are swimmers.

On Tuesday, May 17, we have our first of two swimming sessions! We will be leaving the school shortly after lunch. We will walk to Eileen Dailey pool so please have your child dress appropriately for the weather. Children were encouraged to prepare by writing a list of what they need and packing their own swim items the night before so they are not rushing around on Tuesday morning. This teaches them responsibility and organization.

Grade 5s – If your child has a Be Active pass, please bring it to school on Monday. That way, if they forget, they still have a second opportunity to bring it on Tuesday. If your child does not have one yet, please print and fill it out and return to school on Monday. That way, there will be no cost for them. Thank you so much for your cooperation! Click here to learn more and get access to the registration form.

Please review the safety expectations. Click on the image or click here to read.

Reminder: Students will not be making any purchases so please do not send money.

Reminder: Class Photo Day will be this Friday, May 20!

As always, we appreciate you for your support at home and for sharing your wonderful children with us this year. It has been such a phenomenal year so far! Have an awesome weekend!

Grateful for you, Ms. Chan

Dear Division 6 families,

What an awesome week we had together! We really do bring each other joy when we come together at school! My heart is filled with joy anytime I get to spend my day with them!

We are good digital citizens.

Last week, we were reminded of the importance of being good digital citizens. We reviewed our THINK acronym and talked about our digital footprint and how what we post is permanent. Our words and actions today may make an impact on our future so we need to be IMPECCABLE with our words (from The Four Agreements; see last week’s post as this was discussed).

Sending emails was introduced and students had a few opportunities to compose and learn how to write a professional email. There should be short subject line, an opening (like a greeting plus a name), the body of the email, a closing, and a signature. They have been receiving feedback on how professional their emails are looking. I know this meant that I have been receiving an extra 30 emails each time we practice this but I have thoroughly enjoyed connecting with your children beyond the walls and time in our classroom! Please reinforce the importance of being a good digial citizen who is impeccable with their words. Thank you for your support at home! You can always ask them to show you their emails too.

We are public speakers.

We finished all of our All About Me presentations last week! Wow! My socks were knocked off from the presentations! They have learned so much about how to create effective slides, how to have an engaging presence as a presenter, and how to improve for next time. I have loved the honest feedback they have provided to their classmates. They truly have been impeccable with their words in their compliments and suggestions for next time. They are bang on!

I also loved how they have learned from each other. One student who went first commented on how many people copied his idea for his ending slide. The student responded, “I was inspired by you.” That warmed my heart so much!!

Many have been asking about when they will be presenting their Passion Projects. We will review the criteria again so they are clear on what is expected. Then they will review their slides and presentation independently and then practice with a friend. I will also review with them to provide feedback. My best guess is that some may be ready to present in about 2-3 weeks.

We are mathematicians.

We continued to have fun as we learned more geometry concepts. Our goal is to always understand these concepts well enough so we become confident to teach someone else. Here are some vocabulary words that your child learning to understand and hopefully be able to explain and teach!

• lines, vertex and vertices, polygon
• right angle, acute angle, obtuse angle
• triangle, quadrilateral, square, rectangle, pentagon, hexagon, trapezoid, rhombus, parallelogram
• parallel lines, congruency

I plan to have a pre-test sometime this week just to check their understanding and for them to see how well they understand the concepts. When they bring it home, it will be clear to you what concepts will need further review. Thank you so much for your support at home!

We are ALL mathematicians!

What a great way to spend an evening! I felt SO grateful to have so many families join us for our Math night! I recorded the session and will be sharing that via email to everyone to review. I realized afterwards that I forgot to explain the Making 10’s strategy. Here they can play Go Fish. Each player has 5 cards. Instead of asking if you have a matching number, you ask for the number that makes 10. For example, if I have a 6, then I would say, “Do you have a 4?” because that equals 10. The game is played exactly the same as our traditional Go Fish except you are trying to match 2 numbers that equal 10.

Similarly, take a deck of cards. As they flip each card over, they say out loud the other addend that equals 10. For examples, if I flip over a 3, I say 7. If I flip over an 8, I say 2. If I flip over a 9, I say 1. The two numbers equal 10. The faster and more accurate they get, the more confident they are! Take turns or create two piles. The person who finished the pile first wins!

Thank you again for your support at home! I already heard some feedback and it made my heart feel so happy to know that you have already been playing these games at home! I appreciate you!

If you want a refresher without having to review the video, go to our Mathematicians Play page!

We are creators.

We continued to work on our Writer’s Workshop stories and started a new document in Word. Anytime you are looking for some work to do at home, they can always work on the following:

• their story in Word
• Passion Project
• send someone an email to brighten their day!

In addition, they can also practice typing in All the Right Type and make sure they go to .ca and NOT .com. They can always practice their math facts too! Check out some games on this page.

We are kind.

We have been practicing being impeccable with our words. On Friday, I challenged them to be someone who brightens someone’s day. My heart was warmed when we shared the things we did. It could be as simple as telling a friend how thankful they are to be friends or doing something kind for someone. I hope they remembered to brighten your day over the weekend too! 🙂

Looking forward to another great week together! Should be fun seeing that it will be Literacy Week!

We appreciate you.

Sincerely, Ms. Chan (and Mrs. Paulich)

This upcoming week is Literacy week! Your child should have come home with a Family Literacy week BINGO sheet! The last day to return it will be on Monday, January 31.

On Tuesday, students are asked to bring a towel and flashlight as we will be heading to the gym to read.

On Wednesday, students are asked to wear shirts with words on it. We have a chance to win prizes!

On Thursday, it is dress up as a word day! Brainstorm some ideas and be creative!

Please see the notice about litterless lunches at Gilmore. It was sent home on Friday.

Dear families of Division 6,

Oh how I have missed spending time with your children!

Click on image to watch the video.

On Monday, we reviewed the old and new safety protocols. Thank you to parents who kept their children at home this week to keep us all safe. Please continue to do the daily health check and have your child pack 2-3 extra masks to keep in their backpacks. Thank you!

Click here for the daily health check.

Click here for information on managing Covid. Click here for information if you have Covid.

Click here for the instructions from the BC Centre for Disease for close contacts.

Black Excellence Day

Many students wore black on Friday to support Black Excellence Day. We joined in the first-ever virtual event hosted by our district.

It is a learning opportunity and celebration of Black achievements, stories, art, people, joy, love, and history.

To learn more, click here to read the Burnaby School Board’s post and a CBC article about this initiative.

We are mathematicians.

We started our new math unit on geometry by checking to see what they already knew. Let’s just say I am so very excited to see their understanding grow immensely from what they showed me on Monday! We watched a video on recognizing shapes. Click here to re-watch the video.

Homework: Finish booklet that starts with page 150. It is due on Monday.

Thank you to parents who expressed interest! Next week on Wednesday, January 19th at 7:00pm, I will be hosting a Math Games night! Children are welcome to join in! At this point, I don’t know how long it will be but I won’t keep you past an hour. I will send you an email with the link. If you are interested but have not responded to the online form yet, please just email me to let me know. I am grateful for your time and interest!

All About Me presentations

We continued to enjoy the All About Me presentations this week. If your child has not presented yet, please help them practice this weekend. We will have all of them done by the end of next week. Thank you for your support!

We are learning to type!

Students were introduced to our online typing program called All the Right Type. We are grateful to have a district license. Last year, many of my students learned how to type efficiently through this program. Imagine how much more efficient your child will be for the rest of their life if they learned how to type at their age! Consider how much time they can save if they can type proficiently. Click here to login. They brought home their login information on Tuesday. Like most skills, the more time and effort they invest, the better and faster they get.

Coincidentally, my good friend, Tim Cavey, just published a blog post about the skill of typing recently! Click here to read, if interested.

Be impeccable with your words.

Last weekend, I finished reading a book called The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz. It was published in 1997 and has sold over 100 million copies. 

Our overarching school theme this month is responsibility.  So the timing was just right to also focus on Agreement #1: Be impeccable with your words. It is our responsibility to treat others this way as we aim to live our lives as a role model in all that we do. I also taught them to be impeccable with the words they say to themselves. Sometimes we can be hardest on ourselves but it is so very important to be kind to ourselves too!

We have always focussed on Agreement #4: Always do your best as one of our 3 main questions that we have permanently on the front board:

• Will you do the right thing?
• Will you do today’s best?
• What will you do in service to others today?

Please ask your child what they learned about being impeccable with their words. I challenged them to notice a time when they would not normally be impeccable with their words, to stop themselves to think first before speaking.

This is something that I often share out on social media:

Is it hard sometimes? Yes! Does it take self-discipline, self-control, and self-regulation to be kind with our words? Yes! But each interaction is an opportunity to uplift one another. If you are not uplifting someone, then you are tearing them down. There is no in between. One of my favourite songs is called Speak Life by Toby Mac about the power of our words.

We are so grateful for you and your support! Please know that your children are seen, loved, valued, heard, and appreciated as they bring us so much joy each day. Thank you for sharing your child with us. They are truly a gift! 🙂

Sincerely, Ms. Chan (and Mrs. Paulich)

Dear Division 6 parents,

This week, here are some of the exciting things we learned.

Grade 4 mathematicians have their math test this Wednesday. The Grade 5’s have been working on addition with regrouping and learning how to explain this process. If they can explain it in a simple way, then I know they understand the concept regardless of what digits they are given to calculate.

We care about our community. This week, we had an opportunity to write a letter to a resident of Seton Villa. Each student wrote to a senior. We hope they will enjoy reading our letters!

We continued to be scientists who learn together as we carried on with our reading groups and learned about text features of non-fiction books to better help us understand what we read. We will be finishing this off this week and then reflecting on how well we worked in a group and our learning overall.

We learned about the next two lessons in the 7 Habits of Happy Kids by Covey.

#5 – Seek first to understand and then to be understood. This was a lesson about the importance of listening.

#6 – Synergy: We are better together. This lesson was about the importance of cooperation and teamwork.

Students were given choice in how they wanted to respond to the texts. They could write about what resonated with them or they could write a creative story that outlines the same message. I love offering choice to students to bring out their ideas and develop their writing skills.

At home, feel free to reinforce these concepts and how they can apply what they learned to different situations and communities your child belongs in.

On Thursday, what a wonderful way to celebrate what our school has been learning in music with Mr. Phelps! We had an amazing drum presentation. I would love to share this with you! Next week on Thursday, December 16 at 7:00pm, you are welcome to join me on Zoom to watch the 4 minute drum presentation, and then we can stay on to get to know each other a little better until 7:30pm! I will send the Zoom link in an email.

It’s hard to believe we are nearing the winter break. It’s been such an amazing year together so far! We love being your child’s teacher and working with you! Thank you so very much for your continued support at home.

We appreciate you so much!

Sincerely, Ms. Chan and Mrs. Paulich