Parents,

Please be aware that our class has students with peanut and tree nut allergies.  Please do not send any products containing either allergen to our class.  Thank you for helping to keep our kids safe.

Mrs. Marto

Three new students have joined Div. 5.  We’d like to welcome them and their families to our class and, in some cases, to their new school community.  Our current students have shown their best selves by being welcoming, supportive, and helpful.  It might take a little time, but we hope to soon have everyone feeling at home.

This is both a welcome back and well wishes for a Happy Easter break.

As well…

Div.5 got off to a great start this week, starting our new novel, Flood Warning, about the Fraser River Flood in 1948. I can’t thank Orca Books enough for publishing local stories/histories such as this.  It is a perfect match with our theme.

We also continued with our Geometry Unit and the hands-on building of a large map of the Fraser River.  We will continue to add to it and learn its stories as we travel down from its headwaters at Mount Robson.

Just because I could, I threw in some geometry-our city signs our triangular prisms and the Rocky Mountains are tetrahedrons also known as triangular prisms!

I was watching the news this week and I saw a segment on “The Urban Salmon Project”.  In that segment, they told the story of a Brazilian photographer who, living in North Vancouver, came across the spawning salmon in a nearby creek.  Accustomed to taking photos of wildlife in Brazil, he began to document the salmon with his camera.

In speaking with friends and neighbours, he was surprised how many people were unaware of the fascinating salmon life cycle happening right in their midst.  The Urban Salmon Project is the first underwater documentation of salmonids in the Urban Watershed-two subjects we have been learning about in our class.

This Thursday night, there will be a 12-minute film premiere on youtube.  I am hoping that the film will stay on youtube long enough for me to show the class, but in case it doesn’t, I thought I’d put it out for you to share as families.

Documentary Premier!

*PREMIERE WILL BE LIVE ON MARCH 4TH @ 7:00PM / PST –

WATCH IT HERE:

We started off on Monday with a Zoom Presentation on Fresh Water in Metro Vancouver.  It was put on by the Green Bricks Education Society and was very well done.   The amount of information we took away was heartening. The care and management of our public freshwater infrastructure left me with pride.

After reviewing what we learned, each student was asked to write 3 facts that were new to them and/or made an impression.  I will be uploading those to their blogfolios shortly.

Then… our salmon eggs hatched!  We now have alevin exploring the bottom of the tank (can’t swim any higher).  The kids are super excited.

Following that exciting event, came our exploration of the Asian Lunar New Year.

We read PoPo’s Lucky Chinese New Year by Virginia Loh-Hagan and watched a video on Seollal, the Korean name for Lunar New Year.  On Thursday, we dressed in red and traditional clothing (Hanbok).  They received a red envelope with ‘chocolate money’ and a few other traditional treats.  It was a lot of fun to share knowledge and happiness as these are important traditional holidays for many of our students, and what better activity in a Covid Year but to appreciate being together.

Lastly, we celebrated Valentine’s Day.

Thank you to all the parents who sent Valentine’s cards.  In our social-emotional learning, we have watched a few videos on gratitude sent to us by Mrs. Blair, our school counselor.  The students understand that giving is a source of happiness and the Valentine cards you sent, let us put action to those emotions.

Have a great long weekend!

This unit has been lengthy, but we continue to work hard on these basic skills.  Today’s lesson was on problem-solving and the language that we need to understand in order to solve our word problems.

After teaching the lesson on specific language to look for when creating an equation, the students started their practice using their whiteboards.  One problem at a time was delivered to each student.  They were asked to also focus on the Personal Core Competency of “perseverance”.  They did just that.  They diligently persevered through many attempts with different strategies.  We even learned how using simpler numbers in the same word problem can help us to find the steps on how to solve the harder numbers.  Nicely done Div. 5.   Wednesday and Thursday, we’ll finish up the lesson and continue to practice with our text.

Division 5 put their best effort forward during this week.  I thank all the families and students who participated in our various activities, at home, and at school.  What a fantastic way to highlight the importance of reading.

Here’s a look at the door and bulletin board we entered for the contest.  We are super proud of how it turned out.

Thirty fertilized chum salmon eggs have been placed in our tank.  If you look closely, you’ll see the black dot of an eye.

The students are learning about the ideal conditions for salmon eggs in the wild and how our aquarium system tries to replicate those conditions.  We are also working to understand the lifecycle of the salmon.

Hour of Code takes place each year during Computer Science Education Week. The 2020 Computer Science Education Week is this week-December 7-13.  Of course, we can have an hour of code anytime.  Div. 5 did a wonderful job listening to instructions and helping each other.  Way to Go!

The filming for the class concert song took place today.  Div. 5 was excited and looking festive.  See for yourself!  They also sounded beautiful.

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