Category: We are scientists.

Dear Div. 6 families,

What a fantastic first week! We are having fun getting to know each other’s names and learning more about each other.

Please feel free to watch the video for a run-down of our week and what’s upcoming. If you don’t have time, simply read the blog post as it is a summary of what I shared in the video.

Why do we share weekly blog posts?

The purpose of our weekly blog posts is so that it connects school to home and us to you. Our hope is that the information shared will give you greater opportunities to have conversations about school, what they are learning about, and to take a concept and dive deeper.

How you can support at home:

Be curious. Ask questions that may spark more conversation. Instead of asking, “How was school?” try asking more targeted questions:

• What are you most proud of today?
• What did you do to help others today?
• What is one thing you learned that you can teach me? This question reinforces their learning.
• What made you smile or laugh today?
• What’s one thing that made today fun?
• What’s something you are grateful for that you experienced today?
• What’s one thing you learned that you’d love to know more about? Let’s do some research together!

We push ourselves to grow.

We are learning about growth mindset. The thoughts and language we use determine the outlook we have. The power of yet.

We learned about comfort zones. We want students to be challenged in their stretch/growth zone. I was interviewed about this last spring. Read the post here on the Teacher2Teacher blog to learn more.

Healthy Habits

This week, we started reading a book written by Steven Covey: The 7 Habits of Happy Kids (same author as The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People which some of you may know). It begins with a story about a character who finds himself bored and looks to others to help him find something to do; the character discovers that it is his responsibility to be proactive and not rely on others to “fix” his problem. Be Proactive – take initiative.

Click here to learn more about the 7 habits we will be learning about.

As we are practicing classroom expectations, students are encouraged to build the healthy habits of attentive listening and strong work habits. They are regularly asked to self-reflect and to do better next time.

We are readers and writers.

For our first introduction lesson to writing, we read a story called “I Am Story” by Dan Yaccarino and then we started working on our heart maps. They also shared how they feel about writing. Learning about their mindset about writing and setting a goal for themselves helps inform me of how I can better support them.

Please encourage your child to read at least 20-30 minutes every night. This is their homework. They will have library orientation next week and library book exchange begins on Wednesday.

We are athletes.

We started our Running Club this week.

We will go to the gym every Tuesday and Thursday morning. Please ensure your child wears appropriate clothing and runners.

We are scientists.

Students were introduced to Mystery Doug. We watched a video on pizza. Click here to watch at home.

West Coast weather

Please have your child dress appropriately for the weather. They will go outside even in the rain unless it is raining very hard. Read West Coast Recess & Lunch to learn more.

Looking ahead!

On Monday, September 20, we will begin our “Me in a Bag” presentations. Please help your child decide on 4-5 items to place in the paper bag provided and practice what they will say about each item so they will feel more confident. They will tell us about each item and share a story about why they chose it and/or what it represents and why it is important to them. Be creative! For example, I cannot bring our guinea pig, Hazelnut, to school but I can brought some hay to represent her. I also brought a picture of me in my ringette gear when I talked about being a coach, player, and ref.

Next week, we will start Math on Monday! The grade 4s will go to Mr. Anchor. They will need a 1″ binder.

Monday is a big day! They will also have an online learning module for the Learn2Ride program.

We are so excited to see you on Tuesday, September 21 at 7:00pm for our Meet the Teachers night! A Zoom link will be shared the day before in the reminder email.

On Wednesday, your child should bring their bike helmet (even if they don’t bring a bike) and are encouraged to bring their bikes too. Starting at 8:40am, they can bring their bikes into the school for storage. Our bike session will be between recess and lunch out on the field.

We are equally excited to meet you during our Parents and Partners Conferences! The purpose of these will be to learn more about your child. If you have not signed up to book an appointment, please do so before the deadline: Sept 21 at 3:00pm. The link to the conferences will be shared via email after our Meet the Teachers night so as not to confuse anyone. Our meetings are set for 10 minutes so please arrive on time. You will be placed in the lobby and we will let you in when it is your time. Thank you SO much for your time and interest to meet with us!

Reminder: Early dismissal on Thursday, September 23 at 1:45pm.

Friday will be our first school Pro-D day. Students do not attend.

If you’d like to learn a little more about me, feel free to visit my website: livchan.com.

For the school supplies list, click here. Please send items as soon as you can. Key items to get first if you don’t have time to get the rest yet: 1.5″ binder and dividers. Grade 4’s: an extra 1″ binder for Math. Thank you!

Have a wonderful weekend!

Sincerely, Ms. Chan & Mrs. Paulich

Dear Division 6 families,

It has truly been an amazing week of learning! It went by so fast. Must mean we were having fun! Loved the Friday celebrations. Many of them celebrated their personal learning about long division and how proud they felt. This past week, students were given Math homework: Pages 102-3 #1-14 and page 106 #1 (a to l) and #2 (a to l). Click here to see a copy of the questions.

All children should have their Math exercise books at home this weekend. Please review that they have completed the homework and worked on their corrections. Most of the children who completed pages 102-3 have a note from me. Please read the note. If your child does not have a note, it was because they did not hand in their homework on time. We would appreciate having the homework completed and returned to school on Monday, please. We understand that families have activities and things that you may need to do on weekday evenings. In this case, please simply have your child bring their homework back to school and write a note in the planner, thank you!

Some students require a little more assistance in order to feel more confident with long division. If this is your child, I am happy to offer “Office Hours” tomorrow from 11 am to noon. I will send all families a link to Zoom. If your child would like to spend some time with me to help solidify their understanding of long division, please have them hop on!

Students were given a number of words to practice for spelling. Our review will be next Thursday. Please encourage your child to study. Thank you!

Yesterday, we learned about perimeter and will also learn about finding area next week. Feel free to ask them to show you their understanding of perimeter this weekend! Click here to watch a video that explains perimeter for review.

Our Kindness Projects are well under way. I love watching them work together!

For Science, we learned about the effects of sugar and the brain. One activity this week is for your child to record their sugar intake. Thank you for your support! We also started learning about simple machines. We will be diving into this more this coming week.

For art, students started weaving. They are looking great so far! We can’t wait for you to see their finished products!

Thank you for your continued support at home. We appreciate you! We are also grateful for the parents who joined us for our parent meeting last Monday. We had a fantastic week!

Grateful for you, Ms. Chan and Mrs. Paulich

Dear Division 6 families,

I sincerely apologize for missing the last two weeks of updates. A lot of exciting things have been happening since the last update!

First of all, congratulations to all of our doctors for presenting at our successful Medical Conference! A special thank you to our two keynote speakers, Mrs. Helland and Ms. Jiwa. We so appreciate your time with us to inspire us!

All of the presentations were uploaded to FreshGrade. If you haven’t had a chance to check it out yet, please do! All students received small sheets with Two Stars and Wish from all of their classmates too!

I felt so proud of them for all of their hard work! Their presentation skills continue to improve each time they present!

We hope you enjoyed your Student Led Conferences at home! If you have any feedback, please send me an email. Thank you so very much for taking the time to fill out the Two Stars and a Wish for your child. We appreciate you!

This past Friday, it was I Care About You! day. Our class created a collective PowerPoint project where each student was assigned one slide to write a message to their classmates. Click here to view the project!

In Math, we started our unit on division. We are learning how to do long division and dividing in different ways. This weekend, please review this concept with your child. Help check they understand the basic steps. This will go a long way as we move forward next week. You can watch this video by Math Antics on long division or choose a different one on YouTube. You can start with the video on basic division. Another way to help your child is to practice their multiplication facts too. Then they won’t have to rely on the multiplication chart to calculate every question. This will help them in grade 6 and beyond too!

Last week, we started a Kindness Project. Students are working in groups to come up with a project that shows kindness. They are so motivated to work on their ideas and I am so proud of them! You know they are engaged when they ask if they can work on it and they bring it outside at lunch to work on it! Yesterday, they presented their proposals. They received compliments and suggestions on how to make their project even better. I loved the collaborative mindset!

Last week, we also started an Ignite your SHINE course by LaVonna Roth. She encourages us to be SHINEtastic.

Students are learning about themselves through the acronym SHINE.

Self – Know your strengths

Heart – What are you passionate about

Inspire – How to inspire myself when things aren’t going well

Navigate – Take action towards a goal, find a way to make it happen

Exceptional – What makes you exceptional

This coming week is Emergency Response week. Every day, we will focus on one type of emergency response and practice the procedures.

On Monday, May 10, Mrs. Paulich and I will have a parent meeting at 7:15pm on Zoom. The link was sent to you via email last week. We hope you can join us!

Thank you for your continued support at home. We really appreciate it!

Sincerely, Ms. Chan and Mrs. Paulich

Dear Division 6 families,

Tomorrow is the long-awaited day! Our Gilmore Medical Conference where doctors from around the world will present! Here is the criteria [PDF] we co-constructed for presentations. All students are asked to dress up as an official speaker for our conference.

We are so very blessed to have two amazing people in our very own community who will be presenting our keynote presentations! Thank you so very much to Mrs. Helland who will be joining us for our morning keynote presentation and to Dr. Jiwa who will be presenting our closing keynote. We are so looking forward to having you join us for our special day!

Your children have worked so hard on these presentations. Even before they present tomorrow, I am already so proud of them for their perseverance, dedication, and time not only at school but at home. I am SO looking forward to tomorrow!

For the past couple of weeks, students have been working hard on their poetry. This Thursday, they will be coming home with their collection and seeking your feedback. Thank you, in advance, for your time to celebrate your child’s success!

Thank you so very much for your continued support at home. Please continue to have your child practice their math facts! thank you!

With great appreciation, Ms. Chan and Mrs. Paulich

Monday, April 26 – Pro-D day; school is not in session
Friday, April 30 – Beach Day (dress up day)