Dear families,

We are so excited to be your child’s teacher for this year! We are passionate about building relationships and developing connections with children and families. We’ve had a great morning so far! 🙂

About Ms. Chan

This is my second year at Kitchener as the Head Teacher and absolutely love it here! I have been teaching for 25+ years and love it more and more each year! Don’t get me wrong, I’ve loved it since my very first year of teaching too. In fact, I still keep in touch with some of those students!

I get so much joy spending my day with children by seeing their smiles, hearing their laughter, and witnessing their growth every day. I also love to spread joy, love, kindness, and gratitude too!

If you would like to get to know me better, please have a look around this blog and check out the About Our Class page. It has posts from the past few years but it will give you a sense of what I believe in and what I value. If you’d like to learn even more about me, please check out my website to read some blog posts or listen to some podcast episodes: livchan.com

About Ms. Kim

Ms. Kim has been teaching Grade 2 for six years in West Vancouver before welcoming her child in 2022. She is excited to be joining the Kitchener community, having loved her experience as a teacher on call at the school last year. She will be with the students on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Ms. Kim is passionate about helping students reach their full potential and fostering a love for lifelong learning. While she enjoys drawing and painting, most of her free time is currently dedicated to balancing motherhood and teaching. She hopes to resume her hobbies soon!

Getting to Know Your Child

Your child will go home with the Families as Partners Information Form today. The children often think that it is funny when I tell them they get to give YOU homework to hand in to their teacher. Please take your time to fill it out in consultation with your child. It would be greatly appreciated if these are returned by the end of the week. Thank you for your time and for sharing about your child so we can get to know them better. This information is invaluable so we can better support your child’s learning and development.

CLICK HERE to download an electronic copy (Word doc) of the Families as Partners Information Form. This is available because I know some people prefer to type their answers.

Some notes:

• We are Division 11.
• Our classroom is Room 8 which is just right of the main office.
• For Monday, September 9, pick up after school will be back at their original class just for today.
• Moving forward, pick up and drop off will be in the undercover area on the west side or back side of the main building starting on Tuesday, September 10.
• Your child will receive a school planner. We will use this for home-school communication. You can pay $8 for the planner on School Cash Online once it is available. You can also fill out school forms on School Cash Online.

Getting to Know Us

We look forward to meeting you at our Meet Your Teachers Night on Zoom next week! The date is still yet to be set but we will let you know very soon. We are excited to share a little about ourselves including our teaching philosophy, expectations, answer questions, and to greet you as a group before we meet you in person the following week for our Families as Partners conferences.

I regularly update this blog so you can stay informed about the fun, engaging, and meaningful learning we will do this year. I will add in your email addresses so you will receive email notification every time there is a new blog post published.

We are looking forward to meeting you very soon this week during drop off/pick up or next week during our Families as Partners conferences! Sign up for appointments will open up sometime next week but please save the dates: Wednesday, September 25 (3-5pm) and Thursday, September 26 (3-6pm).

Should you have any questions throughout the year, please feel free to contact us.  We firmly believe that we work as partners in your child’s education.

We are grateful for the opportunity to teach your child this year and to work with you! 🙂

With hearts full of appreciation, Ms. Chan (and Ms. Kim)

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