Month: February 2021

One of the things that Division 7 has been focusing on is adding interesting, descriptive words to our writing. We want to use language in creative and playful ways to develop style. One of our strategies for doing this is our “juicy” words list. Each student has a list of words in their reference duotang that they can use whenever they are searching for a new word to use.

Another way we expand our word knowledge is through our weekly mentor sentence activity. Each Tuesday a sentence is chosen from one of our read-alouds. The sentence is one that we can look up to (a mentor!) as aspiring writers. Students work in their morning routine books and write what they “notice” about their sentence (interesting words, punctuation, structure). Then they copy out the sentence (double-spaced!) and label as many parts of speech (nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc.) as they can. Students that want a challenge can try to rewrite the sentence to make it boring or write their own sentence that imitates the style of the sentence. Here are some examples of our past mentor sentences:

• “When the tall, thin lady behind the counter asked me what I wanted, I pointed to a gold-tipped pen as blue as the winter sky.” – The Gift by Aliana Brodmann
• “At lunchtime, we walked around the school yard, our fingers laced together, whispering secrets into each other’s ears.” – Each Kindness by Jacqueline Woodson
• Dust came in waves, getting in their eyes and in their noses, until they could hardly breathe. – Shin-chi’s Canoe by Nicola Campbell

Last week I asked the students to write about snow. When I read what they wrote, I was incredibly proud of the interesting sentences that I saw! I picked out one excellent sentence from each student’s writing. We read them as a class and I want to share them with the rest of our community (you!). Click here to read Division 7’s mentor sentences about snow.

I also noticed that something we need to work on as a class is the structure of our writing. We are going to start focusing on paragraph structure and sequencing our ideas logically to make sure our writing stays focused and on-topic.

Division 7 is putting the call out to the Cascade Heights community to participate in their March Kindness Challenge! We have come up with one small act of kindness for each day in March. These are simple things that anyone can do to make the world a better place.

You can invite your class, friends, or family to join in. If you decide to participate, you can leave us a comment below to let us know.

Click here to view the challenge. Let’s spread some kindness!

Tomorrow is Pink Shirt Day! Please remember to wear a pink shirt to stand up to bullies!

Pink Shirt Day originated in Canada when a boy wore a pink shirt to school and got teased for it. Two of his classmates saw what was going on and the next day they showed up to school with pink shirts to hand out to everyone in the school to show support for the bullied boy. If you see someone getting teased or bullied, be the one to stand up and do something about it!

This week we read Angus All Aglow by Heather Smith. Not only is it a wonderful story about the effect that kindness can have on someone who is hurting, it is also filled with wonderful language that leaps off the page. Click here to listen to the story.

In order to inspire kindness, Division 7 worked together to create this agamograph art. An agamograph is a series of images that change at different angles. It gets its name from the Israeli artist Yaacov Agam. This project was a true demonstration of the collaboration core competency. Each student coloured a section of the poster. As a group, we had to decide how we would colour it and what materials and shades we would use so that all the pieces would look the same. It was important for each member of the group to do their part to make it work.

We hope our project inspires kindness in the Cascade Heights community. Stay tuned for another upcoming Division 7 kindness initiative that we hope you will participate in…

On Thursday, students were assigned the novel they will be reading for our Canadian author independent novel study. An independent novel study means that students will be working on different books at their own pace. Each student has a duotang where they will keep all work related to the assignment.

We will be completing the novels over the next 7 weeks. Today, each student divided their novel into six sections. The fifth section of the book is to be completed over the two weeks of spring break. Other than those two weeks, time will be given in class each week to work on their novel study. In their planners, on the Monday of each week, students have written the section they are to complete that week.

For each section of the book, students are responsible for:

• making a prediction (before they read)
• writing at least one new vocabulary word
• keeping a double-entry journal to record their thoughts
• adding to their character analysis page
• writing a summary of the section (after they read)

The best way to increase comprehension of what we read is by talking about it to others. I encourage you to talk to your child about the novel they are reading as a way to check in each week to make sure they are keeping up with the novel study.

If you have any questions about this assignment, do not hesitate to reach out!

We are certainly experiencing some wintery weather in Burnaby this week, but in Division 7, it’s raining hearts! Students made these vibrant suncatchers by melting crayon wax between two pieces of wax paper using an iron. It was exciting to see the effects that different colour combinations could make!

This is a reminder for anyone wishing to bring Valentine’s Day cards for their classmates to be handed out on Friday, that tomorrow is the last day to bring them in!

On Monday, Division 7 went to the library for a book tasting. No, that does not mean we were licking the fiction section! A book tasting is when you sample a variety of different books to try to find something that interests you and is at your “just right” level. In order to “taste” a book you should look at the front cover, read the blurb on the back or inside flap, and read the first few pages.

Our book tasting on Monday was a feast of Canadian delicacies. As we continue to explore Canada’s story, I have asked students to choose a book by a Canadian author to read for an independent novel study. Our amazing librarian, Ms. Schiml, set up themed tables for us to rotate through and browse. Some of the tables featured one particular Canadian author (Gordon Korman, Rachel Delaney, and Kenneth Oppel, to name a few) while others were organized by genre. Students could write down any books that interested them and at the end they picked their top three choices.

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Next week, everyone will find out which book they will be reading! Order up!

Are we all tired of hearing “It is going to look a little different this year” yet? As was the case with other holidays, we need to establish some guidelines to make sure we can celebrate Valentine’s Day safely.

Students are welcome to bring cards to hand out to their classmates with the following expectations:

• If you bring cards, you MUST bring one for everyone in the class. There is an updated class list tab at the top of this page to make sure you do not miss anyone.
• Please make sure cards come to school three days in advance so they can sit in quarantine before being handed out. This means that cards must be at school by Tuesday, February 9th as we will be celebrating on the 12th. I will not be able to accept cards any later than that.
• The teacher will be handing out all cards and treats.

Treats may be brought to share with the class with the following guidelines:

• All treats must come sealed and pre-packaged by Tuesday, February 9th. Bring enough to share with everyone.
• No homemade treats can be shared at school.
• Do not send communal food such as cupcakes or boxes of chocolates. Treats must be individually packaged.

Thank you for following these rules so that we can all enjoy the day safely. If you have any questions or concerns, do not hesitate to reach out.