Category: We are mathematicians.

Dear families,

Your children make work such a joyful place to be. Sometimes I really can’t believe that I have a job that allows me to smile and laugh so often throughout my work day! One thing I am noticing is how new friendships are developing; I am seeing different people spend time with others. Thank you for your continued support at home. I learned this past week that some of the kids have been reading the weekly updates too. What a great real life reason to read!

MONDAY: Last week, students were introduced to numbers with decimals. Since learning about fractions helps with learning about decimals, we dove into fractions this week and will eventually return to decimals next week. I have updated our Mathematicians page to include the learning outcomes for fractions and decimals as outlined in BC’s curriculum so click here to learn more. This page also includes the learning outcomes from the units covered since the beginning of the year.

TUESDAY: In preparation for our Literature Circles, students were taught the “Say Something” strategy. Together, we read a poem about loosing teeth and the tooth fairy (something we all can connect to!). They were encouraged to notice their thinking as they read – their connections, questions, or images they see in their mind. Then they were asked to “say something” to respond to the text. It can be something that reminds them of another personal experience, something that surprised them or an interesting part, an I wonder statement, or comment on how certain words helped create a visual for them (like a movie in their head), for example. This is a great strategy to practice at home so that they become accustomed to sharing thoughts, feelings, opinions, and participate in less structured conversations.

WEDNESDAY: We listened to a story called Creepy Carrots by Aaron Reynolds and created our own! Which one scares you the most? Coincidentally, today was the same day that the school veggie program delivered baby carrots. How fitting! I love this program because students may be introduced to fruits or veggies they may have never tried before. We actually had one student who tried a carrot for the first time!

THURSDAY: Hallowe’en Day. After listening to another story by the same author, Aaron Reynolds, called Creepy Pair of Underwear, students were introduced to a new story telling app named Puppet Pals. Working in pairs, they created stories using their own creepy carrots as characters. Such a fun time working in partners being creative and playful with telling their story. In the afternoon, we shared our creative stories with the class.

If you have an iPad, Puppet Pals can be downloaded for free with limited capabilities or purchase Puppet Pals Director’s Pass for a few dollars to have the ability to add your own characters and settings.

Thank you to everyone for bringing in healthy snacks to share! I enjoyed listening to the stories of their Hallowe’en nights.

FRIDAY: Today, we welcomed Ms. Taylor as a volunteer who will be supporting us. I have known her for years through my ringette community because she is also a coach. Last year, she volunteered in my class too. Ms. Taylor has applied to SFU’s Education program to become a teacher.

We met with our little buddies for the second time. So love watching your child practice their leadership and communication skills with little ones!

The District purchased Tynker licenses (coding) for two intermediate classes per school. We are fortunate to have one of these licenses. Some students were interested to take home their account and password information to try out. On an iPad, you can download the Tynker app. Then have your child sign in with their credentials (username and password). I have asked them to download the course named Programming 101 only because this is a beginner course that will help develop their coding skills. Alternatively, Tynker can be accessed on any browser (like Chrome or Safari), tap Sign In, and enter their credentials (username and password).

Dear students,

We have been together for 8 weeks now. What are your favourite activities or lessons so far? What would you like to do more of? Please feel free to write a comment on this blog post.

Have a fantastic weekend, everyone!

Sincerely, Ms. Chan

An update on Grade 4 FSA testing: Most students have completed the two online and three written portions on reading, writing, and numeracy.

I have added some new pages to We Are Learners tab. To learn more about what has been covered in the curriculum, please check it out!

• Comprehend and Connect (new)
• Creators and Communicators (new)
• Mathematicians (updated)
• Core Competencies (I am still adding to this page.)

Field Trip to World Ringette Championships on November 28th. If you have not done so already, please click here to go to the online permission form to fill out. Thank you. To learn more about the field trip, click here.

I recently found out that our Young People’s Concert will be on the same day at 10:45 AM. We should be back shortly after 12 noon and will head to Bill Copeland sooner after. Thank you to parents who have already indicated that you can drive us and help supervise.

Enjoy watching Creepy Carrots and Creepy Underwear at home!

Being your child’s teacher brings me so much joy. I am blessed to have the privilege to work with them this year.

TUESDAY: In Math, we have been practicing our skip counting by 2s and 10s using a deck of cards to create random numbers. Students flip over three or four cards to make a number; they call out 2 more, 2 less or 10 more, 10 less with speed. This concept helps their addition and subtraction fluency. For grade 3s, they practiced numbers up to 1000 and for grade 4s, they practiced numbers up to 10,000. For Math addition fluency, we practiced a new strategy of making tens by playing Making Tens Go Fish. To learn more about how you can support your child at home in Math, click on our We are Mathematicians page.

WEDNESDAY: Music teacher came in to ask if I teach students to be friendly-yes! He noticed they greet him by saying hi, his name, and look at him in the eye. They have been greeting me in the mornings by saying my name too! They understand how nice it feels when they hear their name. #heartwarmed
*I love it when I hear them greet each other and say their names with a smile too!

THURSDAY: Students didn’t appear to mind walking in the rain to Revs Bowling. They were placed into mixed groups with the other grade 4/5 classes. Here were some of their appreciations: I appreciate Mr. Peters for planning the field trip. I am grateful for meeting new people. I am thankful for my friends who bowled with me.

FRIDAY: This week, students worked on heart maps, story maps and dove in to our inquiry into what makes a good story. Students are becoming more proficient in using O365. Can’t wait to use the commenting feature to provide descriptive feedback and see how they respond and improve in writing over time.

Optional: To access Office 365 at home, use the O365 link or go to our Brentwood Park website and click on Office 365 tab (black menu) on the top bar. Students will need to know their student number. Login looks like this: ######@edu.burnabyschools.ca

Students were so excited to meet our little buddies in Ms. Brolin’s class for the first time on Friday. Another heartwarming event to watch them all in action as they shared about things they have in common and shared a book with them too.

Healthy eating: With Hallowe’en approaching, this is a great time to talk about bringing healthy foods to school. Click here to read about Kids, Sugar, and Healthy Eating by Dietitians of Canada. For the remainder of the year, please refrain from sending snacks that have high sugar content like chocolate and lollipops, for example. Thank you for your support.

Please continue to bring in non-perishable food items for our We Scare Hunger campaign. Thank you.

Inside shoes: With our Westcoast weather, it would be very helpful for your child to bring or keep a pair of inside shoes at school. Wearing shoes is more comfortable than wearing boots all day and it helps keep our classroom cleaner. Thank you.

Finally, our class is complete with our last two students joining us this week. Welcome to our class, twins!

Here were the daily tweets for the week with additional information:

Click on image to learn more about the book.

MONDAY: Staff had a great day diving into our new school goal of writing. We started our day reviewing our social emotional goal with Jillian. There was excitement about maintaining an existing goal and taking on a new one.

TUESDAY: Read The Orange Shirt Story. During our discussion, students quickly came to realize how fortunate they are. It seemed to hit them when thinking about what it might be like to be away from their families for 300 consecutive days during the school year. Although Phyllis only spent one year in a residential school, many other children spent many more years away from their families. It was really quite difficult for them to fathom but I believe they understood why it is important to acknowledge Orange Shirt Day. To learn a little more, click here to read recent CBC article.

Click here to read reflections written by Kiana and Lucas C.

WEDNESDAY: Theme of the day – Trust. Started day with car and driver team building game. In partners, students in front were cars with eyes closed. Students in back drove car around room being careful and mindful not to drive too fast or to crash their vehicles! Great discussion about trust. End of day, learning about solids and matter. Ultimate trust to hold nail while partner hammers!

In Science, we continued our learning about matter to include the three states: solid, liquid, and gas. We all tried hammering a nail, comparing a bottle with air and then a bottle with water in it. Students were amazed at the enormous number of atoms or molecules in just one drop of water. Can you guess how many? Answer is at the bottom of this post.

THURSDAY: Being friendly can be taught. Team building activity: practiced just waving at our partner, then waving & smiling, then waving, smiling & saying hi, then waving, smiling, saying hi & their name. Last bit, created a special handshake. Move to new partner to do the same. Smiles and fun had by all! All smiling was good practice for our individual photos later in the morning!

FRIDAY: Partners used a deck of cards to make random numbers to compare smaller/larger numbers (like war but with 3-4 cards each). Same practice on a worksheet? Yes but so much more engaging and fun to learn together to practice not just a number sense concept but communication and social skills. Students recorded their number comparisons in their Math notebooks. To learn more about our new Math unit on Number Sense, the learning outcomes, and ways to support at home, click here.

We met with our buddy class for the first time in Mr. Jung’s grade 6/7 class. Students enjoyed getting to know their buddies by playing card games and reading with them.

Important Dates:

• Friday, October 11 – Young People’s Concert – bus leaves for Michael J. Fox Theatre at 9:00am
• Friday, October 11 – Scholastic and Revs Bowling permission slips are due
• Monday, October 14 – Thanksgiving; school closed

Answer: It turns out there are over 1.5 sextillion molecules in a drop of water and more than 5 sextillion atoms per droplet. That’s 1 500 000 000 000 000 000 000 or 5 000 000 000 000 000 000 000, respectively in one single drop of water!

We have continued to enjoy ourselves by learning about and learning with each other. Here are some tweets from the week plus more!

MONDAY: Loving how students are accepting challenges to push themselves into growth zone. In writing after conferencing, I point out strengths and area(s) of opportunity. They walk away to work on challenge to improve writing and come back feeling so proud. Then we set new goal on next blank page.

TUESDAY: We looked at Terry Fox as an incredible example of perseverance and determination. Need to have positive self-talk especially when we find ourselves struggling; be own cheerleader. Recognize there is value in the struggle as we push through. Means we are in our growth zone. Believe in yourself.

In Math, we started learning about telling time. To find out more about the learning outcomes for each grade and how concepts can be reinforced through games on websites at home and school, click here. As mentioned previously, my goal is to help students change their mindset about Math. Here’s a short video about believing in yourself; click here to view.

WEDNESDAY: Students thoroughly enjoyed exercising their creative play and collaboration skills with green screen app by @DoInkTweets. Classroom noise not a problem! We say, “Quiet on the set!” And everyone goes silent to support the group recording their video. Class teamwork in action! #GreatKids

We continued to talk about perseverance (stick-with-itness) and determination (never give up attitude). We wrote about what it means, why it is important, and what statements we could say to ourselves. Click here to read reflections written by Alex, Sophia, and Zia.

In Science, we also started learning about matter and atoms. Students were asked to share what they know. If you take a look at the class brainstorm, students don’t know much yet. I can’t wait to see their learning grow! Click here to learn more about the learning outcomes or to watch the Bill Nye video with your child at home to reinforce learning.

THURSDAY: Such perseverance and determination was shown by students in our Terry Fox Run. During our reflection, many expressed how they told themselves, “You can do it!” and recognized that positive self-talk and believing they can actually made a difference. Lessons are paying off!

During our Terry Fox assembly, we shared a short video of Terry Fox with students holding signs cheering him on. We used the green screen set up in our classroom and an app called Green Screen by DoInk to make this happen.

FRIDAY: Great opportunity to discuss climate change and what we can do to make a difference. We all can have a voice and take action. Students were given an opportunity to march together in the afternoon.

To round off the week, students were asked to write me a letter telling me how they are feeling about being in this class so far, what they have enjoyed or not enjoyed, what they have learned about themselves, and one thing they are looking forward to. I thoroughly enjoyed reading their honest thoughts and feelings. It’s great feedback for me and it gave me a great opportunity to connect with each child about what was shared.

Important dates:

• Monday, September 30 – Pro-D day; school not in session
• Tuesday, October 1 – Scholastic orders are due
• Tuesday, October 1 – Orange Shirt Day; wear orange
• Thursday, October 3 – Individual photos will be taken

Notices sent home this week:

• Field trip: Bowling – Click here to learn more.
• Home Literacy Club  – Click here to learn more. If you did not receive the recording sheet, please write a note in the planner or email me.

Reminder to bring in earbuds with a microphone/volume control in a small labelled Ziploc bag. Students who have them at school have already taken advantage of them. Thank you!