Dear Division 6 families,

Time is flying by! I cannot believe we are moving into our last week in April! We will continue to make each day count and thoroughly enjoy learning together.

I have different opportunities to share my experiences with people in our district and around the world. One thing I absolutely love sharing is the joy I feel being your child’s teacher and the connection we share. It has been such a memorable year so far and I have been so blessed and honoured to work with you and your children. We are so very grateful for your continued support! Please always feel free to reach out should you have any positive feedback so we know what is effective for your child and we keep doing it but also any concerns so we can better support you and your child.

We are communicators and can reflect on our learning.

Last week, your child had the great opportunity to share their learning with you during their Student Led conference at home. We have thoroughly enjoyed reading the Two Stars and a Wish sheets! Thank you for your time to fill them out so thoughtfully! It was a great opportunity for your child to not just reflect on their learning but to celebrate their progress and also set some goals for the remainder of this year. If you have feedback you’d like to share  or want to elaborate on what was written on the Two Stars and a Wish sheets, please feel free to send me an email at Livia.Chan@burnabyschools.ca. We are looking forward to in-person conferences next year!

We are mathematicians.

Grade 4s are continuing to practice multiplication x 1 digit. The grade 5s had an opportunity to show what they know so far on Wednesday. It was a point of progress for me to check their understanding,  inform me on what I need to review/reteach, and an opportunity for them to see where they are at in their learning journey too. Your child should have brought home their progress sheet with specific feedback along with an answer sheet for you to compare. Most students still need to review the distributive property so we would appreciate your support, thank you! They will have another opportunity to show what they know on Friday, April 29! Please continue to have your child practice their math facts. It makes a world of a difference and helps with their confidence when children know their facts. We will be starting division very soon!

We are scientists.

We learned about the respiratory system. Please feel free to rewatch the video and talk about how the system works. I taught them a movement “dance” to remember. We have two dances so far…one for the circulatory system and one for the respiratory system! Ask them to show you!

Passion Projects

Aside from a handful of students who have yet to present (they will this coming week), most students have started on their next passion project. On Friday, they had an opportunity to formally record. Your child brought it home to work on. Feel free to review it with them this week. Most important are the questions that will drive their research. Please remind your child to return it before Friday. Click the link Passion Project proposal for a copy. It includes the progress sheet too.

We are critical and creative thinkers who design!

This past week, students were introduced to the CO2 dragsters ADST project (Applied Design, Skills, and Technologies). They had some time to investigate other people’s designs and are free to continue to do so at home. This week, they will be:

We are so looking forward to seeing their progress over time!

Swimming Update

Thank you so much for sharing your feedback so quickly on the survey! There was an overwhelming response so we will be planning two swimming sessions at Eileen Dailly pool. As soon as more details are available, we will happily share!

Some reminders:

• Grade 5s: Please sign forms and pay for Camp Jubilee.
• If your child has not returned their Student Led conference envelopes yet, please return.
• Donations for Canucks Autism Network will be closing on April 28. Go to School Cash Online if you would like to donate, thank you.

With a heart of gratitude, Ms. Chan

Dear families,

We have had a fun first week back after spring break! We hope you had a restful and relaxing break as well!

We are dancers.

We started Hip Hop lessons this week. It is incredible how quickly Sue, the dance instructor, can teach them so many dance steps in a short period of time! They loved the music she chose. We are looking forward to sharing our final performance next week! Just a reminder to go to Cash Online to pay $6 for your child’s portion of the costs. Thank you so much to the Parent Council for matching the remainder of the costs!

We are mathematicians.

On Monday, we went back to our math platooning so the grade 4’s are taught by Mr. Anchor again. Both grade 4’s and 5’s are learning about multiplication. This is a great reminder to have your child practice their multiplication math facts every night at home. Five minutes a night will make a difference! Thank you for your support!

We are scientists.

On Wednesday, students attended their first Gilmore University science class on anatomy! Professor Chan introduced the circulatory system. Ask your child to teach you some facts they learned. They are learning how to take notes. A tip from memory guru and brain coach Jim Kwik: If you teach someone the concepts you just learned, you get to learn it twice! Here is the Circulatory System video for Kids we watched if you’d like to rewatch it with your child at home to review.

Side note: I really enjoyed reading Jim Kwik’s book Limitless and also thoroughly enjoy listening to his podcast Kwik Brain. Have a listen and let me know what you think!

We are artists.

Check out our art! Students worked so hard on these projects. Thank you, Mrs. Paulich for teaching art!

We had a blast today for April Fool’s Day. Ask your child about what we did to “celebrate”! What a fun day together!

Thank you so much for your continued support at home. We appreciate you!

Gratefully, Ms. Chan and Mrs. Paulich

Looking ahead, we will have an early dismissal on Thursday, April 14 at 1:45pm. Your child will bring home an agenda with work samples to share with you.

Dear parents,

I wanted to start off by saying that I am just so grateful to be your child’s teacher. Each day, they bring me and each other so much joy. When I was off for the week after my knee injury (recovery is going well, finally), the two TOCs informed me that they worked so hard in my absence which made me feel so proud and appreciative. I also thoroughly enjoyed receiving the daily emails from students telling me about their day and reminding me of how much they missed me and loved me. I missed them dearly so that made my absence at least bearable. I thoroughly enjoyed responding to their emails too! I’m sure it helped with my healing! 🙂

This past week was really tough because our sweetest guinea pig, Hazelnut, passed away on Family Day.  I knew that going back to work the next day would be hard and it was. It was very hard but you know what I knew was going to make a difference and lift me up? Yes, you guessed it…spending time with your children. Their smiles and their love filled my broken heart. Honestly, it was them that helped me heal a little more each day so thank you for sharing them with us.

Pink Shirt Day

Mr. Phelps read a story to us in the morning called A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo. Then we watched a video about how the day was created by Travis Price. Click here to watch. I was hoping to be able to share with you our class PowerPoint on the theme for us year: Lift Each Other Up but it is not quite finished yet. Each student was assigned a slide to share what that means to them. I love what I see so far!

Check out the video that Mr. Greenwood put together. It can be found on the Gilmore website.

We are mathematicians.

We have been learning about measuring perimeter and area. Please feel free to review these videos at home:

• Math Antics – perimeter
• Math Antics – area
• Flocabularly – perimeter and area

On Thursday, we did a quick Show What You Know (so far) and a number of students can use some extra review at home so please check with your child, thank you. We will continue to solidify and deepen understanding this week.

Black History Month

We learned about Harriet Tubman and did some reflective perspective writing. The writing I saw about slavery was so expressive and truly knocked my socks off.

We are readers.

Students have learned a new technique to practice increasing their reading fluency. I learned this from Jim Kwik. He is a brain and memory coach who wrote a book called Limitless. I recommend reading the book or listening to his podcast. I’m a new follower and find that his tips for learning are insightful. He has some great tips on studying you may want to dive into especially as your children move into the intermediate grades and highschool.

Here’s what we did. We read as many words as we can in one minute. Then we did this again. It is truly incredible how many more words they can read in that period of time. We did it again to discover that we hadn’t reached our potential yet! Of course, the most important part of reading is to fully comprehend and to make connections but this is just one strategy in increasing fluency, which is what some students need to work on.

Report cards go home this Friday. Please sign the envelope and return to school on Monday. Thank you!

As always, we are so grateful for your continued support at home.

With great appreciation, Ms. Chan (and Mrs. Paulich)

Dear Division 6 families,

We have had another great week together! During our community circle, we always begin with sharing our feelings. This week, we learned synonyms for happy. There is a growing understanding that we can build our emotional intelligence by building our emotional vocabulary. (Read a Forbes article about a podcast interview with Brene Brown and Marc Brackett to learn more about how children can understand themselves and others better.) Challenge your children to share how they are feeling by using different words beyond: happy, mad, sad. Model it by choosing to use different words to describe your emotions.

We are mathematicians.

Thank you for supporting your child’s learning about geometry at home. I am reviewing the Show What You Know assessments and am just so proud of how far they have come since our first assessment before we started. Remember this is not the same as a test. A “test” feels final…only ONE opportunity to show what they know. Learning is a journey so this is just a snapshot of their learning for right now. Children who need more time to learn the same concepts will continue to have opportunities to learn. Math is so foundational. My goal is for them to become proficient in their understanding because if they know it well enough to teach someone, their depth of knowledge is greater.

On Monday, your child will come home with both the pre-assessment and the one they just did. Please compare and celebrate their growth by writing a positive note on their paper, sign it, and return to school. Thank you for your support! We will be learning about measurement next.

We are scientists.

This past week, we worked with a partner to create a demonstration of our understanding of the rock cycle. They were given a choice of using the Book Creator app or Puppet Pals on the iPad. I love finding different ways for students to show what they know especially when they can use their creative and critical thinking! I am also so proud of how well they work with each other. I am looking forward to sharing their projects with you! Music to a teacher’s ears is when students say, “This is so much fun!”

We can reflect and self-assess.

Students completed a self-assessment on their attitude, work habits, strengths, and goals. They even worked on writing a report card for Ms. Chan as a midway point to provide feedback on how the year is going so far. It gives them a voice to share their views on our classroom community and how we can further improve it. I always learn so much about how they feel and I love reading about how much they enjoy coming to school!

What to do at home

If you or your child are looking for what to do at home, here’s a list:

• Read daily and talk about what they just read. Talk about what you’re reading too!
• Write daily (because reading and writing are both skills, it requires practice, practice, and practice).
• Passion Project
• Writer’s Workshop (story)
• All the Right Type
• Practice Math facts (addition, subtraction, multiplication, division). We will be starting multiplication after spring break so it will be SOOO helpful if they knew their math facts before then. You can use the same games I showed you in our Math games night to practice multiplication.

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

Gratefully, Ms. Chan (and Ms. Paulich)