Dear Division 6 parents,

We had a productive week with lots of learning and connection! Your child’s personal information sheet (from the office) went home on Friday. Please review and return as soon as possible. Thank you!

Almost all students are arriving at school on time. Thank you for respecting our start time of arriving before our first bell at 8:50am. We appreciate it!

CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE VIDEO UPDATE

Here are some updates from Mrs. Paulich on the subjects she teaches:

Social Studies

We spent much of September getting ready for the year, organizing our binders, and developing a growth mindset. Each student created their own motto to turn to when they need that extra push and support. We spent time discussing and reflecting on Truth and Reconciliation and what that means to Indigenous and Non Indigenous Canadians. Most recently, we have been digging deep into our roots and origins with a look at Canadian Immigration.

Physical and Health Education

Students have most recently begun developing their Volleyball skills.

French

We have been looking at simple conversation and greetings.  Students are encouraged to practice this simple conversation at home!

We are writers.

This week we dove further into paragraph writing. We learned about opening and closing sentences along with adding details, reasons, and explanations that include our thoughts and feelings too. They were introduced to a single-point rubric for personal writing. This helps them truly see what areas they need to improve, where they are proficient, and strong aspects of their writing (which are strengths and they should keep doing these things!).

Grade 4 – click image to view PDF

Grade 5 – click image to view PDF

We are mathematicians (Grade 5).

I am SO enjoying teaching math this year! They keep me hopping but it’s so much fun teaching math! I was very happy with how they did on their pre-tests because of how proficient they showed themselves to be. I am so very proud of how hard they are working and learning.

This week, we continued to learn about expanded notation and counting up and down by 10s, 100, 1000, and 10 000. HOMEWORK: Finish page 43 & 44. Review Pre-test and worksheets. Test on Monday, October 18. It will look similar to the pre-test. Continue to practice Math facts +1 -1 +2 -2 strategies.

We practiced our math addition facts and comparing numbers by practicing on a new website: 99Math. They absolutely LOVED it! They are enjoying Math Tappers: Finding Sums too. If you have an iPad, please download this FREE app and have your child practice regularly to improve speed and accuracy. We started a tracking sheet this week. You can do the same at home. Thank you!

Career Education

One of the things I really believe in is that every child can develop leadership skills. On Friday, there were a few examples of how people stepped up on their own volition to demonstrate caring behaviours toward others and our classroom. Feel free to ask your child how they have contributed positively to our classroom community and space.

This week, we came back to the book written by Steven Covey: The 7 Habits of Happy Kids (same author as The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People which some of you may know). The lesson focused on planning and setting goals. Here are the first two habits covered so far:

1. Be Proactive – take initiative
2. Begin with the End in Mind – focus on goals

They wrote three goals plus small action steps and chose one to record in their planner for next week. Please have a conversation about the goals they set and in particular, the one they chose to record in their planner. Next week, ask them to reflect daily on their goals.

I love the image I showed them. It’s about making seemingly small steps that amount to a big change over time! They can get 1% better every day! We are building healthy and effective habits.

Click here to learn more about the 7 habits we will be learning about.

Personal Information Test

Thank you for taking the time to help your child study. We had 6 students get all of their information correct! Please continue to have your child memorize their O365 email address (login) and password. We will start using the laptops next week! The true test will be whether they can successfully log in.

As for memorizing their address and your cell numbers for safety reasons, we will leave that for you to decide the importance of keeping that by memory. Students will not be tested on this again in class.

Passion Projects

After having three opportunities to share what topic they chose as they went milling to music (ask them what that is!), they had an opportunity to share their 30 second elevator pitch about what they want to learn about. If you are not sure, please ask them what topic they decided. Hopefully it’s something you would LOVE to see them explore too!

Masks – Please have your child keep an extra mask in their backpack plus wear one to school. Thank you!

We appreciate your continued support at home!

Gratefully, Ms. Chan and Mrs. Paulich

Happy Thanksgiving, Division 6 families! This is a great time to reflect on what we are grateful for. We are so grateful to have your child in our class and your support! Thank you for taking the time to watch the video, read the blog post, or both! Your time and investment in your child’s education is very much appreciated.

CLICK HERE to watch the video update for last week.

Sorry, I forgot to mention in the video that students are encouraged to memorize some personal information. Their “test” will be on Wed. October 13. We will be using O365 regularly so it is most efficient with their time to memorize their email address (which is also their login ID) and password. It is also important at this age to know their address and parents’ phone numbers. The other piece of information to memorize is our class code for Epic Books. On this website, they will have access to thousands of high-quality books from 7am to 3pm.  Please help them practice and memorize. Thank you!

We are writers.

This week, we learned about our Writing Thought Process. This is something I created and have presented on a number of times. Click on the image to view the PDF. Writing is a process that takes time and effort. I wanted them to understand that actual writing time is likely only 20% of the time they spend. The other time is on pre-writing (like talking or brainstorming ideas), re-reading and reflecting what they wrote and carefully considering what they should write next (helps with the flow of ideas), and regularly revising as they continue writing. This is a constant cycle of thinking, writing, reading what’s written already, reflecting on clarity and what to say next and how to make writing better, and then thinking some more before writing more. It is in this process they can dive deeper and deeper into thoughts and ideas. I call it “magnifying glass” writing to add details, explanations, and reasons to support what they are expressing in writing.

Here are a couple of heart maps we started our first week together! Thank you to Pilar and Ellis who were willing to share! These are things that are near and dear to our hearts that we can write about because we know a lot about it!

We are Mathematicians in Grade 5 but Grade 4’s are more than welcome to use these strategies too!

This past week, we furthered our understanding of place value: every place has a value, comparing and ordering numbers to the hundred thousands place, and expanded notation.

For increasing our math facts fluency, we continued to practice using our random numbers sheet. Please create one at home to use as practice. The strategy introduced this past week was +2 and -2. Rather than have our minds calculate +2 and -2, I want them seeing this addition strategy as counting up by 2’s (+2) and counting down by 2’s (-2). This makes their calculations much quicker and with greater accuracy. Please CLICK HERE to watch the video on this strategy and check out the Mathematicians Play page for last week’s +1 and -1 strategy along with other games to play at home. Make it fun! Have a friendly competition with your child!

This week, I was introduced to a fun way to practice our math facts. I am SO excited to play with them this week!

We are passionate about Passion Projects!

Students were so looking forward to learning more about passion projects. Click here to watch our introductory video. They brought home an information sheet along with their brainstorm sheet. This week, please spend some time talking through different possibilities. Click here to view the information that was sent home.

Sorry, the information below was not mentioned in the video:

Digital Forms

You should have received an email last week from the office informing you that all beginning of the year information and permission forms are now completed online. On Wednesday, your child’s Personal Education Number (PEN) was sent home. You will need this to complete the forms. If you did not receive the email, did not receive the PEN, or are having any issues, please contact the office.

FSAs – Grade 4s only

Next week, we will be starting the Foundation Skills Assessments with the Grade 4s in Mr. Anchor’s class. Your child will participate in the FSAs unless you send back the opt-out form from the BCTF sent home Wednesday. If you do wish to opt your child out, please return the form on Tuesday, October 12. Thank you.

Looking ahead

Picture Day will be on Thursday, October 14.

We will be learning more about Digital Citizenship. These lessons are very important to develop an understanding of our digital presence, footprint, and how we navigate in any digital space that allows us to stay safe and be true to ourselves.

We will be using FreshGrade Connect as our e-Portfolio. After we have a couple of entries, you will be invited to view your child’s work including reflections and have the ability to comment. More information will be shared at a later date that will guide you in providing positive and effective feedback for your child’s continual growth.

I added all parent emails to receive notification when there is a new post. Should it be sufficient for your family for one parent to receive, please feel free to unsubscribe. If in the future you do not receive weekly notification of blog posts, please check your Junk folder or reach out. In the past, sometimes parents have accidentally unsubcribed. I can quickly add you back!

It always makes us feel extra happy when we see a comment from parents on any of our posts! Thank you!

We are grateful for your continued support at home!

Sincerely, Ms. Chan and Mrs. Paulich

Dear Div. 6 families,

Wow, has it already been 3 weeks? I thoroughly enjoyed my full days with them on Wednesday and Friday. Being with them brings me such joy!

CLICK HERE to watch the video recap about our week!

This week we learned more about Truth and Reconciliation by reading a book and watching a video. We had deep conversations about residential schools too.

We also learned about Terry Fox and had a fabulous sunny afternoon for the run. Click here to make a donation. To learn more, click here.

Gr. 5 Math

We started the week by sharing how they feel about math. I was thrilled to see so many of them have positive attitudes and quite enjoy math! Math is one of my favourite things to teach because it is so much fun! I will have a series of math videos teaching you and your child some activities you can do at home to practice math facts, strategies, and various concepts. I recognize it does take time to practice and memorize them but learning them makes ALL calculations quicker with greater accuracy in their years ahead even into high school. It’s worth the time spent so your child isn’t struggling with newer concepts AND calculating facts at the same time.

We learn through play. Click here to visit our Mathematicians Play page. The strategy we learned this week:

• +1 and -1 strategy (click to watch video) – Take a piece of paper. Write numbers 1-20 randomly on the page. Point to different random numbers and say the answer out loud. Example: Point to 15. Think 15 + 1. Say 16. Repeat and watch them become quicker and quicker! Make it fun! Take turns or do it together!

If your child builds a habit of practicing 2-5 minutes every day, imagine how much quicker they can add, subtract, multiply, and divide by the end of the year! We are working on speed and accuracy for automaticity!

Looking Ahead

We will begin learning research skills with Mrs. Papapanagiotou, our Teacher-Librarian, on Mondays and Wednesdays. We will learn how to become a more effective researcher, about plagiarism, and how to cite resources properly.

We will begin to talk about Passion Projects this week. Excited to start thinking about possibilities! Feel free to start talking about possibilities at home too!

Reminders

Masks – Please pack an extra 1-2 masks in your child’s backpack. Thank you.

Planners – Please help your child take ownership and build independence by bringing their planner to school every day. Tip: Have all materials packed in backpack the night before.

Snacks & Lunch – Please send enough food to keep your child nourished throughout the day. Especially with warmer weather outside, they are more active and get hungry in the afternoon. We prefer they bring healthier choices to school. Thank you.

Thank you for your continued support at home. We appreciate you for being our partners!

Sincerely, Ms. Chan and Mrs. Paulich

Dear Div. 6 families,

Wow, what a fast week! They say time flies when you’re having fun! We thoroughly appreciated your time to meet with us during our Meet the Teacher night and Parents as Partners Conferences. We are so grateful for sharing your insight and stories about your child. It was a full week but our hearts were full too. We finished the week feeling energized by the relationships we were building with you. We so look forward to working with you this year!

We enjoyed a great Pro-D day too as I presented on the Universal Design for Learning framework. We also had a great session with our district Indigenous resource teacher, Nahani Willis.

CLICK HERE to watch the video summary of last week.

We watched an online course for our Learn2Ride program. On Wednesday, we had such a fun session on bikes! It was so wonderful to see so many smiles!

What a joy this week learning more about each other during our Life in a Bag presentations!

This week’s theme was Kindness to Self. We started the week with sharing ways one thing we appreciate about ourselves or one thing we love about ourselves. For many, this was not yet in their comfort zone so I am excited to watch them grow in recognizing personal strengths.

In line with our theme, we read a story by one of my favourite authors, Peter H. Reynolds called Be You! Click here to listen to the author himself reading this book! Then they had their own opportunity to write the next 10 pages of their own “Be You!” book in their writing books.

After library orientation with Mrs. Papapanagiotou, students can now take out books and exchange them Monday to Thursday after recess.

Looking Ahead

Wed., Sept. 29 – Orange Shirt Day; wear orange
Thur., Sept. 30 – National Day for Truth and Reconciliation; students do not attend; school closed
Terry Fox Run Thank you for supporting Terry’s dream and helping us to kick cancer! Should you wish to donate please go to:   http://www.terryfox.ca/GilmoreCommunityElementary

Ms. Chan will be away on Mon. Sept. 27 but hope to be back the next day!

Thank you for your continued support! We are looking forward to a fantastic week!

Ms. Chan & Mrs. Paulich

Teachers in the room

Subjects Taught

Ms. Chan – English Language Arts, Science, Career Education, ADST, Gr. 5 Math

Mr. Anchor – Gr. 4 Math

Mrs. Paulich – Social Studies, French, Physical and Health Education, Arts Education, Indigenous Education

Mr. Phelps – Music Education (Wednesday and Friday)