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.

A ball of modelling clay was provided to manipulate into an object that can float. After discovering a way of how to make it float, students were tasked with seeing how many teddy bears can sit on the boat before it sank. For such young children, what we were most impressed with was their ability to stay focussed with great determination to succeed and for such a long time. They showed such patience, perseverance, and critical thinking when provided with the challenge to make a dense object float.

The critical thinking skills that were demonstrated throughout were also truly brilliant. Wished every parent could have been there to witness their learning! Some used the inside of a bowl to form their boat. When that didn’t work, they tried it on the outside of the bowl. Other students believed that making sure their boat was dry was important so they used our sponges to dry it off each time. Then in order to try to hold more teddy bears, they exercised further critical thinking skills to experiment with the shape of their boats. The learning was so rich and students were so engaged and motivated. We felt so proud of how they self-regulated their emotions even though some of them weren’t successful until the very end. They kept trying and trying and demonstrated a never give up attitude.

Here were some reflections shared:

• I learned that when I take the clay and fold it up, it float.
• That the same object can sink and float. – Isla
• If you have too much water in the boat, then it will sink. – Sasha
• I learned to “never give up”. – Charlotte T.
• I learned that even if there’s little tiny holes, you will have to block the holes. It can be holes on the side but not on the bottom. – Mehr

Spontaneously, most unexpected student etched “I can think critically” on her floatie. Made us smile!

Core Competencies connection:

• I can show perseverance.
• I can try and try again.
• I can think critically.

Students, what did you think about this critical thinking activity? Please feel free to leave a comment. We would love to hear your thoughts!