Dear families of Division 13,

This will be the last blog post you will receive from me. I would like to express my deepest gratitude for you and your part in supporting us last year. We had such a fantastic and memorable year together. Each one of your children AND you helped to contribute to our positive and caring classroom community. You have instilled in them many beautiful core values that will serve them well as they continue to develop in their life journey. Thank you for all of your generous time and effort in supporting at home, in the classroom, on field trips, and for your thoughtful gifts over the year.

As you have heard me mention time and time again, I felt so incredibly blessed to be your child’s teacher. There are too many things that I enjoyed and brought me real joy each day that I couldn’t possibly list them all here but please know from my heart to yours, that I absolutely loved coming to work each day…to see their smiles, receive their love and hugs, and to watch them grow. I feel so grateful. At the core of it was who your children were and how they learned together each day that brought us all joy.

On Monday morning, they will be leaving our classroom and entering into their new spaces with their new teachers. I am excited for them! They already have in them the right mindset, attitude about learning, and skillset to be successful there. On Friday, several students shared their feelings of nervousness, anxiousness, and fear about the unknown. These are all natural feelings because it is just that…”unknown” so I encouraged them to think about what they DO know.

They may have had similar feelings at the beginning of last year (and the year before that) when they walked into our classroom for the first time. They all know how to be Kitchener HAWKS (helpful, accepting, welcoming, kind, and safe). They all know they CAN make new friends and develop new friendships because they DID just that. I reminded them that when they continue to live each day like a HAWK(S), they will continue to thrive and build new relationships.

Thank you for taking the time to read these blog posts. I hope you enjoyed reading them as much as I enjoyed crafting them and sharing and celebrating all of their learning throughout the year.

I also told them that I will ALWAYS be their teacher and one of their biggest fans. Even though they have moved on to have a new teacher, they will forever be my student. They can come to me (and you as well!) when they need support. It will bring me joy to see them and you around the school. I wish them and you all well. Have a great start to another fantastic year! Love you all! ❤️

With a warm heart completely full of gratitude, Ms. Chan

P.S. On Monday, please drop off and pick up your child at the same doors as usual. Starting on Tuesday morning, they can line up with their new classmates. I miss them (and you) already! 🙂

I will be removing you as subscribers after this post is published.

Dear families,

I hope you had a fantastic summer vacation. I am so looking forward to seeing everyone tomorrow!

Here are a few things that will help with your child’s transition back:

• Click here to check the school website for information on the first week back. Your child will be in our classroom until we move into new classes, hopefully next Monday or when we get approval. Please talk to your child about new beginnings and how it’s a great opportunity to meet new people including make new friends.
• Tuesday, September 3 will be from 9 to 10 AM. Parents are welcome to stay at school in the undercover area for coffee and treats!
• Click here for grade 4 school supplies list. Grade 3 teachers will be collecting $30 via School Cash Online for shared supplies for the year.
• Interested in the hot lunch program? It should be available on School Cash Online now.

Last year, we said good-bye to Ms. Kapusta as she accepted a full-time position at Windsor Elementary. We are grateful for her dedication to our class and wish her well in her new ELL role there!

We would like to welcome Ms. Kim to our class on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Thank you for a most memorable year with your children full of love, joy, learning, and fun! YOU were a key part in their learning and we are so grateful.

With appreciation, Ms. Chan

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On an unrelated note, as you may or may not know, I am heavily involved in the ringette community. There is an opportunity to try it for free!

BNWRA will be hosting Come Try Ringette events at Moody Park Arena at 4:30pm for the next 3 Sundays (Sept 8, 15, and 22).

Click here to sign up

Dear families,

These weeks are going by so quickly! There is so much to savour in our last few weeks. It has been such a sweet year together with your sweet children.

We can reflect.

One of our core competencies is reflective thinking. One of my favourite quotes is by John Dewey “We do not learn from experience … we learn from reflecting on experience.”

There is so much to learn about ourselves, our self identity, and how to continue to grow. One of the best ways to do this is through reflection. Last week, your child had an opportunity to reflect on their learning this term, share what they are proud of, and to set a couple of goals for next year. Please feel free to ask your child what they wrote. What are you curious about in terms of their reflections on learning? Ask them!

This week, they will share what they think will help me be a better teacher and what they think have been the biggest life lessons I taught them. I love asking this question! It tells me a lot about whether my core values come through in my teaching. I am constantly in pursuit of betterment. I love learning and reflecting on my learning. Even after 25 years, I am still curious about being a better teacher and leader in the school so I read a lot, listen to a lot of podcasts, and follow people who inspire me to be better every day. If you have any feedback for me, please share with me too. I would be open to learning about what you see as my strengths and areas to improve. Thank you for your time.

Invitation: Ask your child what are the top three life lessons you taught them. I asked my young adult children this a couple of years ago and it was very interesting to hear their answer. Their life lessons learned were different from me and my husband. I wonder what they would say to you about what they learned from you so far in their young life.

We are mathematicians.

We are learning about money. I know many people don’t carry or use money as much as we used to but it is helpful for your children to understand financial literacy.

We sang the song “Canada in my Pocket” by Michael Mitchell and watched “How Money Is Made“. Feel free to watch together at home and have some conversations about money.

We are scientists.

Don’t blink or you may miss this!

We recorded our observations in our ladybug journal.

We are artists.

• Their beautiful and brightly coloured copper thunderbird paintings inspired by the Canadian Indigenous artist Norval Morisseau
• Hand drawn mandalas, which were an excellent practice in symmetry, adding fine detail, and staying patient through the process
• Paper sea collages, which were inspired by their recent trip to the aquarium and involved using their fine motor skills and lots of by imagination! Students created starfish, axolotl, sea otters and more, and as always, they went above and beyond with what they created.

Field Trip

• Fri. June 21 – Revs Bowling and Burnaby Lake picnic (All families are welcome!) We need more parent volunteer drivers, please. If you can drive for a part of the day, please let me know. Perhaps we can share the load. Please email me if you can drive us to the bowling alley OR from the bowling alley to the park OR from the park back to the school. Thank you to the parents who already volunteered. We appreciate you!

My heart is full of gratitude for your support at home.

Gratefully, Ms. Chan

Dear families,

This time of year always has me feeling like I don’t want the school year to end. The relationships and connection I feel with your children are deep. I guess it just can’t be helped when you love and care for them and think about them at night and on the weekends. As I’ve been telling you all year, they bring me such joy and I know they bring each other joy too!

Last week continued to include experiences that brought us joy.

We are communicators and writers. 

We are improving in learning how to write paragraphs. We have a few goals:

• To write complete sentences that begin with a capital and end with proper punctuation
• To write sentences that have details that include thoughts and feelings, reasons, explanations, or examples to help paint a picture of what happened.

To support this, we used a single-point rubric to remind us of what we are working towards showing proficiency. This was given to them as a self-reflection so they were encouraged to read their writing to look for proficiency and to make changes to get closer to proficiency. Using rubrics like these make the criteria clear and something they can strive to work towards. Feel free to have your child refer to this if they do any writing at home. It can be simply used like a checklist. For some of your children, you can add something about printing legibly with appropriate sizing and formation of letters, and writing on the lines for neatness. Please let me know if you’d like a PDF copy and I’ll send it to you.

Then they had an opportunity to be paired up with a classmate chosen randomly. When we look at someone else’s writing to assess, there are different skills they learn like many of our core competencies: communication, critical thinking, reflection, personal and social awareness and responsibility. If case you missed it, I shared more about core competencies in last week’s post.

They were encouraged to share strengths (where their writing glowed) and an area to work on (where their writing can grow). I love listening in to their encouraging conversations. I wish you were there to listen too. They were kind and supportive.

We are communicators and listeners.

We played cooperative game where we were split into four teams. Each team was given the same Lego pieces. This is how the game works:

• Each team sends one person as the communicator.
• When the game starts, they come to me to look at the secret structure to memorize.
• They go back to their team with their hands behind their backs to explain how to re-create the structure. They can come back as many times as they wish.
• The rest of the team works together to make sense of the instructions by the communicator and then they have an opportunity to communicate with each other to collaboratively build the structure. They need to work together to all agree on what they are collectively building.
• It really challenges them to work on their core competencies: communication skills, critical thinking, personal and social responsibility!

We played a few rounds and I was proud of how each group was able to successfully re-create each structure!

We are scientists.

We saw our ladybugs go from the first stage as larvae into the next stage as a pupa where they stop eating to prepare to become an adult. We have been making observations and recording them in our booklets.

We have also continued to work on our animal research with our partner. Some are creating a poster and others have decided to present using PowerPoint. They are working so well as partners. I am so proud of them!

We are athletes.

As you know from our Student Led Conferences, we regularly do exercises that challenge us. One of the ones they seem to really enjoy is plank so I wanted to show you a picture of us! This really helps build their core muscles. May I encourage you to try some of the exercises we do at home? Feel free to ask them what some that are often chosen. We take turns choosing three exercises each day.

Volunteer Tea

We have been so blessed to have many parents support our learning this year. If you helped on a field trip, for an in-class activity, or volunteered to help at a school event like Pancake breakfast or attended a PAC meeting, please CLICK HERE to fill out the RSVP to let us know you will  join us. To learn more, click here.

Date: Wednesday, June 5
Time: 1:30 to 3:00 PM
Place: Gym

I apologize ahead of time but I will be at a meeting all day. If you are there near the end, I will see you then. We are so grateful for your time and dedication to our learning this year!

Gilmore’s Spring Fair – Community Event

You may know that my last school was Gilmore. It is located at 50 Gilmore Avenue.

You can pre-buy a punch card to save 25% off games (Wed, June 5 is the deadline to pre-buy but you can purchase at the fair). You can also enter a raffle to win $1000, $2500, or $5000.

To learn more, CLICK HERE to go to Gilmore’s website. It is a fun and well attended community event open to everyone! Feel free to invite your friends from other places to join you!

Dates to Note

• Wed. June 5 – Volunteer Tea
• Fri. June 7 – Pro-D day; students do not attend
• Fri. June 7 – Gilmore’s Spring Fair from 5 to 9 PM
• Fri. June 21 – Revs Bowling and Burnaby Lake picnic (All families are welcome!)

We really appreciate your continued support at home. Grateful for you!

Gratefully, Ms. Chan