Category: We are critical thinkers.

Dear Division 6 families,

I always feel sad when we have a holiday or Pro-D day that lands on a Monday or Friday because those are the days that I am in the class all day so it’s a lot of time missed with them. Regardless of having a shorter week, we’ve had a great one!

Math

On Tuesday, we reviewed the Math quiz on division in detail discussing common errors. Thank you for reviewing and signing it! As you saw, each child had an encouraging note written on their page with some extra notes specific to the sections that they found challenging. Any student who would like to be retested to demonstrate their understanding is welcome to rewrite.

We continued to dive deeper into the relationship between perimeter and area. We learned that we can have the same perimeter with different areas AND the same area with different perimeter. Last week, they were given a quiz to show what they know and it was great to see how many understood it! The only thing many were forgetting was to include the unit of measure, even though this was emphasized as an important part each time.

We started our review of patterns and are using Book Creator to create our own digital book to demonstrate our understanding of increasing/decreasing patterns using words, numbers, and symbols. They also need to be able to describe the pattern. I’m loving the creativity I’m seeing so far!

Speeches

On Tuesday, students started writing their speeches on what lesson they learned since the pandemic in Word. Here are some of the central themes: gratefulness and having taken things for granted, flexibility, I am braver than I think, to never give up, I can work hard, I can do anything I put my mind to, loyalty, and if I work hard, I can find success.

Kindness Projects

Groups are continuing to work on their kindness projects. They all did a self-assessment on how well they took turns, worked collaboratively, how focussed and how hard they worked.

To the left is a sneak peek into one of the Kindness projects (Ethan, Quinson, Miles, and Brodie). Since I took this image, they have added bees and a bird and nest. It was so exciting for them this week when they saw that some people had written kind words on some of their leaves!!

We have another group that has written over a hundred messages of kindness on sticky notes and put them all over the school! This past week, their group (Gabriella, Shayla, Hailey, and Vienna) went on the PA system to explain to the rest of the school what to do with them. They also created a fun video about kindness that was shared with the class. Loved their creativity and bravery!

We’re looking forward to spending a full week with the kids!

Thank you for your continued support at home,

Ms. Chan and Mrs. Paulich

Hello Division 6 families!

We have had another great week! Our Kindness Projects are coming along well! Please ask your child what they are working on to invite conversation at home.

Speeches

Every year, all grade 7’s in Burnaby have an opportunity to participate in the District’s speech competition. This annual event began in 1983 to provide the opportunity to develop confidence and pursue excellence in public speaking. Students are generally given a sentence starter. While your children have had opportunities to present Science and Passion Projects with PowerPoint, we have not practiced writing and presenting speeches yet so I thought this would be great writing practice. This past year, the grade 7’s were given this sentence starter: The lesson I learned in 2020 was…

Since the grade 7’s wrote their speeches in January and we are now in May, students were given this instead: The lesson I learned in 2020/21 was… This is to be a minimum 3 minute and a maximum 5 minute speech. They will be timed.

We started our brainstorm today as a class. Some themes that came out of our conversation were:

• • • Flexibility/adaptability: go with the flow; things happen, move on
    • Be positive.
    • You can learn anything.
    • You don’t always have to be happy.
    • We have taken things for granted: what we missed the most
    • We are braver than we think: I have courage.
    • We can do hard things. I am a hard worker.

Please have a conversation with your child about what they have chosen to write about. They will be encouraged to choose one central idea and write some paragraphs in support. They will be asked to provide details like examples, reasons, explanations and to dive deeper into their ideas. Having a detailed brainstorm sheet will make the writing process flow better. Click here to print out the graphic organizer if you wish.

Math

As Mathematicians, we had to think critically as we dove further into perimeter and area. Click here to learn more about perimeter. Click here to learn more about area. For grade 5’s, they are expected to be able to measure the area of squares and rectangles (area = length x width), and how they are related to but not dependent on each other. So, this past week, we learned that you can have the same perimeter but different areas. If your child did not complete the homework that was due this week, you should have received an email from me tonight. Click here to view page 129 and 130. Students were asked to complete #1, 2, 3 and 7. If you need grid paper, click here to print.

On Friday, students wrote a division quiz to check their understanding. Your child will come home with their sheet for you to review next Tuesday, May 25. Please take note of the sections your child struggled with, review the concepts, sign, and return the next day on Wednesday, May 26, thank you!

Spelling

Your child brought home their spelling test on Thursday. They were asked to share it with you. If you haven’t done so already, please review, initial, and send back to school. Thank you!

Passion Projects

Click here for the criteria. Here is the presentation schedule. After consultation, your child agreed to the following dates. Please help us support your child to be ready BEFORE their presentation date. We are practicing holding ourselves accountable to deadlines. Thank you!

Library

Next Friday, May 28th, will be their last day to sign out library books. ALL library books will need to be returned the following week on June 4th.

Should you have any questions, please feel free to ask. Thank you for being our partners in your child’s learning. We appreciate you!

Gratefully, Ms. Chan and Mrs. Paulich

Dearest Division 6 family,

I so appreciate you for your time to read my blog posts every week and your interest to stay informed. It is hard to believe we are finished another month and more than halfway through the year! These updates are for you so I’m looking for feedback on these weekly posts. What is something you really enjoy? What would you like to see more of? What suggestions do you have to make this space more beneficial to you? Thank you for your feedback! Please comment on the blog or send me an email at Livia.Chan@burnabyshcools.ca. Thank you for your time!

Last week, students worked hard on their self-assessments and reflected on what they are proud of. I have thoroughly enjoyed reading all of their responses. I felt so proud to read their thoughts. Reflection is such an important part of learning.

“We do not learn from experience… we learn from reflecting on experience.” – John Dewey

To understand the importance of reflection, it was ADDED to our revised curriculum in our Core Competencies under Thinking – Critical and Reflective Thinking. I recently found an article on FreshGrade’s website about reflection. You will see some of their reflections in their report cards in the Student Voice section. They were so honest and open!

I also took this opportunity to have my students write a “report card” for me! I asked them for feedback on what I am doing well and what I could be doing better. Their honest feedback was so appreciated. I firmly believe in the power of reflection, the power of voice, and self-advocacy. If there is something I can change to make their school experience a better one, I am open to listening and we can co-create the curriculum in response!

This past week, we continued to work on our stories that Ms. Lee, Oscar’s mom, encouraged us to write. On Thursday, we were on Zoom with Ms. Lee again! She taught us some valuable tips on overcoming the fear of sharing our writing and speaking. Thank you to Olivia H., Quinson, and Rasul who pushed themselves outside of their comfort zone to read their stories. They were so SO good! I would have loved to see more students dive into their stretch zone to read their stories. Please encourage your child to find the courage to share, thank you! We SO appreciate her time and for sharing her expertise with us! Ms. Lee also wrote and shared her own story based on the collective brainstorming they did last week. The story was so engaging! We were SO blessed to have her teach our class! Thank you so much, Ms. Lee!

Students finished some window art and thank you to Ms. Paulich, it beautifies our windows! I loved seeing the different designs and colours. It’s always so amazing to me that students are given the same instructions but the final results are so varied because of the creativity in their brains!

Coming up, we will begin to learn about multiplication so if your child does not know their multiplication facts, please have them practice at home. We will learn some games they can play at home to review too so get a deck of cards ready to have some fun and you practice your math facts with them!

As always, we really appreciate your continued support at home. At any time, if you have any questions, please feel free to reach out. Thank you for being partners in your child’s learning.

Remember, I’m looking for feedback on what you like and what you’d like to see more of in these blog posts, so please share!

We also have some exciting news! We have a new student named Dante who will be joining our class in the morning! He comes from a nearby Vancouver school. Welcome, Dante, and your family! We are thrilled you will be joining our school family!

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

Dear Division 6 families,

We had another fantastic week together! I feel that I sound like a broken record each week but your children continue to amaze me with how hard they work, how kind they are to each other, and how well they work together so I am thrilled to be a broken record week after week!

Personal Awareness
This past week, we continued to work on our “I am” statements. We pushed ourselves to look for more words we could use to describe our strengths. I discovered that when I did the same thing, half of my final list of 10 words came from diving in further the next day! I am always offering opportunities for them to push them into their stretch zone. This was the perfect real-life example! The list we came up with on Friday was in our comfort zone. The extended list we added on Monday was in our stretch zone. So many students found new words they added as their strengths on Monday just like I did! If we had stopped on Friday, they wouldn’t have grown their vocabulary of strengths or found words that better described themselves! Take a look at Nicholas’! On Friday, they typed up their “I am” poetry so we are now ready for the next part. Stay tuned! It’s NOT what they will expect!

We are scientists.
This week, we had an opportunity to form groups to review the three body systems we covered so far: circulatory, respiratory, and digestive systems. Groups were given choice as to which one they wanted to create and present a skit. They had so much fun working together. So far, we had one group present: Olivia, Maya, Rachel, and Vienna had a clever and entertaining skit where they were in a restaurant ordering food. When the food arrived, they explained what happens and what would happen to the orange that was actually ingested by Maya!

We watched a very interesting video from Mystery Doug on Which animal has the biggest heart. Click here to view. The heart was gigantic!

We are mathematicians.
We continued to work on our addition videos. All students should have them completed by the end of this week and uploaded to their digital portfolios with their reflection. They reviewed subtraction with regrouping this week. Please feel free to check that your child understands how to subtract with regrouping. You can have fun challenging each other with big numbers!

We are readers.
We had a successful Book Club meeting with our group members. During the debriefing, we talked about what went well, what they found challenging, and what they would do differently. I am so looking forward to watching them grow in their conversations about what they read! How you can support at home: Have conversations about what your child reads. The connections they make, for example, are an important part to help them understand. Ask them about a favourite part or what they think will happen next and why. Ask them about a part in the story that surprised them, why, and how they might change that part of the story. Ask them about the characters and perhaps which character they align with. Lastly, model reading at home. Children who see their parents read are more likely to read as well.

Virtual Celebration of Learning
Unfortunately, due to technical difficulties, we were not able to watch the Celebration of Learning on Friday. It will be available for viewing on Tuesday, February 16. Look out for the email with the link. Our class will be presenting their One Word.

 Celebrating Friendships
Valentine’s day celebrations looked a little different this year. There was no food shared but they brought their own snacks. They had a wonderful afternoon playing and socializing with our cohort class, Division 5.

We talked about creating Valentine’s for each other digitally. Please enjoy the kind messages they sent to each other! Click on the image to view or click here.

My heart always feels so happy when I get to spend time with your children. The sense of family is strong and I feel so blessed every day to be their teacher. Thank you for your continued support at home. Report cards will be going home before spring break but at any time, if you wish to have an update, always feel free to reach out. I am grateful for our connection.

Our sincerest appreciation, Ms. Chan & Ms. Paulich