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!

 

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