Category: We are communicators.

Hello Div. 6 family!

It’s been a fabulous week! On Tuesday, our amazing PAC delivered our long-awaited sports bins! We are SO grateful to all parents for fundraising so that our students can enjoy the equipment with friends outside. Extra appreciation to the special parents who purchased, put it all together, and delivered the bins. Your time and dedication are valued.

Remembrance Day
On Tuesday, we observed Remembrance Day by a virtual assembly to honour and remember the people and families who served our country to fight for peace. There were contributions from every class. A special thank you to Mr. Greenwood for all his time and effort to put together a compilation video that we viewed. As parents cannot come into the school to enjoy the artwork in the hallways and classrooms, here is a short video we would like to share.

World Kindness Day
On Friday, it was World Kindness Day. As I shared with them, every day should be World Kindness Day. To the left, you will read one of my life mottos. I tweet about this very often. “Through every interaction, we have the opportunity to uplift others through our love and kindness to make someone’s day a brighter one.” To me, there is no neutral. Your words are either positive and help to make someone’s day better or they don’t. I read them the story Each Kindness. To watch the story read to you, click here. It’s about a girl, Maya, who goes to a new school. On a number of occasions, she makes attempts to be friendly but the others turn away. Eventually, she moves away and Chloe, the character whose perspective we are hearing the story from, desperately wants another opportunity to show kindness to her. Unfortunately, it’s too late and she never gets it.

I daresay that children’s picture books have a happy ending 99% of the time. This story doesn’t offer that but instead, a hard lesson, one we can all learn from. This brings me back to my life motto. I try hard to live by what I believe in. It is in every interaction that we have an opportunity to uplift others. This is so important to me because the opposite is true… in ONE interaction, we also have the power to negatively affect and tear down the person we speak to. Do we make mistakes? Yes, we do but if we live our lives striving for positively touching others, as well as the belief that we can be better today than we were yesterday and better tomorrow than we were today, then we are on the right track. In our class, we notice, name, and nurture kind and thoughtful behaviours. Let me tell you, your children demonstrate it throughout the day and every day. We are so blessed to be in each other’s presence to learn together and enjoy each other’s company. My heart is often warmed by what I hear and see.

After the story, children were given the opportunity for a free write as a response to this story. There were so many heartwarming examples. I wanted to share this with you. Thank you, Iman, for giving me permission to share what was in your heart with us all.

Each day there is an opportunity to be kind to each other. This is important because you will have a meaningful life of happiness and appreciation. In your heart, it grows and grows with appreciation for one another. When you are kind to someone, you feel a rush of gratefulness, happiness, and kindness in you.

When I show kindness, it makes me want to do more and more. It can be as simple as saying hi to someone. You might not realize how lovely kindness feels when you show it.

Another example is every day you have, every moment you live, every hour you show kindness, you are giving kindness. But how? How is that showing kindness? To me, this means the world gives me all this time to show my gratefulness, thankfulness, and kindness to the world you live in, and to the people that live in it with you.

So what kindness means to me is every day when you give a little kindness to people, you are giving much, much more. Every action you do for kindness is going a long, long way.

For us, it is in these kinds of life lessons that are the most important lessons to learn about themselves, their place, and the impact they can have in this world.

Science
We have continued to enjoy watching our Mystery Doug videos. This week: What’s at the bottom of the ocean?

On Monday, we will have our first rock inquiry presentations! Click here to review and refer to the criteria that we co-constructed as a class. Please have your child practice as part of their preparation. Thank you for your support at home!

Climate Challenge
As a family, please continue to encourage your child to review the Climate Challenge. Click here for a digital copy.

Math
We practiced rounding numbers this week. Have you ever heard of the flipped classroom? Please watch this 3 minute video that explains! It is when students watch the video at home and then when we come back to class, we have more time to discuss and learn. So, let’s try it! Please watch this video on rounding: Math Antics – Rounding. He does a great job of explaining the rounding of numbers.

Office Hours
Thank you to everyone who met with me on Monday or contacted me to discuss your child’s progress. If you would still like an opportunity, please let me know. As always, we are here to work together to support your child’s learning. Thank you for sharing your child with us this year. We are so blessed!

Gratefully, Ms. Chan and Ms. Paulich

Dear Div. 6 families,

Your children fill me with joy every time I see them. I remind them of this often! Last year, many of my students used the class blog as a way to practice their reading as this gives them a real reason to read. It also provided families with more conversation starters as a way to be more engaged in their child’s learning at school. With all learning at school, there are always opportunities at home to augment, dive deeper, and explore the concepts taught further. Ask your child what else they are curious about. What are some “I wonder” statements. Then together, you can research the questions. This fosters the skill and desire of becoming a lifelong and independent learner. Have fun and be curious together!

We hope you had a good Hallowe’en weekend. We know that some families participated in a collaborative effort to clean up our school property after last weekend. From the bottom of our hearts, thank you for your time and dedication to take care of our school in this way. We appreciate you!

Every day during our morning announcements, there is a lesson based on our school-wide monthly theme. This month, we are focusing on gratitude. They learn a new mindset tip about gratitude each day and are offered a daily challenge. Then we augment the school message by continuing the theme in class. During our Community Circle time every day, we share how we are feeling along with the question or topic of the day. I must tell you that every day, my heart is either warmed or touched by the things they share. On Monday, they shared the most wonderful things about gratitude.

We followed this up by watching The Gratitude Jar by Kristin Wiens and then created our own gratitude jars! They loved working on these. I’m so sorry but I forgot to take a picture of them before leaving school on Friday! Feel free to ask your child about this story and their gratitude jars! We will be filling these with things we are grateful for.

We are responsible citizens who care for our earth. On Wednesday, TJ from BC Sustainability Association presented a virtual workshop on Climate Change. We took sketch notes on what we learned. This is the first year I have introduced sketch notes to my students and the more we use this strategy, the more I am seeing their value in this type of notetaking! I know this has gained more momentum in the education world in more recent years. Please feel free to read an article (video included) called Why Teachers Are So Excited About the Power of Sketchnoting. I wonder what other areas in your child’s life where sketchnoting can be useful at home?

As part of this program, your child is offered an opportunity to participate in a 4-week challenge with the possibilities to win some prizes. A booklet was sent home on Friday. Click here for the digital version (PDF). Please take your time to carefully and thoughtfully review this with your child. They do not need to complete all of the challenges. We learned that Canada is a country that uses more energy than the average compared to other countries! So this initiative is for children and families to learn how we can reduce our carbon footprint. If we build this mindset of taking care of our earth and related habits now, it will make a difference overall.

We are scientists and presenters. On Thursday, we co-constructed our criteria for our Oral Presentation for our rock inquiry. What does that mean? It means that we came up with the criteria together. To access the single-point rubric as a Word document, it can be found in O365 Teams > Assignments > Rock Inquiry or click here. The first presentations will begin this Friday. We cannot listen to everyone on the same day so if your child still needs more time, no worries! They can have more time! In order to prepare, they need to practice their presentation at home a few times in front of you, their pets, stuffed animals, or a mirror. HINT: It is great feedback to videotape and then watch it to see how they can improve. Feel free to “mark” your child or have them self-assess!

Here is the Mystery Doug video we watched this past week: How were emojis created? Feel free to watch as a family with siblings! Enjoy!

We are readers and communicators. For Language Arts, we are improving in our Say Something strategy. We have now moved to groups of three to talk about the books we are reading. I am so pleased with the improvements I am seeing in our double-entry response journals too! Daily homework: Read 20-30 minutes a night and this includes having a conversation about a part of the book that they had a connection to or resonated with them. Besides reading, this sharing piece is just as important to help develop their critical thinking and communication skills. Ask probing questions to try to draw more. For example, “Tell me more. So what makes you think that? How does that make you feel and why? What else does that remind you of?”

We are writers. We did some creative story writing too! I used these doors to spark their creativity. They had the choice to use one or the other or both! I just love how enthusiastic your children are. I am absolutely sure some of them would have loved to stay in to continue writing during their recess if I let them! It brought me so much joy to see their excitement when I gave them more time to write after recess. They are such keen learners and hard workers! Definitely gave “today’s best”!

We are mathematicians. We now have covered all of the place value they need to know, from the millions place to thousandths place. We updated our personal mini-booklets. Our goal was to ensure they have a positive attitude about math so they can be successful, feel happy, and excited for math because it is fun! I believe this beginning to be a success. It takes time. Thank you for your patience and trust. Now that they have a positive mindset to set them up for further success, we can move on. I recognize that this is not the traditional way that we or your child may have learned math in the past but I have found this way to be highly effective because of the foundation we are building in their understanding of numbers and mindset. Having a growth mindset is a huge part of your child’s learning in school and life! For place value review, please have your child use their Khan Academy account. They can find their login information in O365 OneNote > child’s name > Handouts > Accounts. FYI: This is also where they will find their login to All The Right Type (our typing program) and Epic. Please encourage them to practice their typing at home too. Thank you!

We are grateful people. Fridays are our Celebration Fridays when we celebrate big and small things we are grateful for. We do celebrate throughout our day every day too! Yesterday morning so touched my heart and warmed it at the same time. In my past role in Staff Development, I had the privilege to visit many classrooms and schools across our entire district. I can honestly say that there is something special about our Gilmore Community. Your children are happy, respectful, kind, grateful, enthusiastic learners, and the list goes on. They are truly such a pleasure to teach! They sure know how to make a teacher feel appreciated and loved!

We are artists. Ms. Paulich has been amazing at bringing out your child’s creativity through art. Here’s a taste!

Grateful for you! Whenever I have an opportunity to share with my educator friends from around the world about my experience at Gilmore with you and your wonderful children so far, I feel instant joy. Thank YOU for sharing your child with us and for being our partner in your child’s education. They are who they are because of your family beliefs and values taught and modelled at home. We appreciate your continued support! As always, if you have any questions or concerns, please reach out. My daughter’s ringette practice has been cancelled this Monday, November 9 so I am offering “Zoom office hours” for parents who may want to touch base from 7-8pm. Your child is welcome to be there too! It will be on a first-come, first-served basis. This will likely mean you will need to sit in the waiting room so feel free to do other things as you wait. Please let me know if you are interested to chat so I can allot a timeframe and you won’t have to wait as long. Email me at livia.chan@burnabyschools.ca. Thank you!

Please feel free to leave a comment! We love reading them. We would be happy to hear from you! Scroll to the top to find the “Leave a comment” link right under the title of this post.

Gratefully, Ms. Chan and Ms. Paulich

Some great news! This past week in the Burnaby Now, a story was printed about my student from last year. She published a book she wrote in class as part of her Passion Project. Click here to read.

Dear Division 6 family,

I often talk about how we are a family. It very much feels that way for me. It makes me happy to share with you what we have been working on! Click here to watch the video update (6:11) or read the summary below.

On Thursday, students were divided into six random groups of 4. Their first priority was this: Be kind. Be respectful. Be cooperative. Be collaborative. Be creative. Step 2 was to build the tallest tower with 15 rolls of toilet paper and long piece of tape (my arm span). I was SO impressed with how well they communicated, shared ideas, took turns and different roles, and worked together. During our class reflection, we discussed that these are all teamwork skills that are important to hone and practice. Then we took the opportunity to reflect on our team building activity. Some said this was the best thing they have done in grade 5 so far!

I would love for you to know that you have such wonderfully kind, caring, and cooperative children. I think the world of them and absolutely love them!

Language Arts
We have continued to work on our personal reflection writing. We begin by doing a quick write where we compose a paragraph together so they can see my thinking as I write. This helps them think about the targets we want to hit in our writing and what to think about to continuously make our writing better. They are becoming more familiar with using the single-point rubric that I shared with you last week. It gives students a clearer target and they know exactly what they need to do in order to be applying (or proficient) in this type of writing.

Students can always hop onto O365, Teams to work on their Writer’s Workshop stories when at home. They can also practice their typing skills too. Imagine how much they would improve if they spent 10 minutes a few times a week! It’s like any skill. The more time you invest in it, the better you get!

We encourage them to read at least 20-30 minutes every night and then have an opportunity to talk to someone about what they read. I would prefer they read for fewer minutes and spend some time talking than to read but not talk to anyone about what they are reading. To help, feel free to refer to this Say Something strategy.

Math
We have continued on our path to fully understand place value by creating our own Place Value booklets. They have enjoyed creating it as they review the concepts at the same time!

Science
We enjoy our Mystery Doug videos each week! For the last few weeks in October, here are some we watched. I love hearing their enthusiastic responses to some of the new learning we do. If your child has siblings at home, feel free to watch it as a family!

How can you tell if a plant is poisonous?
Why do owls say “hoo”?
Why are so many people scared of bugs?

This past week, we learned from Bill Nye about Rocks and Soil. We have many students who love to draw so we practiced taking sketch notes again. We learned there are three ways that rocks are formed. Later in the week, we had opportunities to take a look at various igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic rocks. I wish you could be there to hear the oohs and ahhs. Learning about rocks is one of my favourite things to teach so I’m thrilled to see their excitement too! Next, we will choose a question we are really curious about to research and learn more about. Then, we will become experts to share with our classmates!

Passion Projects
Students are well on their way with their passion projects. It’s one of my favourite times of the week and I gathered it’s the same for them! We set up our PowerPoints so that we can add information that we find as we go along.

Art
High Five to a Great Year! Students wrote words that describe themselves.

Here they learned about colour theory and created beautiful eyes!

We are so looking forward to have a full week with your child! We feel blessed every day to be their teacher! Thank you for your continued support at home.

Sincerely, Ms. Chan and Ms. Paulich

Dear students and families,

Please read with your child or encourage them to read our weekly blog posts too. This offers a real reason to read, reflect, and respond. It also gives you as a family an opportunity to discuss and reinforce learning. Thank you!

When I reflect on our week, I always have such fond feelings. This past week, we read a story called The Best Story by Eileen Spinelli.

This story was to reinforce the idea that the stories we write come from our hearts. We all worked on a heart map to show all the things that have a place in our hearts.

For Math, we focused on Place Value last week by having fun with numbers! We used our whiteboards to show what we know, played a class race game called “I have, who has”, practiced representing numbers in a place value chart and learned how to read bigger numbers beyond the millions place! They had so much fun practicing by playing a different version of war. I wish you could be in the room to see how much fun and how engaged they were in their learning! Read my tweet!

How to play Place Value Showdown? Take out the 10, Jack, and King. The A=1 and Queen = zero in your deck of cards. Each player flips over one card at a time on their own game sheet (place value chart), starting from the ones place. The player with the larger number earns one point. Then both players can earn a second point if they each read the number correctly. That way, the other player can also earn a point each time. Each child has their own deck of cards so they are not sharing. Variation game option: Only the player with the larger number gets the point but they have to read it correctly to keep the point!

How to support at home: Students were told they could bring their game boards home to practice. If your child is not ready to read numbers to the millions place, then simply fold the place value chart over to where they can read numbers and then slowly add one more place at a time. They should not say the word “and” when they are saying their numbers. For example, this number shown would be 69 million, 5 hundred sixty-two thousand, (do not say AND here) forty-three. It’s a common mistake that we add “and” when we read numbers!

For Language Arts, we worked on our paragraph writing about gratitude. During our Thursday morning Community Circle time, we shared what we are thankful for. Then watched one of my favourite videos on gratitude:

Next, we dove into the writing process. I wanted students to understand that we only spend approximately 20% of our time writing. The rest of our writing is more about thinking, reviewing, and revising. Click on the image for the full view of the graphic. So we started with making a list of things we are grateful for. Students could choose to write a list or make a web.

We then learned how to write a good paragraph, reviewed how to write a topic and closing sentence, and what goes in between! I always use a magnifying glass (I actually pull one out!) and tell them that’s what they are doing with their writing. They are diving in deeper to offer explanations, descriptions, examples, or reasons. They chose one thing they are grateful for to dive deeper!

Lastly, we learned what to do when we are “finished’. Well, we are actually never really finished but before they hand in their work, here are the steps to take. To make our writing better, I ask them DYRIO? This stands for “Did You Read It Over?” Please click image to view. I loved reading their writing!

This past week, we had a number of students away. It weighed on me that I was not doing more for the students at home so at the end of the week (Thursday and Friday), I started sharing what we were doing in class so that friends at home would not be too far behind when they returned.

I also have more things set up in O365 Teams so your child can continue to work there. If they go to Class Notebook or OneNote in their own section (with their name), click on the Handouts tab. The first page on this tab is Accounts. Here, you will find the class code for Epic (our online book library), their username and password for a typing program called All The Right Type (ATRT) and Khan Academy (online math lessons and review). Click on the hyperlink to go to the website. Students can always work on their Writer’s Workshop stories found in Teams > Assignments. I will continue to set up processes and things to do should your child not feel well and is at home. Of course, getting better is their most important “homework”! These activities are only for when they just have a bit of a cough and have the energy to do some work! I am still figuring out the best way to hand in their work. For now, emailing me is best. Thank you to those who have done just that! I have loved receiving your work remotely!

Our schedule is set! We will go to the Computer Lab on Tuesday and Friday. On Tuesday and Wednesday, we go to the gym, have Social Studies, and practice our French with Ms. Paulich!

On Friday, we started working on our Passion Projects! It was a fantastic start! If your child is at home sick, working on their Passion Project is also a great way to learn while at home!

If you plan to keep your child at home due to illness, please inform the office. If you also email Marianna and me, we appreciate too! Thank you!

We hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving long weekend! I actually found it a bit hard this weekend not being able to see my extended family like we always do BUT I am still grateful for the many blessings I have. I see every day as a gift. Every person and connection we make is a gift. My year with your children and your family is a gift. Time is a gift. I speak about these things and how gratitude is important to me on podcast that dropped at the beginning of September. If you are interested to listen, click here. I would absolutely love to hear what resonated with you if you listen, please. I am grateful for your time!

Thank you for your continued support at home! As always, please feel free to reach out should you have any questions. Thank you for your beautiful children in our lives. We feel so very blessed to be their teacher this year.

Appreciating you, Ms. Chan and Ms. Paulich