Dear Division 6 parents,

This week, here are some of the exciting things we learned.

Grade 4 mathematicians have their math test this Wednesday. The Grade 5’s have been working on addition with regrouping and learning how to explain this process. If they can explain it in a simple way, then I know they understand the concept regardless of what digits they are given to calculate.

We care about our community. This week, we had an opportunity to write a letter to a resident of Seton Villa. Each student wrote to a senior. We hope they will enjoy reading our letters!

We continued to be scientists who learn together as we carried on with our reading groups and learned about text features of non-fiction books to better help us understand what we read. We will be finishing this off this week and then reflecting on how well we worked in a group and our learning overall.

We learned about the next two lessons in the 7 Habits of Happy Kids by Covey.

#5 – Seek first to understand and then to be understood. This was a lesson about the importance of listening.

#6 – Synergy: We are better together. This lesson was about the importance of cooperation and teamwork.

Students were given choice in how they wanted to respond to the texts. They could write about what resonated with them or they could write a creative story that outlines the same message. I love offering choice to students to bring out their ideas and develop their writing skills.

At home, feel free to reinforce these concepts and how they can apply what they learned to different situations and communities your child belongs in.

On Thursday, what a wonderful way to celebrate what our school has been learning in music with Mr. Phelps! We had an amazing drum presentation. I would love to share this with you! Next week on Thursday, December 16 at 7:00pm, you are welcome to join me on Zoom to watch the 4 minute drum presentation, and then we can stay on to get to know each other a little better until 7:30pm! I will send the Zoom link in an email.

It’s hard to believe we are nearing the winter break. It’s been such an amazing year together so far! We love being your child’s teacher and working with you! Thank you so very much for your continued support at home.

We appreciate you so much!

Sincerely, Ms. Chan and Mrs. Paulich

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!

Click on image to watch the video update

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

Dear families of Division 6,

The more I teach your children, the more I love and adore them! We had another great week together! Every morning after Flex time, I play a song to indicate that it’s time to clean up and come to our Community Circle. I was playing a song called Best Thing Ever and I dedicated it to them. Here’s the best line that reflects how I feel: There’s nothing better than feeling alright. Together. This is the best thing ever. We really do enjoy being together.

Click on image to watch the video update

We are writers.

This week, we continued to work on our paragraph writing. I have to say that how they responded to the writing lessons was so heartwarming! I asked them how many felt they wrote their best paragraphs ever and many proud hands went up! They followed a set of criteria as they wrote. Then used the simplified rubric to self-assess. Next, they were paired with a partner for peer assessments. Click here to see the rubric we used. Reflecting on our writing is an important piece of our learning. Reviewing a peer’s work teaches us different skills too!

I just launched an online course on Writing Strategies with the Teach Better Team last week so it’s exciting to share the same tried, tested, and true lessons I teach your children but to a wider audience!

Students worked hard on their spelling words. It’s rare I give spelling tests but students were having trouble with some basic homophones so I wanted them to spend some time learning them. After a pretest, some didn’t need practice so I gave them personal challenge words instead based on their own writing. They chose the number of spelling words they wanted. Yesterday, I gave 17 spelling tests at the same time! Personalized learning!

Click here to watch this video if your child is still having trouble with there, their, and they’re.

We reflect on our learning using FreshGrade.

It has been a little while since they last logged in to FreshGrade. To refresh your memory, this is their e-portfolio where they reflect on their learning. All students uploaded a sample of their paragraph writing and reflected on their development and should have added a recording of their reading as well along with a lot of their art! Here are the questions they are asked to respond to as part of their reflection:

• Explain what we did in this task.
• What are you proud of? What are your strengths?
  • I can…
  • I can…
• What would you do differently next time?
• What did you learn about yourself?

Each entry should answer the above. I will be adding you to their account so you can view their posts. This is another great way that we communicate student learning with you and complementary to the Learning Update that was sent home today. I told them that you have homework…sorry! I know they will really appreciate it if you log in (once I add your email to their account) and comment on their learning. Here are some guiding questions that may help you with writing your comments:

• I love how you…
• I appreciate how hard you worked on…
• I am proud of the way you…
• Tell me more about…

We are mathematicians.

Grade 5 students received their Fractions Test #2 back. The first test gives students a very clear picture of where they were at and the second test gives them an opportunity to show how they’ve learned it better. Even students who showed proficiency the first time did a much better job of explaining equivalent fractions the second time around so they even noticed an improvement! This is exactly why I love giving a re-test. Because math is so foundational, this is an important practice in assessment. I was so very impressed how so many of them have become proficient! Thank you so very much for your continued support at home.

This week, we learned about comparing and ordering fractions when the denominator is the same and when the numerator is the same. We also learned about mixed fractions. We will be learning about decimals next week so if you’d like to spend some time reviewing at home, they will be more prepared next week. Feel free to watch this video at home: Math Antics Decimals Place Value

All About Me Presentations

I wish you can be in the room when we work on our All About Me projects on PowerPoint. They have been working so hard and they are so engaged! They ask to work on it! And when they do that, you know they love to work on it! One student shared that he forgot all about his pain (from a fall) because he was having so much fun!

Another student said this year was the first year he used laptops, so I am so impressed with how quickly they learned how to navigate, learn all of the features, and be creative! Next week, we will begin presentations. Students should come prepared to present. Each slide should have minimal words with an engaging image(s). They should be able to share 3-5 sentences about each slide. Please ask your child to practice their presentation at home.

Learning Updates

Writing these felt like a gift. I tweeted it out too!

If you have any questions about the Learning Update for your child, please reach out. Remember, we work as partners in your child’s education. We highly recommend you sit down with your child to talk about all of their successes and discuss the goals they set for themselves. Give them a voice. Ask them how you can support them.

Reminders:

• Scholastic Book Fair – last day to purchase is Friday, November 26 online only. Thank you so much for your support!
• Please sign and return the progress report envelope on Monday. Thank you!
• Tuesday, November 30 – Hot lunch (Tentatsu)
• Friday, December 3 – Jingle Bell Walk food collection

My words alone cannot truly express how much joy it brings me to be your child’s teacher but you can’t quite see into my heart so I guess my words (and video) will have to do! Thank you for sharing your wonderful children with us and for your continued support at home.

If you feel inclined, we’d love to hear from you after you read these blog posts. Please feel free to leave a comment or email us!

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

Dear Div. 6 families,

It was a full week of learning!

Scholastic Book Fair begins on Monday! Students wrote in their Planners that our day to shop and buy is on Monday! Students can bring money or you are welcome to shop at home online. Check the Gilmore website for more details and links.

We are writers.

We continued to practice our paragraph writing by writing about our weekend. Students are working towards having a clear opening and closing sentence with details that develop their ideas in between. We are working on adding more thoughts, feelings, and reactions to what we experience in our writing. At this grade level, most of their sentences should be complete, meaning they begin with a capital letter and end with proper punctuation.

Students were given a spelling pre-test on Wednesday mostly of homonyms (words that sound the same but are spelled differently). Some students spelled all of the words correctly so I offered them a challenge. They chose the number of challenge words I had to look for. I took words from their writing they misspelled so many of them have personal spelling words. If these words are too difficult to memorize or there are too many of them, then please feel free to decrease the number to study. Some struggle is “healthy” because they are in their growth zone but too much and they’re in their panic zone/shut down zone so that’s not what we want. You and your child have the flexibility to choose.

All words were written in their Planners. The test will be on Wednesday, November 24.

We are communicators.

We have continued to work on our All About Me in PowerPoint. This project was originally all about learning the features of PowerPoint. The students in the class are really enjoying it! Some are adding in family photos and even home videos! The slides should just be a visual reminder of what they want to share.

Here are some things the class learned:

• How to add and properly resize images (by pulling the corners to keep the ratio right)
• How to move and delete slides
• How to INSERT a video (go to insert and choose Online video), paste URL so it will appear on the slide
• How to insert icons, shapes, text boxes
• Use DESIGN for effectively visual slides
• We talked about how we don’t want too many words on each slide. We want the audience to be engaged by the image and listen attentively to the speaker but when we put too many words on a slide, the presenter tends to read the words and the audience does too.

They learned the shortcut keys too when they highlight words. They wrote it on a sticky note as a personal cheat sheet:

• • Ctrl + B = bold
  • Ctrl + I = italicize
  • Ctrl + U = underline
  • Ctrl + X = cut
  • Ctrl + C = copy
  • Ctrl + V = paste
  • Ctrl + Z = undo

We are readers.

I gave them all an assignment in Teams. It was a reading progress check. They recorded themselves reading a grade-level passage. They had the option to record their voice only or with video too. The kids really enjoyed doing that! They can record as many times as they wish before they hand in that assignment. This was something I just learned last week so it was very cool to try it out! I tweeted about it too and a person who works on the Microsoft Teams responded and retweeted my tweet! He liked hearing about students’ excitement.

We are storytellers.

We read Jeremiah Learns to Read and did a character deep dive. Then we started our own brainstorm of characters for the story we are going to write on a story map graphic organizer. They worked on their setting too.

We are mathematicians.

Please continue to be diligent in having your child practice the math facts. Ideally, spending at least 5 to 10 mins a day on memorizing math facts or playing math games with that purpose will be awesome too! Feel free to take a look at our blog for some ideas for games. The math facts are broken down into strategies: https://sd41blogs.ca/chanl/mathematiciansplay/. They practiced Making 10s Go Fish this week.

We continued with fractions learning how to compare and order them.

Planners

Please continue to check your child’s planner regularly and have them place their planners in their backpack the night before. We would love for them to become independent with this responsibility. Thank you for your support!

Taking care of our bodies

During our community circle time, there are a number of students who are regularly reporting that they are tired and/or hungry. Certain resources say that children this age should still be getting about 10 hours of sleep. As these are basic needs that can really affect their focus, attention, and energy at school, please have a discussion with your child to see if they are the ones who are often sharing they are tired and/or hungry. We do allow students to eat during the day if they need nourishment.  Perhaps a bigger breakfast and more snacks brought to school will help. Thank you for your support!

Informal Learning Updates will go home on Thursday. Please sign and return the envelope next Monday. You can keep the insert.

Pro-D day will be on Friday, November 26. Students do not attend.

As always, we appreciate your support at home. Every single day, we are so grateful to work with such a lovely group of children who love to learn! They bring us so much joy!

With a heart full of appreciation, Ms. Chan and Mrs. Paulich