Dear families,

I apologize for not having this blog post ready for you to read over the weekend. My Masters ringette team and my daughter’s Open team that I coach was in a tournament. After playing ringette for 15 years, it was my team’s first time winning a gold medal!

We are grateful and at peace.

Last week, we talked about gratitude and what brings us peace. We often share what we are grateful for in our Community Circle.

We watched a part of a Tedx Talk by Louie Schwartzberg on Gratitude. Click here to watch from the part we started watching.

“Nature’s beauty can be easily missed — but not through Louie Schwartzberg’s lens. His stunning time-lapse photography, accompanied by powerful words from Benedictine monk Brother David Steindl-Rast, serves as a meditation on being grateful for every day.”

I do highly recommend watching the entire Ted Talk here.

We also read the book Feeling Grateful: How to Add More Goodness to Your Gladness. Click here for a short review on the book.

Students then reflected and wrote about things they are grateful for that also bring them peace. We melded two concepts of gratitude and peace together. I believe feelings of peace must also come with feelings of gratitude. I am excited for you to read your child’s writing passage that they worked so hard on.

When we practice gratitude regularly, this can raise our overall baseline level of happiness. When we choose to see many simple things all around us as gifts, we begin to feel more gratefulness. “The best things in life are not things.” – John Ruskin

I wrote two blog posts about gratitude in the classroom. If you are interested, feel free to read.

Teaching and Modeling Gratitude in Elementary School – published on Edutopia

The Gift of Gratitude – published on Teach Better Team

Thank you for your donations for the poppies. Our Remembrance Day assembly truly honoured those who served in the war.

We are artists.

Mrs. Paulich taught them how to draw poppies and paint with water colours.

Click here to see a short video of their artwork on our bulletin board!

I love how they all get the same set of instructions but everyone’s art has their own personality!

We are scientists.

We continued to learn about the water cycle. We enjoyed dancing to the Water Cycle by Blazer Fresh on GoNoodle. It really helps us learn our vocabulary while moving and having fun! For review, play the song at home and dance with your child! I know you’ll find big smiles on your faces!

We are creative thinkers and critical thinkers (core competencies).

On Wednesdays, we typically practice our creative thinking to develop this skill. We have been taking every day items and going around the circle thinking of other ways we can use it. We use the SMART strategy:

S – size (What if this item was very small or VERY LARGE, what else could it be?)
M – manipulate (What if we can bend, cut it in half, or use a part of it, what else could it be?)
A – animal (How would different animals use this item?)
R – relative (How would different relatives, like your grandma, use this item?)
T – transportation (What part of a vehicle could this be used for?)

Give it a try at home! Ask your child to explain what we do!

Last week, we changed things up a little. Children were placed into random small groups. They were given the same items and challenged to build a structure that would hold the foam block the highest. They were so creative, they went out of this world! Ask your child what they built and how they contributed to their group. Click on the image to see my tweet. Then we reflected what went well in our groups.

Gratitude for you

Thank you for your continued support at home. We appreciate the encouragement you give to your child to read daily and to cultivate the joy of reading. Continue to talk about the books you read and the ones you read with your children. This helps them connect to what they read. Ask questions (model) and have them ask questions about the characters, setting, plot, theme, author’s message. Be curious and wonder! Writing at home helps them practice their written communication skills too!

Thank you for reading these blog posts every week and for continuing to check the planner regularly.

We appreciate you!

With gratitude, Ms. Chan (and Mrs. Paulich)