Dear Parents,

All the kids seemed extra happy on Valentine’s Day. One student exclaimed, “This is the best day of my life!” 

We hope you have heard all about our Stone Soup making experience. As part of our ADST curriculum, students all had an opportunity to cut various vegetables which they really enjoyed. Great success when no one cuts their finger! We have deemed that they “passed the test” and are all ready to help chop vegetables at home now so feel free to solicit their meal prep skills. Children were encouraged to try different vegetables and give ones they had already made up their mind they didn’t like another chance. We discussed what having a closed mind versus open mind meant. As a result, some discovered they have a new liking for mushrooms! So many of them really enjoyed the vegetable soup, shouting, “This is sooo yummy!”

Core Competency connection:

• I can keep an open mind to try new things.
• I can contribute to my classroom community by helping out.
• I can use tools in a safe manner.

Thank you so much for your contribution to our soup! Your ingredients made it taste simply delicious! And thank you to Manoj’s mom for helping us out in the morning; we appreciate your time. 

Dear students,

What did you think about making our Stone Soup? How did you feel about cutting the vegetables? How do you think making Stone Soup helps to bring people together like in the story we listened to? What is your “I Can” statement? 

We would love to read your reflections on our soup making day!

Thank you, Ms. Chan & Ms. Cowan

Next week, we will be reading a story called Stone Soup. It is an old folk story about strangers who convince the townspeople to contribute a small amount of their food to make one meal for everyone to enjoy. Although there are many different versions, the main message of the story is about the value of sharing and community. To build anticipation, students were given a bowl with stones in it to imagine what the story will be about. They worked hard to write their very own story using their creativity. They had to include a bowl of stone soup in their story as well as basic story elements like characters, setting, problem and solution with a beginning, middle, and end.

So, to celebrate friendship on Valentine’s Day, rather than have a traditional party with sweets, we will be making our own Stone Soup to share. We are asking everyone to help create this soup by contributing something from home. Please have your child bring the specified ingredient on Tues. Feb. 12 or Wed. Feb. 13 so that it can be cut and prepared ahead of time. Our class will be making the soup on Valentine’s day. Please also send a reusable soup bowl and reusable soup spoon to help our environment. Feel free to send the food item and reusable bowl and spoon to school a day ahead too. Thank you.

We will be providing the pasta and any other additional ingredients. Please note that on Thursday, February 14th, students will not require a meal from home as we will enjoy the soup together for lunch. If you feel that your child would prefer a different meal, it will be fine to enhance our soup with something more for your child; however the soup alone should be sufficient. Thank you for your support and contribution!

Look for the notice that is going home on Friday, February 8th or click here to view.

On Wednesday, we sent home a list of students in the class to help your child organize the writing of Valentine’s cards. If for some reason you did not receive this, please inform me at Livia.Chan@burnabyschools.ca and another one will be sent via email.

Unfortunately, this event has been cancelled. Your money will be returned or refunded.

 

We have a special artist coming to UHE for an in-school field trip to teach us how to make Pysanky Eggs! 

Date: Tuesday, March 5th

Time: Afternoon

Place: University Highlands

Click here for more information. The notice will go home on Friday, February 8th.

Gung Hei Fat Choi! Happy Lunar New Year! We started the day learning about some of the common traditions that are followed during the Lunar New Year like cleaning the house, eating certain lucky foods, leisees (lucky money), lion dances with loud music and ones that even dance on tall poles! Please ask your child about that!

Our story about Sam and the Lucky Money [click on link to listen to the story] taught us about using the strategy of making predictions. As students listened, they were stopped at four different points in the story to make their predictions. This strategy helps us to think ahead, to revise and verify predictions, and make connections to prior knowledge and the text. Feel free to encourage your child to make predictions when reading at home. We also learned about looking for an author’s message. Often, the author has a message or a “big idea” they are trying to tell the reader. After reading a story at home, encourage your child to tell you what the author’s message is. Here, one strong message was to be grateful for what we have.

During Math, we learned how to count and write from one to ten in Cantonese. Students have been practicing their numbers before and after, ten more, and ten less but writing numbers in Chinese was a tricky challenge for some because of the extra “ten” they had to write to represent how many tens there are. This was a great way to reinforce what they have been learning about. They had so much fun and thoroughly enjoyed this!

Math – How you can support at home: Give your child a random number up to 99 (for grade 2’s). You can use a deck of cards and use 1-9 as digits; draw two random cards as the number to use. Ask the following:

• What is the number before and the number after?
• What is the number that is ten less and ten more?
• What is the number that is two more and two less?
• For extra challenge, what is five more and five less?

Core Competency connection:

• I can be open to learning about cultures.
• I can try my best at learning new things and show determination.