Month: January 2021

As you know, we have spent the first part of the school year focusing on the big question:

• “What is your story? How does it shape your identity?”

This term we are shifting our focus to examine the question:

• “What is Canada’s story? How does it shape Canadian identity?”

A large part of the Grade 4/5 social studies curriculum is about understanding Canadian history and how it shaped our country. We will be connecting our big question to other curricular areas as well.

As we look at different events throughout Canadian history, we will use a timeline to connect what we learn to the big idea. Students should be able to sequence events and look for continuity and change as well as its positive and negative aspects.

In class, we have read two biography picture books and practiced deciding what would be important enough to be included on a timeline of someone’s life as well as putting the events in order on an appropriate scale. Mary Who Wrote Frankenstein tells about the life of Mary Shelley from birth to when she wrote her famous novel. The Tree Lady tells the story of American botanist Kate Sessions and how her fascination with trees shaped the landscape of modern-day San Diego.

In order to get a better understanding of how timelines work, students will be sharing their own story as a personal timeline showing important events from when they were born until the present. They will have class time to work on the project but will be bringing a sheet home today that asks them to fill in 10-12 important events that have happened in their life. They may need some help remembering the dates of these events. I am asking them to bring their list of events back to school on Wednesday so we can start creating their timelines.

Thank you for supporting your child with this assignment.

Mary Who Wrote Frankenstein by Linda Bailey

The Tree Lady by H. Joseph Hopkins

Yes, it’s true. Colder weather is in the forecast for next week. Division 7 has been working hard to create some wintery cityscapes:

To create this art, the students mixed paint to create a gradient effect for the background, going from dark to light. They then sketched buildings on white paper and fine-lined them in black. To create the shadows on the buildings, they used a chalk pastel that matched their background and smudged it. Finally, they added the snow with white paint. Get a closer look below.

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Please remember to send your child to school dressed appropriately for the weather. Students will be outside at recess and lunch. Students wanting to play in the snow must come dressed in snow pants and boots. All students should be wearing warm winter jackets, gloves, and hats. It is also important to make sure that your child has dry inside shoes to change into. Click here to read about the Burnaby school district winter weather procedures.

Stay warm out there!

Did you know that a competition is held every year to choose the best books for young readers? The Young Reader’s Choice Awards (YRCA) has been going on since 1940 and is the only international reading award with participants in Canada and the United States.

Books are nominated in three categories, junior, intermediate, and senior, and are then voted on by young readers to choose the most popular books for that year. Fiction, non-fiction, and graphic novels can be nominated.

There are some amazing nominees this year and Division 7 has a copy of each book from the junior category in our classroom. We even used our Scholastic Readers Club points to purchase two of the books to keep in our class library! (Big thank you to those of you who have been using our class code when purchasing books from Scholastic!)

This year’s junior nominees are:

• Sweep: The Story of a Girl and her Monster by Jonathan Auxier
• The Serpent’s Secret by Sayantani DasGupta
• Granted by John David Anderson
• Small Spaces by Katherine Arden
• Arlo Finch in the Valley of Fire by John August
• Wings of Fire. The Dragonet Prophecy by Tui T. Sutherland ; adapted by Barry Deutsch and Rachel Swirsky (Graphic Novel)
• Positively Izzy by Terri Libenson
• Inkling by Kenneth Oppel

If students have read at least two of the books on the nominee list, they will be able to vote using the ballots in our school library. Voting will be open March 15-May 31.

Time to start reading!

Happy New Year!

Division 7 is reaching for the stars in 2021! We have kicked the year off by setting some SMART goals. In order to be successful with a goal, it should be:

• Specific: know exactly what you want to accomplish
• Measurable: you should be able to tell when your goal has been achieved
• Attainable: the goal should be realistic
• Relevant: the goal should be something worth achieving and may help you work towards long-term goals
• Timely: set a deadline for your goal!

We have connected our goals to the core competencies and will be checking in on them every few weeks to see how we are doing.

Last week we responded to the quote:

A goal without a plan is just a wish.”

Ask your child what their SMART goal is and if there is anything you can do to help them achieve it.

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