Category: We are scientists.

Dear Division 6 family,

I just have to say “wow”! We had a phenomenal week together! When we did our Friday celebrations, my heart was warmed and touched by what your children shared. Many shared about having a great week back and their positive feelings about their one word. Honestly, all week, I felt so inspired every time we worked on their one word. We had a few students read their writing to the class as well. I may have had a smile on my face as I was listening to each one! 🙂

Students were given time to finish writing about their one word. They were asked to write about why they chose this word, why this word is important to them, and how they plan to live their word in all of their communities. If their writing was not finished, they were asked to complete it on the weekend. Next, they will be writing their one word and painting it on canvas. After that, the plan is for them to hold on to their canvas and record themselves talking about their one word in front of a green screen. The background will be their choice so they can start thinking about what they want. For example, if their word is “brave”, they may choose to have a background of a mountain summit.

Please have a conversation with your child at home about their one word they chose. Feel free to remind them that they chose this word as a commitment to themselves and offer gentle encouragement. We are all here to support them as they grow into their word to help them be better every day. For example, if they chose these words:

• TRY: Anytime you see your child struggling or hesitant, encourage them to TRY by saying, “Remember, your one word is to try. I know you can do it when you bring a positive mindset. I’m here to support you. It may be hard but you can try. I believe in you and I know Ms. Chan believes in you too. You just need to believe in yourself that you can try too.”
• COURAGE: Anytime you see your child afraid to do something that might be outside of their comfort zone but just need a little encouragement, say, “Remember, your one word is courage. I know that this is outside of your comfort zone but you grow more by pushing yourself into the stretch zone. I know you can do it. I am here to support you. I believe in you and I know Ms. Chan believes in you too. Inhale courage. Exhale fear.”

They hear this often, we want to be “better today than yesterday and better tomorrow than today.” I also told them that I recently finished a book called Atomic Habits by James Clear. I highly recommend the book if you are looking for a new one to read! One of the things he encourages us to do is to make a 1% improvement every day. Just think, how much better will we be by the end of the year if we made a 1% improvement every day?

As doctors in training, we started looking at the respiratory system by doing research and coming up with questions we wonder about. We discovered a very cool website where we can see the respiratory system in 3D and even go right into the trachea! It almost felt like we were on the Magic School Bus! We will continue to learn more this week.

Previously, we learned about the circulatory system and collectively created a class PowerPoint with interesting facts. Click here to view our slides! I always appreciate how well everyone works with others no matter who I put them with! It’s a true testament to their respect and how inclusive they are!

For Math, we practiced estimating sums and differences. This week, we will dive further into addition and subtraction with regrouping with decimals too. Feel free to review at home as well.

As always, we are here to support you as you support your child at home. Should you have any questions, please reach out to us. We work as partners. Thank you for your continued support at home! We appreciate you and absolutely adore your children! They bring us so much joy every single day!

Sincerely, Ms. Chan and Mrs. Paulich

Dear Division 6 families,

We had another amazing week! We ended our week definitely on a high note! After Flex time, our day always begins with our Community Circle time where we always share how we are feeling and talk about the theme or question of the day. On Friday morning, my heart was touched by the number of people who shared how they were feeling: “amazing, great, fantastic, awesome…” We often talk about the mindset that we have especially as we begin our day. When we feel strong positive emotions, it can influence the kind of day we are going to have so verbalizing in this way sets their day off on a positive note. I noticed an increase in the number of people who are choosing these types of emotions to share. I am smiling virtually the whole time we are meeting in our Community Circle because what they share so often touches my heart and is music to my soul!

We can celebrate!
This daily sharing time is a genuine way we build our community. We listen with respect, show that we value each other and what we have to say, while learning more about each other. On Fridays, we have a tradition to celebrate something from the past week. Some of the things I heard that warmed my heart:

• I am celebrating the kindness I see from each other.
• I am celebrating a good week at school.
• I am celebrating my family and friends.

We are scientists.
As medical doctors in training, we dove further into the circulatory system. We created a class PowerPoint project where all groups were given the opportunity to choose their own questions that sparked the most interest. This is called student “voice and choice”. What this means is that they get to choose what they want to learn more about. With choice, comes a natural excitement, engagement, and motivation to learn. I absolutely loved how focussed each group was to find the answers to their questions and display their finding in their PowerPoint slide. They all work so well together! Click on the image and it will bring you to our project. It is a work in progress so if you see unfinished slides, it is because they are still working on this!

We are writers.
For writing, we used a couple images as inspiration. I loved the creativity in their stories! Ask your child what their story is about.

We are mathematicians.
We have continued to work on decimals and fractions. I love how engaged they are during our lessons. One of the things we love is to have interactive lessons as we learn and practice together. Every student has their own whiteboard with markers and erasers. As we learn together, they have opportunities to practice and show their understanding. This is a great way for me to check their understanding as the lesson progresses. What I love is seeing their growth mindset in action! Even though they may get it wrong, they accept it and just try again. We have worked hard on making math fun and just slightly in their stretch zone. I can happily say that the negative feelings many had at the beginning of the year about math have changed! You’ll see, by the end of the year, they will love math as much as I do! When they have a positive attitude and feel happy when they learn, research shows that they learn better!

We are proud.

Many students have a few pieces of work uploaded in their Digital Portfolios. If you have not checked it out yet, please ask your child to show you what they are proud of and their reflection on their learning. Our goal is that these entries are not just to brag but the main purpose is to reflect – to celebrate what they did well or what they are proud of, what they found challenging or in their stretch zone, and probably the most important, is what they would do differently if they were to do something similar in the future. They can learn from their experiences. For some, it may look like there is a lot of artwork in their portfolios. We will be working on adding other pieces of work to reflect on too. We just had some catching up to do with their art. This past week, the Grinch came to visit!

We are presenters with a passion!
Next week, we will be presenting our Passion Projects! Students were asked to have their presentations ready for Monday. I understand that some may need more time so if they need more time, that is okay too!

Friday, December 18 will be Pajama Day! Please keep the stuffed animals at home, sorry.

Being your child’s teacher brings us so much pure joy! Both Ms. Paulich and I feel so blessed to be their teachers. Our class is filled with happy children who not only get along well, they are kind, caring, and empathetic to each other too and so willing to help and include others too. They are reminded often that they are loved. We may sound like a broken record but we want you to know how much we appreciate you and your support at home. As always, if you have any questions, concerns, or just want an update, please reach out. Thank you!

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

Dear families,

We hope you had a good chance to celebrate your child’s report card that went home on Friday! We enjoyed writing about all the strengths and how well they are doing so far this year. For us, it is always a great time to sit to reflect on each child’s learning and to make clear our intentions for how to support them. The goals were ones they set for themselves. We are looking forward to supporting them and seeing them reach their goals!

Gratitude, Kindness, and Celebrations
Our class continues to focus on gratitude and kindness. Every Thursday, we share something that our heart is grateful for during our Thankful Thursday Community Circle time. On Fridays, we celebrate a success from the week. The goal is not that we only celebrate once a week but that we celebrate all of the small daily wins throughout our day. My celebration this week was this: I am celebrating all of my students for their hard work and dedication to their learning. I am proud of their accomplishment so far and am so looking forward to seeing further growth over time as they work towards their goals.

Climate Challenge
Thank you for participating in the Climate Challenge for the past four weeks. Starting on Monday, please return the package to school for a chance to win prizes. Click here for a digital copy. We have another Zoom meeting with TJ this Thursday morning!

Medical School Doctors of Division 6
This past week, we started our new unit on the basic structures and functions of body systems. We started with the circulatory system. To learn more about what will be covered in this unit, go to our We are Scientists page. Students were put into groups of three to read through a book about the circulatory system. The goal was to read parts of the book to not just learn facts but more importantly, to develop a sustained curiosity by asking questions and then asking even more questions.

Key question about systems: How do the systems of the human body work together?

The goal is to learn about the four body systems and then they will choose a disease of interest to research. I am so excited to share that our culminating event will be to attend the Gilmore Medical Conference 2021 as doctors and experts in our field! Students will attend as participants to listen to research findings from their fellow medical colleagues!

Passion Projects
Next week before we head out for our break, students will be presenting on their Passion Projects. They do NOT need to be finished yet! This is just an opportunity to share what they have been working on and receive some feedback that will help guide them as they move forward.

Mathematicians
In Math, we have been learning about equivalent fractions. This past week, they logged on to Khan Academy to practice their understanding of Place Value. At home, they are always welcome to log on to practice math concepts. I highly recommend that you sit down with your child to take a look at what Khan Academy has to offer so whether they need a challenge or more review at a lower grade, it is available for them. To find login information, please go to O365 OneNote > Name > Handouts > Accounts. All of their account information is there (including All the Right Type and Epic).

Letter Writing
Students were so excited to learn that they have little buddies in Ms. Sokugawa’s class! We wrote our first letter to them this past week! Buddies will look very different this year. They will not get to meet or spend time with them like they may have in past years but we didn’t want to let that stop us from having buddies. They will be more like pen pals. We also started writing letters to some of the residents at Seton Village. It was a good walk around the neighbourhood for our Jingle Bell Walk!

Digital Portfolios & Self-Reflection
We have been working hard on our Digital Portfolios. We all started with PowerPoint but we have too many older iPads in our classroom that have trouble with the program so I made the decision to switch to a different platform: FreshGrade Connect. Some students have opted to stay with PowerPoint and that is fine. I imagine that some may want to move to FreshGrade at a later date and that is fine too. They will just upload their PowerPoint file. As always, I like to offer voice and choice so if they want to continue with PowerPoint, that is great too. Here are the expectations for each post:

• Explain the piece of work. What we did.
• Tell what went well or what they are proud of.
• Share what challenges they faced or what was in their stretch zone.
• If you were to do this activity again or something similar, what would you change to make it better or what would you do differently next time?
• Optional: What did you discover about yourself as a learner?

To view your child’s FreshGrade account, I will send you an invite shortly. They set their own passwords so if they do not remember, simply have them click on the Reset Password button. They will receive an email to reset. This is good practice for them to manage their own passwords. To view your child’s PowerPoint, ask them to login to the O365 account to show you.

We are artists.
Ms. Paulich taught us about zentangles. They worked on some beautiful art that is now on display in the hallways! They used pastels to make their artwork pop! They are currently working the next piece: The Grinch! We are looking forward to seeing their final products!

School Events
Thank you for sending gifts for our Angel tree. We are still collecting if you wish to bring toys to school. We appreciate you for sending food for the Food Bank too on Friday!

Questions about School
We often have parents tell us that their children don’t share much about what they do in school all day.  We always encourage parents to read our blog posts WITH your child. This is a great way to start the flow of conversations! What does this accomplish?

• Have them read it aloud to you. This gives them a real reason and good practice to read!
• It is another opportunity to not only show your interest in what they are learning but get engaged in their learning! When questions come up in your discussions, demonstrate what curiosity looks like. Model asking questions and more questions. Then jump onto Google to research the answers to the questions you came up with together! This fosters the idea that we can be lifelong learners always curious about the world around us and there is joy in learning together.
• It helps them review or reinforce their learning. It is an opportunity to ask them what they learned but don’t ask them that general question of “What did you do in school today?” I found that kids don’t really want to answer that question perhaps because it’s too big of a question to answer.

Instead, here are some sample questions you could ask instead with values in brackets!

• What is one interesting thing you learned about (be specific)…? (engagement in learning)
• What was your favourite part of school today? (finding joy in school activities)
• What made your heart happy? (finding joy)
• What is one kind thing you did to help/support others? (service to others)
• What part of your day are you most grateful for? (grateful heart)
• Did you give “today’s best” and work on improving your goals? (work ethic)
• What did you do today that was in your stretch zone? (growth mindset)
• What is one thing you are celebrating from today? (recognizing strengths or growth)

When you ask these kinds of questions, you are showing them what you value. Give these questions a try and let me know how your conversations about their school day changes!

As always, we are here to support you and your child in their learning journey. If you would like to have a conversation about what you read in the report card or would like to discuss other things about how they are doing in class, please feel free to reach out. Send us an email at Livia.Chan@burnabyschools.ca or Marianna.Paulich@burnabyschools.ca. We would be happy to talk to you! We appreciate you as our partners in your child’s learning. Thank you for sharing your wonderful children with us this year. We truly and absolutely LOVE working with them! We are all so blessed to be in the same Division 6 family this year!

Please feel free to leave a comment on this post! We would love to hear from you!

Grateful for you and our connection,
Ms. Chan and Ms. Paulich

Hello Div. 6 family!

It’s been a fabulous week! On Tuesday, our amazing PAC delivered our long-awaited sports bins! We are SO grateful to all parents for fundraising so that our students can enjoy the equipment with friends outside. Extra appreciation to the special parents who purchased, put it all together, and delivered the bins. Your time and dedication are valued.

Remembrance Day
On Tuesday, we observed Remembrance Day by a virtual assembly to honour and remember the people and families who served our country to fight for peace. There were contributions from every class. A special thank you to Mr. Greenwood for all his time and effort to put together a compilation video that we viewed. As parents cannot come into the school to enjoy the artwork in the hallways and classrooms, here is a short video we would like to share.

World Kindness Day
On Friday, it was World Kindness Day. As I shared with them, every day should be World Kindness Day. To the left, you will read one of my life mottos. I tweet about this very often. “Through every interaction, we have the opportunity to uplift others through our love and kindness to make someone’s day a brighter one.” To me, there is no neutral. Your words are either positive and help to make someone’s day better or they don’t. I read them the story Each Kindness. To watch the story read to you, click here. It’s about a girl, Maya, who goes to a new school. On a number of occasions, she makes attempts to be friendly but the others turn away. Eventually, she moves away and Chloe, the character whose perspective we are hearing the story from, desperately wants another opportunity to show kindness to her. Unfortunately, it’s too late and she never gets it.

I daresay that children’s picture books have a happy ending 99% of the time. This story doesn’t offer that but instead, a hard lesson, one we can all learn from. This brings me back to my life motto. I try hard to live by what I believe in. It is in every interaction that we have an opportunity to uplift others. This is so important to me because the opposite is true… in ONE interaction, we also have the power to negatively affect and tear down the person we speak to. Do we make mistakes? Yes, we do but if we live our lives striving for positively touching others, as well as the belief that we can be better today than we were yesterday and better tomorrow than we were today, then we are on the right track. In our class, we notice, name, and nurture kind and thoughtful behaviours. Let me tell you, your children demonstrate it throughout the day and every day. We are so blessed to be in each other’s presence to learn together and enjoy each other’s company. My heart is often warmed by what I hear and see.

After the story, children were given the opportunity for a free write as a response to this story. There were so many heartwarming examples. I wanted to share this with you. Thank you, Iman, for giving me permission to share what was in your heart with us all.

Each day there is an opportunity to be kind to each other. This is important because you will have a meaningful life of happiness and appreciation. In your heart, it grows and grows with appreciation for one another. When you are kind to someone, you feel a rush of gratefulness, happiness, and kindness in you.

When I show kindness, it makes me want to do more and more. It can be as simple as saying hi to someone. You might not realize how lovely kindness feels when you show it.

Another example is every day you have, every moment you live, every hour you show kindness, you are giving kindness. But how? How is that showing kindness? To me, this means the world gives me all this time to show my gratefulness, thankfulness, and kindness to the world you live in, and to the people that live in it with you.

So what kindness means to me is every day when you give a little kindness to people, you are giving much, much more. Every action you do for kindness is going a long, long way.

For us, it is in these kinds of life lessons that are the most important lessons to learn about themselves, their place, and the impact they can have in this world.

Science
We have continued to enjoy watching our Mystery Doug videos. This week: What’s at the bottom of the ocean?

On Monday, we will have our first rock inquiry presentations! Click here to review and refer to the criteria that we co-constructed as a class. Please have your child practice as part of their preparation. Thank you for your support at home!

Climate Challenge
As a family, please continue to encourage your child to review the Climate Challenge. Click here for a digital copy.

Math
We practiced rounding numbers this week. Have you ever heard of the flipped classroom? Please watch this 3 minute video that explains! It is when students watch the video at home and then when we come back to class, we have more time to discuss and learn. So, let’s try it! Please watch this video on rounding: Math Antics – Rounding. He does a great job of explaining the rounding of numbers.

Office Hours
Thank you to everyone who met with me on Monday or contacted me to discuss your child’s progress. If you would still like an opportunity, please let me know. As always, we are here to work together to support your child’s learning. Thank you for sharing your child with us this year. We are so blessed!

Gratefully, Ms. Chan and Ms. Paulich