Dear students and families,

What an awesome week together! First of all, thank you for arriving on time every day! Please remember to do the daily health check before sending your child to school. Thank you for your thoughtfulness in keeping us all safe!

If you prefer to watch than read, here is the update video! Click here (Sorry, it’s 8:46 min long. I didn’t realize it was that long when I was recording it!). These videos and blog posts are meant for your children too so please review and have conversations about what was learned in order to reinforce. Thank you for your investment of time in your child’s learning! Ask them to reflect and tell you from their point of view. This works on their communication skills!

Meet the Teacher Conferences are next week on Wednesday, September 23 (3:15 to 6 pm) and Thursday, September 24 (2:15 to 6 pm) with an early dismissal on Thursday at 2:00 pm. Please read the important email sent to you from our Gilmore office. In the email, you will learn about our new online booking system with attached instructions. We recommend that you create an account and add your child(ren) before the portal opens tomorrow at noon. It is first come, first serve.

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On Thursday, after our Flextime, we started our morning with our Community Circle finishing this sentence, “I feel happy when… “. It was heartwarming to hear many comments about feeling happy when they come to school. After just one week, it feels like we’ve been together much longer. We are thrilled to see our classroom community show respect and cooperation!

Next, we learned about comfort zone circles. We went to the Activity Room where they were given scenarios. This was a fun, interactive way where they moved to a part of the room that represented their comfort level. It’s important to understand themselves when learning. I told them that they will be regularly pushed out of their comfort zone for optimal learning in their stretch zone.

• Comfort zone: unchallenged, bored, stable, safe, easy
• Stretch zone: This is the learning zone – excited, exhilarated, challenged, alive, willing to take risks
• Panic zone: fearful, tense, stressed

Ms. Paulich finished the STEM activity with them in the afternoon. So MUCH fun! Here were a couple reflection questions:

What about your design worked well?

• Our paper was all used up and our strips were skinny which made it long
• It was strong and did not break
• Durability and we used all the supplies

If you were to do this challenge again what would you do differently?

• Try not to overlap the edges of the paper
• Make the strips longer and thinner making the chain longer
• Use thinner pieces so you have more to make the chain longer

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Friday’s theme: Celebration Friday! After our Flextime, we gathered in our Community Circle to share our celebrations from the week and cheer for each other. Again, many comments about celebrating a great first week and feelings of happiness to be in the class. My heart was so full after listening to their celebrations!

Hooray for You! We read this book that celebrates “you-ness”, all the things that make you unique, special, and different! We spent some time working on our heart maps. I loved seeing all the things that make their heart happy!

We went back to the Computer Lab and learned about how to be a good digital citizen. They are now at an age where some have social media accounts or play online games where they talk to people they have never met in person. So it’s very important to teach them to THINK before they post or say things to others in person and behind a screen. What they post is permanent and may affect their future so we want them to build a positive online presence! We practiced in Teams in the Chat feature. I imagine we will have more conversations about how we use this space responsibly, respectfully, and with integrity.

Then we logged into Epic to do some reading. I will send you the class code in an email to keep it private and not post it here. I will be adding your emails this weekend so expect to see an email from Epic to invite you to sign up. This will allow your child to have an extra two hours of reading time at home outside of the free account which gives them free access from 7 am to 4 pm.

Finally, on Teams, they worked on a reflection assignment. They were asked the following questions:

• What can I do better as their teacher for them or the class?
• What can you improve on for next week? What is your goal?
• What is your celebration from the week?

Not everyone handed in their work because they did not all finish so if you can find some time over the weekend to encourage your child to login to O365 to complete the work and to click on TURN IN, that would be so helpful so they won’t be behind starting next week. Thank you so much! If you need any support, please send me an email.

Finally, I introduced the idea of Passion Projects. We watched the video as a launch. Please have a conversation with your child and help them brainstorm different possibilities for what they might want to focus on for their Passion Project. It’s best to brainstorm some ideas first! Feel free to have them bring it to school next week! They do not need to make a decision yet. What they choose needs to be realistic given the parameters of our health and safety protocols. So looking forward to seeing what they choose!

Ms. Paulich and I feel so very blessed to be your child’s teacher this year! Thank you for sharing your child with us. Your children are happy to be back at school and so are we! We are so looking forward to meeting you later next week over Zoom! A Zoom link will be shared with you next Tuesday evening.

FYI… for students who like to bring their own device, we will visit the Computer Lab next Monday. We will be going to the gym on Tuesday and Wednesday, so please dress appropriately to exercise!

We always love it when parents reach out to connect! To parents AND students, what was your most favourite activity from this week? Please post a comment! Thank you! 

Thank you for your support at home. We appreciate you! Have a fabulous weekend! 🙂

Sincerely, Ms. Chan and Ms. Paulich