Category: We are creative thinkers.

Dear Division 6 families,

Time is flying by! I cannot believe we are moving into our last week in April! We will continue to make each day count and thoroughly enjoy learning together.

I have different opportunities to share my experiences with people in our district and around the world. One thing I absolutely love sharing is the joy I feel being your child’s teacher and the connection we share. It has been such a memorable year so far and I have been so blessed and honoured to work with you and your children. We are so very grateful for your continued support! Please always feel free to reach out should you have any positive feedback so we know what is effective for your child and we keep doing it but also any concerns so we can better support you and your child.

We are communicators and can reflect on our learning.

Last week, your child had the great opportunity to share their learning with you during their Student Led conference at home. We have thoroughly enjoyed reading the Two Stars and a Wish sheets! Thank you for your time to fill them out so thoughtfully! It was a great opportunity for your child to not just reflect on their learning but to celebrate their progress and also set some goals for the remainder of this year. If you have feedback you’d like to share  or want to elaborate on what was written on the Two Stars and a Wish sheets, please feel free to send me an email at Livia.Chan@burnabyschools.ca. We are looking forward to in-person conferences next year!

We are mathematicians.

Grade 4s are continuing to practice multiplication x 1 digit. The grade 5s had an opportunity to show what they know so far on Wednesday. It was a point of progress for me to check their understanding,  inform me on what I need to review/reteach, and an opportunity for them to see where they are at in their learning journey too. Your child should have brought home their progress sheet with specific feedback along with an answer sheet for you to compare. Most students still need to review the distributive property so we would appreciate your support, thank you! They will have another opportunity to show what they know on Friday, April 29! Please continue to have your child practice their math facts. It makes a world of a difference and helps with their confidence when children know their facts. We will be starting division very soon!

We are scientists.

We learned about the respiratory system. Please feel free to rewatch the video and talk about how the system works. I taught them a movement “dance” to remember. We have two dances so far…one for the circulatory system and one for the respiratory system! Ask them to show you!

Passion Projects

Aside from a handful of students who have yet to present (they will this coming week), most students have started on their next passion project. On Friday, they had an opportunity to formally record. Your child brought it home to work on. Feel free to review it with them this week. Most important are the questions that will drive their research. Please remind your child to return it before Friday. Click the link Passion Project proposal for a copy. It includes the progress sheet too.

We are critical and creative thinkers who design!

This past week, students were introduced to the CO2 dragsters ADST project (Applied Design, Skills, and Technologies). They had some time to investigate other people’s designs and are free to continue to do so at home. This week, they will be:

We are so looking forward to seeing their progress over time!

Swimming Update

Thank you so much for sharing your feedback so quickly on the survey! There was an overwhelming response so we will be planning two swimming sessions at Eileen Dailly pool. As soon as more details are available, we will happily share!

Some reminders:

• Grade 5s: Please sign forms and pay for Camp Jubilee.
• If your child has not returned their Student Led conference envelopes yet, please return.
• Donations for Canucks Autism Network will be closing on April 28. Go to School Cash Online if you would like to donate, thank you.

With a heart of gratitude, Ms. Chan

Dear families of Division 6,

The more I teach your children, the more I love and adore them! We had another great week together! Every morning after Flex time, I play a song to indicate that it’s time to clean up and come to our Community Circle. I was playing a song called Best Thing Ever and I dedicated it to them. Here’s the best line that reflects how I feel: There’s nothing better than feeling alright. Together. This is the best thing ever. We really do enjoy being together.

Click on image to watch the video update

We are writers.

This week, we continued to work on our paragraph writing. I have to say that how they responded to the writing lessons was so heartwarming! I asked them how many felt they wrote their best paragraphs ever and many proud hands went up! They followed a set of criteria as they wrote. Then used the simplified rubric to self-assess. Next, they were paired with a partner for peer assessments. Click here to see the rubric we used. Reflecting on our writing is an important piece of our learning. Reviewing a peer’s work teaches us different skills too!

I just launched an online course on Writing Strategies with the Teach Better Team last week so it’s exciting to share the same tried, tested, and true lessons I teach your children but to a wider audience!

Students worked hard on their spelling words. It’s rare I give spelling tests but students were having trouble with some basic homophones so I wanted them to spend some time learning them. After a pretest, some didn’t need practice so I gave them personal challenge words instead based on their own writing. They chose the number of spelling words they wanted. Yesterday, I gave 17 spelling tests at the same time! Personalized learning!

Click here to watch this video if your child is still having trouble with there, their, and they’re.

We reflect on our learning using FreshGrade.

It has been a little while since they last logged in to FreshGrade. To refresh your memory, this is their e-portfolio where they reflect on their learning. All students uploaded a sample of their paragraph writing and reflected on their development and should have added a recording of their reading as well along with a lot of their art! Here are the questions they are asked to respond to as part of their reflection:

• Explain what we did in this task.
• What are you proud of? What are your strengths?
  • I can…
  • I can…
• What would you do differently next time?
• What did you learn about yourself?

Each entry should answer the above. I will be adding you to their account so you can view their posts. This is another great way that we communicate student learning with you and complementary to the Learning Update that was sent home today. I told them that you have homework…sorry! I know they will really appreciate it if you log in (once I add your email to their account) and comment on their learning. Here are some guiding questions that may help you with writing your comments:

• I love how you…
• I appreciate how hard you worked on…
• I am proud of the way you…
• Tell me more about…

We are mathematicians.

Grade 5 students received their Fractions Test #2 back. The first test gives students a very clear picture of where they were at and the second test gives them an opportunity to show how they’ve learned it better. Even students who showed proficiency the first time did a much better job of explaining equivalent fractions the second time around so they even noticed an improvement! This is exactly why I love giving a re-test. Because math is so foundational, this is an important practice in assessment. I was so very impressed how so many of them have become proficient! Thank you so very much for your continued support at home.

This week, we learned about comparing and ordering fractions when the denominator is the same and when the numerator is the same. We also learned about mixed fractions. We will be learning about decimals next week so if you’d like to spend some time reviewing at home, they will be more prepared next week. Feel free to watch this video at home: Math Antics Decimals Place Value

All About Me Presentations

I wish you can be in the room when we work on our All About Me projects on PowerPoint. They have been working so hard and they are so engaged! They ask to work on it! And when they do that, you know they love to work on it! One student shared that he forgot all about his pain (from a fall) because he was having so much fun!

Another student said this year was the first year he used laptops, so I am so impressed with how quickly they learned how to navigate, learn all of the features, and be creative! Next week, we will begin presentations. Students should come prepared to present. Each slide should have minimal words with an engaging image(s). They should be able to share 3-5 sentences about each slide. Please ask your child to practice their presentation at home.

Learning Updates

Writing these felt like a gift. I tweeted it out too!

If you have any questions about the Learning Update for your child, please reach out. Remember, we work as partners in your child’s education. We highly recommend you sit down with your child to talk about all of their successes and discuss the goals they set for themselves. Give them a voice. Ask them how you can support them.

Reminders:

• Scholastic Book Fair – last day to purchase is Friday, November 26 online only. Thank you so much for your support!
• Please sign and return the progress report envelope on Monday. Thank you!
• Tuesday, November 30 – Hot lunch (Tentatsu)
• Friday, December 3 – Jingle Bell Walk food collection

My words alone cannot truly express how much joy it brings me to be your child’s teacher but you can’t quite see into my heart so I guess my words (and video) will have to do! Thank you for sharing your wonderful children with us and for your continued support at home.

If you feel inclined, we’d love to hear from you after you read these blog posts. Please feel free to leave a comment or email us!

With a heart full of gratitude, Ms. Chan (and Mrs. Paulich)

Dear Div. 6 families,

It was a full week of learning!

Scholastic Book Fair begins on Monday! Students wrote in their Planners that our day to shop and buy is on Monday! Students can bring money or you are welcome to shop at home online. Check the Gilmore website for more details and links.

We are writers.

We continued to practice our paragraph writing by writing about our weekend. Students are working towards having a clear opening and closing sentence with details that develop their ideas in between. We are working on adding more thoughts, feelings, and reactions to what we experience in our writing. At this grade level, most of their sentences should be complete, meaning they begin with a capital letter and end with proper punctuation.

Students were given a spelling pre-test on Wednesday mostly of homonyms (words that sound the same but are spelled differently). Some students spelled all of the words correctly so I offered them a challenge. They chose the number of challenge words I had to look for. I took words from their writing they misspelled so many of them have personal spelling words. If these words are too difficult to memorize or there are too many of them, then please feel free to decrease the number to study. Some struggle is “healthy” because they are in their growth zone but too much and they’re in their panic zone/shut down zone so that’s not what we want. You and your child have the flexibility to choose.

All words were written in their Planners. The test will be on Wednesday, November 24.

We are communicators.

We have continued to work on our All About Me in PowerPoint. This project was originally all about learning the features of PowerPoint. The students in the class are really enjoying it! Some are adding in family photos and even home videos! The slides should just be a visual reminder of what they want to share.

Here are some things the class learned:

• How to add and properly resize images (by pulling the corners to keep the ratio right)
• How to move and delete slides
• How to INSERT a video (go to insert and choose Online video), paste URL so it will appear on the slide
• How to insert icons, shapes, text boxes
• Use DESIGN for effectively visual slides
• We talked about how we don’t want too many words on each slide. We want the audience to be engaged by the image and listen attentively to the speaker but when we put too many words on a slide, the presenter tends to read the words and the audience does too.

They learned the shortcut keys too when they highlight words. They wrote it on a sticky note as a personal cheat sheet:

• • Ctrl + B = bold
  • Ctrl + I = italicize
  • Ctrl + U = underline
  • Ctrl + X = cut
  • Ctrl + C = copy
  • Ctrl + V = paste
  • Ctrl + Z = undo

We are readers.

I gave them all an assignment in Teams. It was a reading progress check. They recorded themselves reading a grade-level passage. They had the option to record their voice only or with video too. The kids really enjoyed doing that! They can record as many times as they wish before they hand in that assignment. This was something I just learned last week so it was very cool to try it out! I tweeted about it too and a person who works on the Microsoft Teams responded and retweeted my tweet! He liked hearing about students’ excitement.

We are storytellers.

We read Jeremiah Learns to Read and did a character deep dive. Then we started our own brainstorm of characters for the story we are going to write on a story map graphic organizer. They worked on their setting too.

We are mathematicians.

Please continue to be diligent in having your child practice the math facts. Ideally, spending at least 5 to 10 mins a day on memorizing math facts or playing math games with that purpose will be awesome too! Feel free to take a look at our blog for some ideas for games. The math facts are broken down into strategies: https://sd41blogs.ca/chanl/mathematiciansplay/. They practiced Making 10s Go Fish this week.

We continued with fractions learning how to compare and order them.

Planners

Please continue to check your child’s planner regularly and have them place their planners in their backpack the night before. We would love for them to become independent with this responsibility. Thank you for your support!

Taking care of our bodies

During our community circle time, there are a number of students who are regularly reporting that they are tired and/or hungry. Certain resources say that children this age should still be getting about 10 hours of sleep. As these are basic needs that can really affect their focus, attention, and energy at school, please have a discussion with your child to see if they are the ones who are often sharing they are tired and/or hungry. We do allow students to eat during the day if they need nourishment.  Perhaps a bigger breakfast and more snacks brought to school will help. Thank you for your support!

Informal Learning Updates will go home on Thursday. Please sign and return the envelope next Monday. You can keep the insert.

Pro-D day will be on Friday, November 26. Students do not attend.

As always, we appreciate your support at home. Every single day, we are so grateful to work with such a lovely group of children who love to learn! They bring us so much joy!

With a heart full of appreciation, Ms. Chan and Mrs. Paulich

Dear Division 6 family,

What a wonderful week! We celebrated more Kindness Projects this week! Ethan, Quinson, Brodie and Miles finished their Kindness tree. See my tweet. Students worked on a Kindness project of their choice. Loved seeing this tree “grow”! Students in the school are invited to help. The note says: Our tree needs love. Write a kind word on a leaf & write your name.

They were so excited when they started to see kind words written by others on the leaves!

We also celebrated the group with Olivia H., Maya, and Iman who organized a Kindness Scavenger Hunt for the class that had them running around outside completing various tasks in hopes of being the first group to finish! This creative project brought so much joy to the class, thank you! See my tweet.

This scavenger hunt was well organized and well thought out. Groups had to write a kind letter to me, decode Morse code message to earn more coins, write a kindness haiku, and pick up garbage to earn coins. They earned more coins if they demonstrated great teamwork. What a great way to celebrate kindness toward others!

In Math, we learned about different attributes of quadrilaterals like parallel, perpendicular, and intersecting lines. Students have some symmetry work to complete for the weekend. Please check their planner. Please have your child return their work on Monday. Thank you for your support!

Students have been diligently working on their speeches. They will be presenting them in the week of June 21st.

We are always appreciative for your support at home.

Gratefully, Ms. Chan and Mrs. Paulich