Dear Families,

Our field trip to Burnaby Village Museum is on Thursday, December 6^th. We are so excited!!  Please:

• Ensure your child has a booster seat at school, clearly labelled with their name
• Ensure your child is dressed appropriately for the weather. Most of the museum is outside. Students may have to stand in the rain. Warm clothes, boots and a raincoat are a must.
• Send your child a “pocket snack”. A snack that can fit in a coat pocket that can be eaten while touring the village is great.
• Send water and a lunch in their backpack with all the necessary cutlery.

After school pick up time will be the same. We plan to be back at the school by 2:30 pm.

Click here to view the field trip permission form for more details. 

Dear parent volunteers,

Thank you to all the parents that are able to bring us there and help supervise. In order to alleviate the congestion with the large number of students attending this field trip, leaving times and orientation times for classes will be staggered. Parent drivers, for our class, please arrive at the school at 9:55 am. We really appreciate your time.

Gratefully, Ms. Chan and Ms. Cowan

What a wonderful experience students had during our visit to SFU’s Biological Sciences Department! The team started with a presentation about the differences between spiders and insects. Then we divided into groups to learn more about the critters at each station: cockroaches, grasshoppers, mosquitoes, ants, spiders, bed bugs, moths, and beetles. They even had an arts and crafts station set up which many enjoyed!

[metaslider id=2918]

As scientists, students are expected to be able to demonstrate curiosity and a sense of wonder, make observations, ask questions, and communicate observations and ideas. While everyone was fascinated by the different insects and spiders that the SFU team prepared for us, Ms. Cowan and I were most impressed by the kinds of deep and inquisitive questions asked and keen observations made. It was also inspiring to see these grad students, as experts, so enthusiastic and passionate about sharing their knowledge about particular insects or spiders they were researching. We were expecting to stay for an hour but because they were all so engaged in the hands-on learning, we ended up staying for an extra half hour! We are so very grateful to the Biological Sciences team who provided this great learning opportunity for our students. Thank you for your generosity of time and for setting up so many stations for us to learn from!

In the afternoon, Kira’s mom, Bryony, so graciously offered to teach us yoga. Not only did we have the pleasure to exercise our bodies, Bryony planned an amazing experience that started with exploring and singing the Eensy Beensy Spider in different ways as we warmed up our bodies. Then, she took us on a storytelling journey about the adventures of a spider as we became the spider, the mountain, and the tree, to name a few poses among many we practiced. We even tried collaborative yoga with a partner to become a spider with 8 legs! Finally, we ended with a fun game to test our spider senses. So very thankful to Bryony for her time to prepare and teach such an engaging lesson of yoga! Our bodies and minds were blessed!

All students have worked hard on finishing their own Spider Facts Booklet. We are currently working on a class book about what we found as the most interesting thing we learned about spiders. [We are using an iPad app called Book Creator.]

Students were also offered the opportunity to extend their learning by researching a specific spider of choice. We are looking forward to sharing more of our learning about spiders with you soon!

As you are already aware, on Thursday, December 6th, 2018, the primary classes will all be visiting the Burnaby Village Museum. For more details, click here to view the field trip consent form (already sent home last Friday). Closer to the date, if you need to refer to the consent form for pertinent information on times and what to bring, you can visit the Field Trips page on our classroom blog – just in case you have recycled your paper copy.

We have received many forms back, thank you. At this point, we will need more parent volunteer drivers, please. We welcome any parents who can drive in the morning only OR afternoon only OR both but cannot commit to staying with us throughout the day. Our field trip cannot be possible without your help. Please write a note in the planner or email Livia.Chan@burnabyschools.ca if you are able to drive and have not informed us yet. Thank you very much for your support and to parents who already volunteered to help. We appreciate it! 

If you plan to drive, click here to print out the Volunteer Driver Authorization Form. Please send the form to school. It will be valid for the duration of this school year. Thank you.

Our District Indigenous Support Teacher, Ditta Cross, visited our classroom last week to teach us about names and cultural identity. She brought in her special drum that was a gift from her mother. It was her mother who made it and sister who painted it. We started our time together passing around an eagle feather to hold as we shared our names and any information we had about our names. 

Then Ms. Cross taught everyone a song and dance to represent people’s family and what they stood for. Students were divided into four groups to dance: ravens, whales, wolves, and eagles. Their dance mimicked the animal’s movements.

Next, she shared a story called Thunder Boy Jr. by Sherman Alexie about a boy who would like to change his name. In the end, they found the perfect name. Thank you, Ms. Cross, for visiting our classroom and for teaching us more about Indigenous people and the importance of our name! Dear Students, what did you enjoy most about her visit?

The following day during Big Buddies time, we listened to the story called The Name Jar by Yangsook Choi about a new girl from Korea who looks to find a new name because she did not want to use her Korean name in her new country. Her new classmates write name suggestions to put in the name jar. At the end of the story, she finds the perfect name. Students were able to make a clear text-to-text connection to the story they heard just the day before.

Afterwards, we researched the meaning of our names and started working on our name crest. Students were so interested to find out more about their names. It would be so great if you could have a conversation with your child about how their name was chosen and why. This will give them greater insight into the history of their own name which may help them in deciding what they might add to their artistic creations. Thank you.

 

Dear students, what do you think or how do you feel about your name? What do you like or not like about it? If you could change your name, would you? What would you change your name to?

Dear Parents, please feel free to help your child respond to these questions as a comment on our blog. Thank you for your support!

Sincerely, Ms. Chan & Ms. Cowan