What a fantastic week we’ve had! Let’s dive into all the fun and exciting things we’ve done together.

New Desk Arrangement

We kicked off the week with a brand-new desk arrangement. We’re back into pods, and I hope everyone is enjoying working in groups. Remember, if we show the right behavior and attention, we can stay in groups instead of rows. Let’s make it happen!

New Jobs and Calendars

We assigned new jobs and created our calendars for the month. Everyone did a great job picking their roles and filling out the calendar. Keep an eye on your responsibilities and let’s make sure everything runs smoothly.

Track Team Training

This week, many of our classmates started their track team training. Practices are on Tuesday and Friday mornings at 8 AM, and our team has over 65 intermediate students this year! There are two after-school zone meets at Burnaby North and a final, full-day meet on the last Wednesday of the month. It’s a short but exciting season, and we are so proud of all of you who decided to give track a try.

Math Adventures

In Math, we worked on our long division skills. We practiced two-by-one and three-by-one division problems, with and without remainders. Here are some examples to help you understand the steps:

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It’s clear to most of you now how important and helpful it is to have your times tables memorized. If you haven’t yet, don’t be discouraged. Get some flash cards or find some online games, even continue with Xtra Math if you can. The importance of knowing those facts by heart cannot be emphasized enough. Math only gets more complex, and multiplication is a skill used in many different areas of math. Knowing the facts will definitely make your life easier. Maybe this should be a goal for some of you this month! Think about it and ask your family to help you if they can!

Science Explorations

In Science, we have been reading about Geological Processes (volcanoes, earthquakes, weathering, and erosion) and how they affect both society and the environment. We used the science content to work on our reading comprehension skill focus for the week, which was to find the author’s claim/message and find the evidence that supports it. Some of you are really getting the hang of it, while others still find it challenging.

Social Studies Fun

We’re becoming Travel Tour Guides!  Our trip around the world ended on the continent of Africa and now we are going to be learning about 9 different countries on this incredible continent!  You chose your own team of 3 people for this project and then through a random draw you chose the country you’d like to dive deeper into.  Africa has 54 countries in it, so we short-listed our options to the top 12 most visited countries in Africa.  The 9 countries chosen are:  Zambia, Zimbabwe, Rwanda, Madagascar, South Africa, Egypt, Kenya, Morocco, and the Seychelles.  This weekend, you took home your first research assignment:  Vital Statistics of that country and learning about the official flag.  Show your parents the “Collaboration Planning” page for them to see all the topics your team will be researching and the 4 areas that YOU are responsible for.  Don’t jump ahead with your research, Mrs. Davis will give you your note-taking pages next week on Thursday.

Fantastic French 

This final term in French we are combining our computer skills with French.  We will be creating a power point presentation called “C’est Moi!”  (This is Me!). This will be a lot of fun as we learn how to describe how we look, our family, and other things about ourselves through a power point presentation.  On Friday we learned how to describe our hair, our eyes, and some accessories we wear on our head.

We played California Kickball in the gym and worked through some of the rules and expectations of this game.  On Friday we split into two teams and played outside!  It was super fun!  We didn’t keep score as we’re still learning how to play, but you sure are catching on to the rules very well.

Career Studies Journey

Our Career studies took us on a journey this week. We talked about what career areas (health, communications, business, technology, agriculture, etc.) interest us and then began to analyze our values and what is important to us in our workplace/career. It was interesting to see how surprised you were at the things you thought you valued versus what actually turned up from your responses.

You also received your progress reports on Wednesday. We hope you are all able to see your hard work reflected in those reports as they are meant to show you how you are growing and changing. We are so happy with the growth you have all shown in so many areas, and we are very excited to see you continue to flourish during this last term of the school year.

Let’s Paint! 

Spring has definitely sprung and the cherry blossom trees are still in full bloom.  This was the inspiration of our Friday afternoon painting lesson.  It’s always fun to see how the same instructions translate into very different looking art pieces!  All of your completed Cherry Blossom trees are on display brightening up our hallway!

Upcoming Highlights

• Class Photos:  Next Wednesday, we’ll be taking our class photos. Make sure to bring your best smiles!
• Jump Rope for Heart Kick-Off:  On April 17th, we’ll start our Jump Rope for Heart event. Get ready to jump and have fun while supporting a great cause.
• Four-Day Weeks:  We have three four-day weeks in a row coming up! Starting with a FOUR DAY WEEKEND for Easter break, we’ll have two four-day weeks. Plus, there’s a professional day the following Monday, so we’ll end the month with another short week. Wow, this month is going to fly by!

Your Blog Response for this weekend is:

What 3 things do you like about Springtime?  Why? 

Have a wonderful weekend Division 7!

Mrs. Gil and Mrs. Davis

Hooray! Spring Break is here!  It’s been a busy term, we’ve been working hard, and we are all ready for a well-deserved break!

This week we had a fun week with Miss Alison from the Young Actor’s Project! We had three sessions and learned some fun acting/drama activities. We played games like “gibberish”, “telephone”, and “Zip,Zap, Zop”. .  Being able to communicate using only body language is an important skill when acting. To practice this we used full face masks to act out scenes without talking Our final lesson focused on “Improv”.  Improvisation is unscripted acting.  You have to be quick on your toes, focused, and be willing to take risks for this kind of acting.  All of you did a great job during our Young Actor’s sessions and some of you have a real knack for acting! Maybe something to consider as a hobby?

Progress Reports are going home AFTER Spring Break; BUT, in preparation for that, you have all taken home your work binders to share with your parents.  There is an assignment on TEAMS for you to complete with your parents once you have shared your work binders with them.  Please complete this by March 30th.  ( This will act as your first blog response for term 3).   Your binders should be brought BACK to school after Spring Break.  Your progress reports will be sent home on April 2nd. (Note: if you are away travelling for all of Spring Break and are unable to share your binders with your parents and complete the response, please do that as soon as you are able to in that first week back). 

You also have a small Science activity to do over the break as well.  Please check that assignment out on TEAMS.

Our ADST petting zoo creations are in progress.  We will continue those after the break. If there are any materials ( that we don’t have at school) and you can  bring from home, please remember to bring those so that our building times are productive.

We hope you all have a WONDERFUL 2 weeks off! If you are travelling, we hope you have a great time exploring new places.  If you are staying local, we hope you get to rest, recharge, and have some fun adventures close to home!

See you all on March 31st!

Mrs. Davis and Mrs. Gil

Wow! What a week we’ve had! We started off with a desk change and new jobs, which meant a whole lot of moving, adjusting, and getting used to new faces beside us. Finding the perfect partners was a bit of a challenge (because let’s be honest, some of us are easily distracted… or very good at distracting others), but we did our best! Teamwork makes the dream work, and this week, we focused on communicating and collaborating in all subjects.

In math, we had a multiplication marathon! Your hands might be sore from all the writing, and your brains might be tired from all the thinking, but guess what? It’s working! You’re getting better, faster, and more confident! 3-by-1 multiplication? You’ve got it! 2-by-2? Still growing, but we’re getting there! Keep up the amazing effort!

We also embarked on an ADST project that combines our Math skills with our building and designing skills.  We are making a petting zoo!  Our understanding of perimeter and area is being applied to this project as we design spaces for the animals that will be living there as well as the people that will come to visit. Our zoos need to have spaces for at least 5 different “petting zoo” animals as well as washrooms, a picnic area, and pathways throughout the whole zoo.  We are finishing up the planning stages and will be constructing our zoo next week.

In literacy, we became detectives and searched for the author’s point in different texts. We started by reviewing the author’s purpose and structure, thinking about why an author writes (to persuade, inform, or entertain) and how they organize their writing. Then, we dug deeper into finding the author’s point and supporting it with evidence from the text. We played a matching game, sorted ideas, and used clues from the text to back up our thinking. Who knew being a reading detective could be so fun?

In science, we put on our geologist hats and wrapped up our learning about the three types of rocks. Using all our notes, activities, and each other’s knowledge, we worked on summarizing and answering questions to prove just how much we know! (Hint: You know A LOT!)

We “travelled” to the continent of Oceania this week!   This continent is made up of MANY little island nations.  Do you remember how many?  The largest of these islands is the country of Australia! This is the land of kangaroos and koala bears as well as amazing marine life that can be found in the Great Barrier Reef.  Would you ever want to actually visit the “land down under”?

Finally, in Careers, we started thinking about our future selves! We sorted through different activities to figure out what interests us and what… well, maybe not so much. Next week, we’ll dive into what we value and start connecting the dots to possible career paths. Who knows? Maybe a future doctor, artist, scientist, or astronaut is sitting in our classroom right now! We also enjoyed visiting and shopping at the Entrepreneur Fair put on by Divisions 1-4. It was so fun to see their “shops” and the many different items they had available to sell.  An entrepreneur is a person who creates their own business.  Were you inspired by what you saw?  If you had the opportunity, what “business” would you consider?

Here is your Blog Response for this weekend…………..                                                                  Watch this video  https://studyjams-assets.scholastic.com/jams/videos/rock-cycle.mp4 Watch it as many times as you need to and then answer the following questions:

 1) What is Physical Weathering?

2) What is Chemical Weathering?

See you next week!

Mrs. Davis and Mrs. Gil

What a rainy week we had this week! It felt like everyday, someone came in with soaking wet feet, muddy clothes and often, soaking wet hair. It is the rainy season here in BC so this is a gentle reminder, bring an extra set of clothes (including socks and shoes) that you can leave here at school for the next few weeks until Spring Break. Many of you had to spend half a day soaking wet and shivering because you did not have any other clothes to change into. Also, don’t forget to bring boots and rain jackets every day. The weather here seems to change quickly and it is best to be prepared. We are sure that after Spring Break, we will have some better weather and MAYBE, we won’t have to play outside in such wet and muddy conditions.

Mrs. Gil was away sick for the last few weeks and so when she came back this week, she had a lot to catch up on. She was happy with how much work you were able to get through while she was away and was even happier with the great feedback she got from the Teacher’s On Call who all said you were amazing to work with. You made Mrs. Davis and Mrs. Gil very proud! Thank you.

As February comes to an end, we have asked you to reflect back on the last three months and how much you have grown. We appreciate hearing from each of you about how YOU feel about your learning and growth as a student. We have seen tremendous growth in so many of you and we are excited to write progress reports that celebrate all your successes. Your voices are a very important part of the reports so we will be reading all of your reflections and doing our best to make sure your progress reports share all the juicy details of your growth in the last few months.

Ms.Petrovska has provided us with a overview of what you have been learning with her this term. Based on your reflections, many of you are enjoying her music class very much and she has helped you see your “music smarts”. This term she said you have been engaged in two ensembles: ukulele (focusing on strumming patterns and basic chords) and recorder (learning songs from the Recorder Karate Program while practicing proper posture, hand position and tone control). You explored the contributions of influential musicians and listened to a diverse selection of jazz, blues, and ragtime pieces. Additionally, you watched a film about Johann Sebastian Bach, a renowned composer from the Baroque era, to gain insight into his life and musical legacy. Looking back and reflecting on the past term, you sure have explored and learned so much!

In Language Arts, we finished our good copies of our paragraphs about life without devices. Your paragraphs are really coming along and the feedback you are giving one another is definitely helpful. Introduction and conclusion sentences still seem to be the most challenging for most of you, but most of you have paragraph form down now. We are starting to focus a little more on reading comprehension now and this week, we learned about the “Author’s Purpose”. It is important to know what an author wants us to get out of their writing so knowing if something is meant to persuade, entertain, or instruct us is important to understand.

In Math this week, we worked on multiplying 2×1 and 3×1 equations. You seemed to get the hang of this quite quickly. It is awesome to see how quickly many of you are now able to recall your basic multiplication facts as you call out answers during our lessons. Whether you are doing your Xtra Math practice everyday, or are practicing your times tables some other way, for so many of you the hard work is paying off now that we have begun multiplying larger equations. We also continued learning about area and how to calculate it.  We worked on some practice pages to help strengthen and develop this concept further.

In Science, we have explored two types of rocks so far, Igneous and Sedimentary with one more to go, Sedimentary.  It is great to see your enthusiasm and interest in this new topic. You are all getting the hang of testing for different physical properties to help identify the rocks as well. You have been using pennies, steel nails, scratch plates and your expert vision, to check rocks hardness and find other clues that may help you identify each rock.

On Thursday, we had our Geography check in/Assessment.  It had three parts:  facts about the continents and oceans,  labelling these on a world map, and identifying some landmarks that can be found in North America, Europe, or South America.  Spelling counted… BUT the list of the continents and oceans were available to copy.

Our “virtual travels” also took us to the continent of Asia.  We practiced re-phrasing parts of  the field guide in our words and we also watched some videos to learn a few more things about the biggest and most populated continent on earth.  The Asia research assignment is on TEAMS and is  homework ( Due on Thursday).

Our “Que Porter En Hiver” mini-me flip books are close to being finished!  Some of you have already completed them and those of you who are not yet finished, keep working on them at home.  They are due on Thursday of next week (Feb. 27th).  Don’t forget to also review the Winter vocabulary so that you are ready for the check in on Thursday too!

For Career explorations this week, we did some work thinking about the difference between a “job” and a “career”. We asked you to think about what you MIGHT like to do for a career in the future and how much education you think you might want to have. 

It was very interesting to see you explore your own interests and “smarts” through your answers to the small survey we gave you. Many of you were surprised at what your surveys showed about you. Many of you “nature smart” or “music smart” people had never really seen yourself that way before. Next week, we will dive even deeper into specific roles and responsibilities in a variety of careers and see what other areas are of interest to you. More surprises are to come for sure!

Here is your Blog Response for this weekend.

Watch the video and take the quiz! You will find the video that you are to watch below. Once you have watched the video, as many times as you need, go to your Blog Response page. There you will find a link to a quiz. Take the quiz and in your response, tell us your score! Also, tell us two new things you learned from the video you did not know before watching it.

Have a great weekend everyone,

Mrs. Davis and Mrs. Gil

This week we had the opportunity to demonstrate kindness in many different ways through Random Acts of Kindness  (RAK) Week .  Whether it’s a “high five”, a compliment, holding the door open for someone, asking how someone is feeling, or just greeting someone with a smile and “hello”  all help to make our community a great place to be!   “RAK” week wrapped up with a Spirit Day on Friday and we were encouraged to wear Valentine colours.  It sure was fun seeing all the pinks, reds, and whites around the school!  Thanks to the Student Leadership Team for organizing this fun week!

Mrs. Gil was sick for her days, so we had a TOC on Monday afternoon and Tuesday.  Mrs. Davis came in on Wednesday  and her usual days.  We hope Mrs. Gil feels better soon!  There are some nasty bugs floating around and lots of people have been hit by them!  Stay healthy everyone!

It was a busy week work-wise too!  We had a GOW assessment on Thursday!  It was focused on the upcoming Family Day holiday and what three activities we would plan to do with our family if we were given the opportunity to decide. The most popular options were going to the movies, going out for dinner, and going shopping for the day.  Swimming ( at an indoor pool) and go-carting ranked up there as well!  Maybe you’ll get to do one of those on Monday?

We have started learning about area and how it is different from perimeter.  Using  square tiles, we have been creating 2 D squares and rectangles that have different perimeters.  Then we calculated the area of each shape too.  Funny how the area doesn’t change even though the perimeter can be different… any ideas why?

As we begin to learn how to research and find information, we have  to be able to  write facts in our own words.  This is an important skill to learn because when we re-phrase what we learn from text or videos, it “locks” the information into our brains and we understand it better.  Just copying information doesn’t help us learn at all. In fact, that is called PLAGARISM, which is actually a crime!  Learning how to re-phrase information we find is not easy, but, with practice, it will become easier and more automatic.

Our trip around the world has now taken us to EUROPE. Europe is the second smallest continent in the world but sure has a lot to see and has a rich history.  We added the continent map to our passport, watched a video about the Europe, and collected some more information about this very interesting continent.  Have you been to any of the countries in Europe?

Friday was Valentine’s Day and your Megabuck donations bought you an hour and 15 minutes of party time!! Well done!  We spent the afternoon playing games, having some snacks, and just having fun together.  Coincidentally, Toprak and Antonio both had birthdays which we were able to also celebrate.  Thank you to everyone who contributed food and games to our party! We appreciate it very much!

This weekend is Family Day!  We hope you enjoy a wonderful day off as a family and perhaps get to do something fun together.

Your blog response is to re-phrase the following information about Family Day in your own words: 

British Columbia  first observed Family Day as a statutory holiday in 2013.  It was on the second Monday in February, which was different than other provinces.  The BC government announced that Family Day would move to the third Monday in February starting in 2019. 

Have a fantastic long weekend Division 7!

Mrs. Davis and Mrs. Gil

We’ve had another exciting week full of learning and activities. Here’s a look at what we’ve been up to:

Language Arts: Sentence Structure and Variations This week, we continued to work on our sentence structure and sentence variations. We’re still figuring out the best ways to combine sentences to make our writing more interesting. For example, instead of writing “The cat is black. The cat is small,” we can combine these sentences to say, “The black cat is small.” Another example is changing “I like to read. I like to draw,” to “I like to read and draw.” Keep practicing these combinations to make your writing flow better!

It was “dress rehearsal” week for your Reader’s Theater performances.  Every group presented to the class on Thursday.  You were given feedback about your speaking skills ( clarity, volume, speed, expression, and preparation) from your classmates as well as from Mrs. Davis.  All of you have been working hard to memorize your lines and are now working on how to best “deliver” them.  It is very common for nerves to impact speed and volume.  As you continue to practice, remember to slow down not only in saying your individual lines, but also between lines… just “take a beat” between lines, before jumping to the next.  Speaking a bit louder will also ensure that the audience hears everything.  Next week are final presentations!  Keep practicing between now and then!

Math: Multiplication Facts In math, we spent some time working on our multiplication facts. We learned some helpful strategies to remember the harder equations, like the 7’s, 8’s, and 9’s. For instance, for the 9’s,

1. 9 x 8: The first digit is 7 (one less than 8), and the two digits (7 and 2) add up to 9. So, 9 x 8 = 72.
2. 9 x 9: The first digit is 8 (one less than 9), and the two digits (8 and 1) add up to 9. So, 9 x 9 = 81.
3. 9 x 10: The first digit is 9 (one less than 10), and the two digits (9 and 0) add up to 9. So, 9 x 10 = 90.

This trick makes it easier to remember the 9 times tables because you just need to find the first digit (one less than the number you’re multiplying by 9) and then make sure the two digits add up to 9. Keep practicing, and you’ll have these down in no time!

C’est L’Hiver!  (It’s Winter time) and we are busy learning some new French vocabulary pertaining to this time of year. In Quebec, Carnaval is a big festival that is celebrated from Fri, Feb 7, 2025 – Sun, Feb 16, 2025.  We have been trying to learn the theme song “Bonhomme, Bonhomme” that is sung during this festival.  It’s a catchy tune, but has some tough timing and is pretty fast, but we’re getting much better at it!! We also started making a flip book called “Que Porter en Hiver”  (What to wear in Winter).   Each section of the book describes what to wear on our head, on our body, on our legs and on our feet.  Once the book is finished the sections can interchange between the three “bodies” we dressed for winter.

Science: Oceans, Tides, and the Moon In science, we studied the oceans and tides and how they are related to the moon and the sun. We learned that the moon’s gravity pulls on the Earth’s water, causing tides. We also explored the indigenous perspectives and beliefs about these natural phenomena. We watched videos and read articles about the Haida and the Cree. The Haida have oral stories about how the Raven brought the sun, moon, and stars to the sky. Also, they have story how the sun and moon are brothers, sharing the job of giving light to the world by working together. The Cree tell stories about the moon and sun being a brother sister duo who couldn’t work together to keep the fire going that lights up the world. As a result, their father split the job into two and had his son (Sun) light and warm the world for half the day and his daughter (Moon) light up the night much less so that people could rest. Working together, the siblings keep light in the world. These stories help us understand the importance of the sun and moon in different cultures.

Guess What?? We’re going on a virtual trip around the world!! This is a big project that not only our class is doing, but 3 other grade 4/5 classes are participating in as well.  But… before we can do any travelling, we need a PASSPORT– which is what we spent Thursday and Friday doing!   We completed our cover design and the ID page of our passport. We also added on to our growing list of facts about each continent.  If you haven’t been able to finish the continent information yet, the assignment is still on TEAMS, so please  get that done over the weekend.

Digital Literacy: Media and Mood We also had a digital literacy lesson about how media can affect our mood. We discussed how different types of media, like music, movies, social media, and even books can make us feel happy, sad, excited, or even anxious. We learned to be mindful of how much time we spend on screens and consuming media and to choose media that makes us feel good.

Physical Education: Basketball Skills We continued to play 3 on 3 basketball. Everyone is getting really good at blocking, dribbling, passing, and shooting. It’s great to see how much you’ve all improved and how well you’re working together in teams!

Next week is FAMILY LITERACY WEEK!  There are so many activities that we will be taking part in as a class ( Guess the Teacher, School Wide reading, Guest Readers, Literacy Trivia, and Rebus Puzzles) as well as some activities that you can do at home starting this weekend! You all have taken home the family literacy activity grid.  The goal is to do at least 7 of the activities on the grid, but try to do as many as you can!  There are some fabulous activities on there!  Which ones will you complete?

Here is your Blog Response activity this week.

Choose someone to tell one of the Indigenous stories we heard this week to. Pick your favourite one or the one you remember the best. Tell the story, as best you can remember it so we can practice oral story telling. When you are done, ask the person you told the story to the following two questions and type their responses into your blog response page.

1. Who was your favourite character in the story and why?
2. What was one thing you believe the story was trying to teach us?

Keep up the great work, everyone! Let’s look forward to another week of learning and fun.

Mrs. Gil and Mrs. Davis

This week was full of fresh air and clear skies. It was a little chilly outside, but it was dry so all your breaks were dry and full of fun!

We continued our work around recognizing our past accomplishments and planning for what comes next. Starting 2025 by looking at our successes and how we accomplished our goals is really helping us make new and achievable goals for the new year. We are so impressed with how well you know yourselves and how you apply the SMART strategy when setting these new goals. Paragraph writing has been a focus for us lately so we combined goal setting with paragraph writing and you all wrote a paragraph explaining your own accomplishments. Doing this helped you understand how important it is to know how to write a clear paragraph. We use paragraphs in all kinds of ways in all different subject areas. Once you have the form down, your ideas will flow and your writing will be clear. You are all getting there, way to go!  During our weekly GOW ( Graph of the Week) you also get to practice this skill as you respond to our weekly survey question.  This week we asked “What are your favourite winter sports” and you wrote a paragraph describing your top three out of the choices given.  Many of you took this home to finish, because we just didn’t get it fully done while at school.  Please have that finished and in the IN BOX before Thursday.

Our study of the moon centered around the phases the moon goes through every month. We learned that there are eight phases and we discussed how the phases even happen. Next week, we will be looking at how the moon is related to Ocean Tides. Also, we will be learning about how Indigenous People value the moon and sun and also how they discovered a lot of the science around what is happening in the sky.

We are building our understanding of Multiplication. This week we learned that you can multiply numbers using simpler multiplication facts that you already know. Also, we used mental math strategies to relate unknown facts to known facts. You started your work in pairs  with a known fact and used it to figure out unknown facts. As well, you were also asked to start with an unknown fact and related it to known facts.

Our study of GEOGRAPHY is up and running!  This week we were introduced to the 7 Continents and the 5 Oceans of the world.  The continents are the areas of LAND that make up the earth and the Oceans are the large water bodies around the land. We watched two You Tube videos that helped us gather some facts about each continent and each ocean.  We also labelled and coloured a map of the world.  Some of you took the map home to finish the colouring.  Remember, the water is being coloured blue and land is coloured green.  The only continent that we left white on our map was ANTARCTICA, because it is frozen and covered with ice for most of the year!

Our final Young People’s Concert was on Wednesday. It was a spectacular show brought to us by Rainbow Dance Theatre. The group uses LED lights and darkness to Ilumidance. Remember, that was the made up word the Director used to describe what their form of dance. It was amazing to see how they made their own props and choreographed such cool dances. There were owls and serpents, butterflies, and beautiful flowers.  The dancers were costumed in electro-luminescent wire and fibre optic fabric while they danced to classical, tango and modern music motifs. What was your favourite part of the performance? Can you explain the performance to your parents?

Speaking of performances… your Reader’s Theater lines should be getting close to being memorized!  Next week on Thursday and Friday, your group will be doing a dress rehearsal for the rest of the class.  This should be like a “run through” of your performance… and you should be as close to ready as you can be.  After each group performs, you will receive feedback from your classmates and from Mrs. Davis.  Final performance and assessment will happen the following week ( Jan 30 and 31st). 

Your Blog Response for this week is:

How do you feel about performing?  What do you enjoy about it?  What do you find challenging?

Have a wonderful weekend Division 7!

Mrs. Gil and Mrs. Davis

Welcome back Division 7!

After a restful Winter Break, it is nice to be back with all of you again. We jumped right back into working straight away. On Monday, we moved our seating arrangement slightly so you all have new desk partners for the month. Also, we chose our jobs for the first week back so you can start earning those Mega Bucks again. For many of you, Mega Bucks were earned on the break as you completed your reading logs and hit some milestones. There are only a few students who have yet to take advantage of the reading club earnings, hopefully this new month will be the one where we see EVERYONE in the class on the chart. If you are one of the students not on the chart yet, maybe this could be a goal for you?

Speaking of goals……we began the week with a deep dive into Growth Mind Sets and New Year Resolutions. We took our Brain Booster time this week, to think about ourselves last year. Many of us made mistakes but also, we had many successes too. We asked you to think back on your last year and tell us about some of your accomplishments. Then we asked you to look forward and think about setting goals to build on your last years achievements. Having a Growth Mind Set instead of a Fixed Mind Set is something we are working towards. Great success can come from accepting that mistakes happen and are a great way to learn, rather than a place to get stuck. Ask your parents about their last year. Did they make any mistakes they learned from? Do they have any resolutions? Share yours with them as well.

We followed this up with a collaborative puzzle art activity as well! We began with the phrase “This is our year to be…”  and then brainstormed a HUGE list of adjectives about what we want to be as a class.  the puzzle had space for nine adjectives so we narrowed the long list down to the top 9 words.  Our final descriptors are:  organized, focused, helpful, kind, creative, positive, collaborative, grateful, and successful.  Creating the puzzle allowed us to practice the “collaborative” aspect right away as we had to meet with several people to discuss how to colour our pieces so that they would fit together seamlessly.  It was great watching you all work together and seeing how the puzzle came together!  Your collaboration skills certainly shone!  It’s a beautiful piece and is hanging in our room as a reminder for us as we move through these next months of this school year.

We dove into our study of Multiplication this week as well. It is very obvious that many of you are working on memorizing your facts and we were SO VERY impressed. The goal of this weeks work centered around helping you recognize multiplication situations and explain why they are multiplication situations. We asked you to read word problems and decide whether or not they were multiplication problems. If they were, you solved them, if they weren’t, you and your partner had to make the story problem into a multiplication problem. We also worked on identifying fact families. While most of the time you worked with partners or we worked through problems as a large group, next week we will be seeing what you can do independently.

We also began exploring another aspect of measurement: how to calculate perimeter.  Perimeter is the distance around an object or shape and to figure out the perimeter of something, you need to add together the length of all the sides.  You had some practice time with this concept and both worksheets only needed a bit more time to finish– which you have taken home to get done by Wednesday. We’ll mark them and carry on with more practice next week.

In Language Arts, we worked on our second draft of our Pet Paragraphs. We met with at least 3 other students in the class to have some feedback on our work. Your classmates were giving you some ideas about things they liked but more importantly, things they think you could work on to improve your first drafts. From there, you all prepared a second draft which will now be edited by Mrs. Gil. Hopefully, with a few minor tweaks, next week you will be able to publish the completed paragraphs.

Our oral language skills are being practiced again through a new reader’s theater.  “I Resolve” is a short script with 6 readers and is all about New Year’s Resolutions.  This time, the script is quite a bit shorter than the one we did before the holidays, so the expectation is a bit higher than previously.  This time, you need to memorize your lines!  Don’t panic… you have until the end of January before we perform for our class (and maybe some other classes too!).  You already had two practice sessions this week and there will be more, but don’t forget to also practice at home too!

We embarked on a new Social Studies unit this week!  Each of you were given a word on a card and then you shared what you knew or thought you knew about it during a “walk about” around the room.  We discovered that each word was actually a name of a place… but we are still figuring out what they are names of.  In partners you sorted the 30 names into 5 groups and labelled each grouping with a title or explanation about why those names are in the same category.  Next week, we’ll continue learning about some of those names.  This actually leads beautifully into your BLOG RESPONSE for this weekend:

Blog Question:  Our Social Studies topic has the following letters:   

          O E A P Y H G R G 

Can you unscramble the letters to make ONE word?  What is it?  What does it mean?  

Have a wonderful weekend Division 7!

Mrs. Gil and Mrs. Davis

We have finally reached the Winter Solstice! This weekend will be our longest days of darkness before the hours of daylight start to come back to us, one minute at a time. We are so excited to send you off for your much deserved two week break. It is a time we look forward to as well. Time spent with loved ones, enjoying laughter and some much needed rest will surely help us start the 2025 year the right way….. Excited and energized!

We want to take this opportunity to thank you all for your gifts and cards. We always appreciate your kind words and thoughtfulness. We are so very grateful for our Division 7 students and families. Thank you all!

After the hustle and Bustle of last week, with all the Winter Concert and Reader’s Theatre preparations and shows, this week has been quite a switch. We spent a lot of time having fun with activities and puzzles centered around the themes of Winter and Christmas. We completed some challenging word searches and math puzzles to keep us engaged and thinking because it can be exceptionally hard to stay focused at such a fun and exciting time of year.  To top it off, we celebrated many birthdays this week as well. We had Sepehr and Ayden celebrating birthday on Tuesday and Wednesday. Also, because we had to say good-bye to Leo this week as he was moving back to Korea, we also celebrated his birthday early with him too. We must thank Leo and Sepehr’s mom’s for the lovely treats they shared with us for the celebrations. Leo’s mom provided us all with a pizza lunch on Tuesday and Sepehr’s mom brought in a yummy cake. We are all sad to see Leo go but it was nice we got to send him off in such a yummy way!

On Monday, we watched the “City of Ember” movie to wrap up our Read Aloud. It was a very interesting movie. Many of you noticed how the movie moved much faster through the story compared to the book. Also, some things, like GIANT INSECTS, were added to the story which we agreed was probably just for special effect and excitement purposes. It is always interesting to read a book and than watch a movie adaptation of it to compare the two. Has anyone in your family read a book and watched the movie version? You should chat with them about what they thought about the differences.

We met with our buddies two times this week. At the beginning of the week, we joined them in their classroom to help them design and draw a Christmas tree. Once they finished, we helped them write a few sentences to describe the tree using some vocabulary given to us from Ms. Di Spirito. We saw them again on Friday, when they came to our classroom to have ‘Breakfast with Santa’ with us. I wonder what we will be doing with them in the new year? Do you have any suggestions of what you would like us to do with them?

Our “Secret Santa” gift exchange was a huge success!  Everyone brought their gifts to school and we enjoyed watching everyone open their gifts one at a time on Thursday afternoon! Based on the responses when gifts were opened, you all did a great job shopping and every gift was a hit!  You also did a great job keeping it a secret as many people were not able to guess who their “Secret Santa” was until it was revealed to them!  Way to go!

This week was also exciting because you received your first progress report of the year. The first report of the year considers all your work from September to December. In our opinion, most of what we have been working on has been foundational. We have been working on being organized, responsible and attentive. You have all come so far already! We love writing the reports because they remind us of all your hard work and success. Although we all have stretches and areas we are working on, many of you set goals for yourselves throughout this first term and, you reached those goals. We are excited for what is to come next term, are you?

Over the next two weeks, we wish  you all a beautiful time with family and friends.  As we discovered, there are so many different ways to celebrate at this time of  year and whatever this season looks like for you and whatever traditions you hold, may they be another opportunity to create lasting memories of special times.  Our hope for 2025 is that it starts well and turns into a beautiful year for you all!

See you all in January!

Mrs. Gil and Mrs. Davis