Category: We are scientists.

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

Dear Division 6 families,

It’s hard to believe we have only been together for 3 months. Time flies when you are having fun! We had yet another productive week together!

Click on image to watch the video update

Circle Time

Every day, we meet in our Community Circle. On certain days, we started to meet on the carpet to share our feelings and answer the question of the day. It is such a wonderful time to connect with each other and learn more about each other too! We truly believe this time is well spent to build the strong caring community that we have. The longer I teach, the more I recognize that building and maintaining relationships is the biggest key to all learning–that is, relationships with self AND others.

We are writers.

We continued to practice our writing and had a wonderful time sitting on the carpet in a circle to share the one thing we are really proud of in our writing. What a fantastic way to build a sense of pride in our writing development as we celebrated our learning together. Ask your child what they shared in our Author’s Circle time!

Parent’s “Homework”

Speaking of celebrations, if you haven’t had a chance already, please log in to your child’s FreshGrade to make positive comments on their reflections on learning. This coming week, we will be spending some time reading your comments so it will warm their hearts to read your encouraging words written to them in their posts. Check out last week’s blog post for a better understanding of what you will see in each post and tips on how to respond. While these e-portfolios are a reflection of their learning to recognize strengths and further growth, I know how much it would mean to them to see comments from their parents. Thank you for your time to support your child’s learning!

We are scientists.

This week, we started our book study with a non-fiction book called Rocks and Minerals on Epic Books. We are learning about text features to help us locate information and to help us better understand what we read. At first, we read together and took sketchnotes. Then we separated into groups of 3 to continue reading and taking notes. I loved watching them in action and they worked so cooperatively. I also love how we can put them into random groups and they work well together. This is the result of the hard work we do in building relationships with each other. For that, I am so very grateful.

We are now presenters!

This past week, many of us became presenters! Me included! On Friday, I was honoured to present at my first conference in the US! It was virtual so I only travelled on Zoom. 🙂 It was great to show them my slides as an example of what to consider on their slides.

I loved seeing the incredible growth from how only a few short weeks ago, some of your children barely knew how to navigate on a laptop! Now, they are proficient at setting up a presentation in PowerPoint, creating slides, and inserting images that completely match their ideas! I love hearing all of the compliments and the invaluable feedback given as kind suggestions on how they can improve for next time.

We still have a number of presentations. If your child has not presented yet, I highly recommend they actually practice saying their presentation. It is most ideal if they can practice it at least three times before they present. This will help build their confidence in knowing what to say for each slide.

When you see the rubric sent home, please write a positive comment and assist your child in writing a personal goal for next time. Then ask them to put it back in their planner to hand in to me the next day. Thank you for your support!

Grade 5 Mathematicians

Last week, we continued to learn about decimals and we practiced addition with decimals too. Please continue to have your child practice basic math facts at home. They learned some new ways to practice using a deck of cards. If they spent even five minutes a day reviewing facts, they will improve in speed and accuracy! We will be working on addition and subtraction of whole numbers to 1 000 000 and with decimals to thousandths. Your support at home is greatly appreciated!

We are grateful.

Thank you so very much for your support of the Book Fair! Our school was able to fundraise $2000 that will go towards more books for our library! We also are so very grateful for your support for the Jingle Bell walk food drive! Thank you so much for your generous donations!

We are always so thankful for your support at home. We appreciate your time and effort to support your child’s learning at school.

With much gratitude, Ms. Chan and Mrs. Paulich

Dear Parents of Division 6,

On Wednesday, we honoured those who served in the war at our Remembrance Day assembly. Here is a short video of our Poppy Art for you to enjoy.

We are writers.

We returned to our book on the 7 Healthy Habits of Happy Kids and learned about the benefits of thinking win-win. Students responded to the chapter by writing a personal response or a story that involved a win-win situation. As a follow-up, please feel free to have a further discussion at home.

We are researchers.

This past week, students finished their practice of recording Resources for citations in Word. Whew! It was a process! Students learned about perseverance and the pursuit of accuracy and excellence. It was a great lesson that sometimes in life, it takes many tries before something is just perfect. Each comma, period, and space mattered. Each capital mattered. Each indent mattered. While some began to express some frustration, we were proud to see that many people’s growth mindset kicked in and they began to see it as a challenge! Great appreciation goes to Mrs. Papapanagiotou for working with us for the past few weeks to teach us how to do research effectively. Last week, we also learned how to navigate in PowerPoint. Students really enjoyed learning how to add slides, text, and images! We are now ready to research our inquiry question for learning more about rocks in Science and our Passion Projects!

We are scientists.

Here are some of the questions groups felt they were most interested in learning more about. Students chose from here or one of their own on a list gathered from their own group.

We are mathematicians.

The grade 5’s were given their Fractions pre-test and test. The main goal was to see how well they understood equivalent fractions. We had a number of students away last Friday so they will write in on Monday. Everyone will have their tests returned on Wednesday. Those who are not yet proficient in certain concepts, they will have an opportunity for a re-test on the specific concepts. Details on re-testing will come later. I believe in helping students gain mastery of the concepts because math is so foundational. Your support at home will be greatly appreciated!

World Kindness Day

On Saturday, it was World Kindness Day. We read a story called Ordinary Mary’s Extraordinary Deed by Emily Pearson. Click the link to watch the story read by the author herself! As a response, students wrote kindness notes to at least five people. They had so much fun running (well, walking hopefully!) around the school delivering their kindness notes! They learned that it brought them so much joy to bring other people joy! I firmly believe that when we give the gift of words, we experience more joy than those who receive them. I know that this is how I feel. Showing kindness and gratitude is a great form of self-care! If you’re interested, click here to read more about a popular happiness course offered at Yale University. They blessed me with so many kindness notes! Every day, your children make me feel so very loved and appreciated for being their teacher. I truly am the most fortunate and feel so grateful to be their teacher. Thank YOU for having such wonderful children to share our lives with. We have a great community of learners!

We are leaders.

We really believe in developing leadership skills. I believe every child has leadership qualities. Last month, I published a blog post on the Gift of Leadership as part of my monthly blog series on the Teach Better Team. I talk about the five aspects of leadership and how it is a skill, just like other skills, that need opportunities to develop. If you are interested to read about how we develop leadership qualities in your children on a daily basis, click the image to go to the post.

Appreciation

We are grateful for your support at home. As parents ourselves, we understand how the evenings and weekends fly by. Please be reminded that we are partners in your child’s education. Please feel free to reach out to us should you have any questions or concerns. We know it takes time to either watch our videos or read our weekly blog posts and we appreciate you for keeping up to date. I can see how many views and how many click to open the notifications so thank you for honouring our time to keep you posted. Our goal is to share information with you so that you can have a deeper dive into what they learn and extend their learning should they have the time and interest. All learning at school can be extended at home if you wish.

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

Dear Div. 6 families,

It’s hard to believe we are already into November! Sorry for the late blog post. I was away all weekend for my daughter’s ringette tournament in Vernon.

Click on image to view the video update.

TWO updates not mentioned in the video: Math & Spider Web activity. Please read below.

Thank you for watching the video updates week after week. The hope is that you get to know what we are doing in the class so you can better support your child at home.

We are mathematicians. Last week we continued to work on furthering our understanding of equivalent fractions. We are solidifying this knowledge about fractions as a whole and fractions in a set. Our goal is to be able to explain and teach these concepts to someone else. This demonstrates true proficiency. Students will be bringing home their fractions work this week to review. Please ask them to explain to you different fractions and how they are equivalent. For example, ask them to demonstrate how 1/2 is equivalent to 2/4 or how 1/3 is equivalent to 2/6 – for both fractions of a whole and fractions of a set. If they can explain this simply to you, then you will know they have proficiency. Ask for pictures to help them explain.

Students absolutely loved our very visual Spider Web activity! We tossed white yarn to a classmate sitting across from us on the carpet. Each time sharing one thing they appreciate about each other as classmates. What they shared was heartwarming. Then when our spider web was complete, we talked about how building the community we want to see takes a collection of positive actions and words and it takes time to create.

Next, with just one person adding negativity to our “web” (=classroom community), one person shook the web to show that it affects us all. It was such a visual representation of what I believe in: Every interaction is an opportunity to uplift others through our kindness, empathy, and gratitude. Each one of us plays a part in building a positive and caring community.

Ask your child about the activity. So many of them said it was fun!

Library Research – We are ready for research now! Students were asked to complete their citing of resources due on Monday. This was recorded in their planners. To access, they were to login to O365 > One Drive > their personal folder > Practicing Resources file. If they don’t have access to a printer, that is ok, we can print it out at school.

NOTE: If your child has not memorized their login information, please spend some time this week. Almost every has memorized theirs. Thank you!

We are scientists. We continued to meet in our groups this week to decipher which questions most appealed to us. This week, we are ready to dive into their inquiry questions!

We are passionate about Passion Projects! Students were introduced to a recording sheet to keep them accountable each week we work on them. They will record what they do and reflect on what they worked on and set goals for their next steps.

We also started learning about Remembrance Day. If you’d like to make a donation for the poppy your child will receive on Wednesday, please feel free to have them bring a loonie or toonie. For any larger donations, please go to https://legion.ca/donations.

Please have your child keep an extra mask in their backpack in case they forget or just need a new one during the day. Thank you!

We are so grateful to be your child’s teacher and to have an opportunity to work with you. Thank you for your continued support!

Gratefully, Ms. Chan & Mrs. Paulich