Dear families,

We have such a dynamic and rich learning environment full of hard working children who enjoy learning together. Every day, I am energized and full of joy when I see them first thing in the morning. I feel so blessed and grateful to be their teacher!

The Multicultural Dinner was a great community building event. If you weren’t able to join us, please consider it for next year! I loved trying different foods from places all over the world! The limbo performance was incredible too!

We are artists.

One of Ms. Kapusta’s passions is teaching art. We are so fortunate and grateful for her dedication to planning meaningful activities for our class! Last week, they collectively worked on an Art Classroom Agreement. You can see the agreements in the picture.

This week, we were solidifying our understanding of patterns through art. Using the Zentangle method of art, students started working on using their creative thinking to design their pumpkins. We can’t wait to share the final projects with you!

Comfort Zone Circles

Teaching about comfort zone circles has been one of the more effective ways to teach students about productive struggle. We moved our green carpet to the centre of the classroom; this represented our “comfort zone”. Along the walls of the classroom represented our “not yet zone” and in between was our “stretch zone”.

Students were given different scenarios asking them their comfort levels in riding a bike, swimming in a lake, riding in a rollercoaster, speaking in front of the whole school, etc. This was a fun, interactive way where they moved to a part of the room that represented their comfort level. Then I invited them to come up with scenarios for their classmates. They loved it!

It is important to understand themselves when learning. I told them that they will be regularly pushed out of their comfort zone for optimal learning in their stretch zone. They grow the most in their stretch zone, not in their comfort zone.

• Comfort zone: unchallenged, bored, stable, safe, easy
• Stretch zone: This is the learning zone – excited, exhilarated, challenged, alive, willing to take risks
• Panic zone: fearful, tense, stressed

How to support at home: Use the language of being in their “stretch zone” at home when they may find something a bit challenging. Provide opportunities for them to be in their stretch zones at home or when you are out and about. Explain how being in your stretch zone is a great place to be because they are pushing themselves out of their comfort zone in order to grow. Some may feel uncomfortable and even a little frustrated but the more they push through these moments of discomfort, the more opportunities they have to celebrate their development! Can you relate? For me, I am proudest when I struggle with something, push through with perseverance and a positive attitude, and then succeed. Over time, my comfort zone expands!

This is an opportunity to teach young children affirmations. What do we say to ourselves to help us push through when things feel challenging?

• I can do hard things!
• When things get hard, I can work harder!
• You can do this! You got this!

When I shared this activity on Twitter, Teacher2Teacher thought it was an effective way to show students they are growing every day so they reached out to interview me and then they published a blog post about this comfort zone activity. If you are interested, please feel free to click here to read the article.

We are Mathematicians.

On our Wondering Wednesday, students went outside to create patterns with nature!

We solidified our understanding of increasing and decreasing patterns. What your grade 3 child needs to know is how to describe the pattern and state the pattern rule. For example, this is the pattern rule:

Start with #^. Add one more ^ each time.

Pattern : #^   #^^   #^^^   #^^^^   #^^^^^

How to support at home: Have your child create increasing and decreasing patterns. Ask them to describe the pattern rule. For example, this is a decreasing pattern:

Start with one fork and 5 spoons. Take away one spoon each time.

Looks like this: fork spoon spoon spoon spoon spoon  – fork spoon spoon spoon spoon – fork spoon spoon spoon – fork spoon spoon  – fork spoon

We are scientists.

We continued to learn about the three states of matter. We learned that liquids don’t hold their shape. Instead, they take the shape of their container.

We are communicators.

We read the story “The Name Jar” by Yangsook Choi. If you’d like to listen to the story with your child, click here. We had an opportunity to write about whether we like our name. Would we change it if we could? What would we change it to? Who gave us our name?

ADST

Thank you so very much to the many families who supported their child in memorizing their username and password. They felt SO proud of themselves when they could login successfully!

On Friday, we learned how to login to O365. If you would like your child to practice, feel free to visit Kitchener’s website and click on O365 on the top menu bar.

The key to logging in here is to memorize their full email address: #######@edu.burnabyschools.ca

At this age, they need help learning to spell “burnabyschools” correctly.

SpacesEDU

This is an online ePortfolio we will be using to record and reflect on our learning as well as set goals. SpacesEDU is such a phenomenal way for students to work on their core competencies of reflective thinking, critical thinking (analyze and critique own work), communication skills (present information and explain/reflect on experiences and accomplishments), and building a positive personal identity (personal strengths and abilities).

Each post, they will be encouraged to answer some standard reflection questions. I love seeing their growth over time and their comfort level develop with self-reflection and application of what they learn about themselves. When they are thinking about their learning, thinking about themselves as learners, and thinking about what they would do differently next time, they are empowered to do better next time because they set goals and understand themselves better.

Please read the letter that will provide you with more information.

Letter for Families (Spaces) SD41

Library Book Exchange

Every Friday after lunch is our Library book exchange time so please have your child bring their Library books to school on Fridays. If your child is finished with their book before then, they can bring back Library books anytime! They can exchange their books during Open Book Exchange times:

• Monday to Friday from 9:00 to 9:30am
• Monday to Wednesday and Friday from 11:30 to 12:00pm

Reminders

• Please return the student consent forms that were sent home on Friday.
• Wednesday, October 18: Ms. Chan will be at an all-day workshop. There will be a TTOC in my place.
• Friday, October 20: Pro-D Day; no school for students
• Hip Hop week: October 23 to 27
• Thursday, November 2: Photo re-takes
• SAVE THE DATE: Bowling at Revs on Friday, November 17. We need parent volunteer drivers, please, so please save the date. Thank you!

Thank you for your continued support at home. I appreciate you!

Gratefully, Ms. Chan