Category: School Work

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!

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!

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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Please enjoy our festive winter art that we completed last week! To make this art, the students drew a simple winter or holiday picture and then glued string to their drawing. They then pressed tin foil over top of the string and used an embossing technique to show the design underneath. Finally, they coloured the tin foil with markers. The end result is very striking!

Today is the last day of school before winter break. School resumes on Monday, January 4th. Today your child will be bringing home all of their art projects from the first term.

I want to take a moment to say a heartfelt thank you for the many thoughtful cards and gifts. I feel very touched to be in your thoughts. Although this holiday season feels different than normal, I hope you can all have a restful and joyous break within your bubbles. I look forward to more journeys in Division 7 in the new year!

As you know, Division 7 is working on a year-long project called Learning in Depth (or LiD for short). For more information about this project, read this blog post. LiD is so much more than just a research project. It can connect to all subject areas.

One of the ways that the students explored their LiD topics this month was by finding picture books related to their topic. With the help of the librarian, Ms. Schiml, they learned how to use the library’s catalogue system to find a specific kind of book. Then they practiced using the call number of a book to find its location in the library. Once everyone had signed out their library books we could enjoy reading them to ourselves and each other. Each student made a flip book that gave information on their LiD picture book. Check out the amazing variety of books we found below!

Here it is! The grand reveal of the Egyptian hieroglyphic art that division 7 has been working hard on for the past couple of weeks. This art project was connected to our exploration of the history of story. The reason we know so much about ancient Egyptian culture today is because they used this writing system of pictures and symbols to record their stories. Sharing stories builds understanding!

We started by making the papyrus out of paper bags cut into strips. Thank you for all of the paper bag donations! We had to use a paste made of glue and water and lay the strips in one horizontal layer and one vertical layer. It was a bit messy! Then we used this website to translate our names into hieroglyphs. We printed our names and then used mod podge to adhere them to our dried papyrus, face down. Then the challenging task of carefully rubbing off the paper revealed the prints underneath!

We hope you enjoy the end product!

In French, we are working on learning the vocabulary to express dates. We already know our numbers 1-100 and have now learned months of the year, days of the week, and the seasons. We are starting to recognize that by listening and viewing with intent and with the knowledge of common, high-frequency vocabulary and sentence structure, we can begin to understand French. With the help of visual cues, we can now ask and answer the questions:

• Quelle est la date? – What is the date?
• C’est quel jour aujourd-hui? – What day is it today?
• Ce sera quel jour demain? – What day will it be tomorrow?
• C’etait quel jour hier? – What day was it yesterday?
• Quelle est la date de ton anniversaire? – What is the date of your birthday?

We practice with our French calendar everyday and today we created our class birthday board by asking each other about our birth dates. En francais, s’il vous plait!

In Division 7, we know it is important to think positive thoughts about ourselves. This is part of the Positive Personal and Cultural Identity core competency. Sometimes it feels strange to talk about the things you are good at or your positive character traits because it can feel like you are bragging, but practicing this builds confidence and self awareness.

We asked each other for some help to brainstorm some positive traits about ourselves. Student sent a compliment sheet around the room and their classmates each wrote one positive thing about them. At the end, everybody had a big list of the positive traits their classmates see in them. I highly recommend this group activity whenever you need a mood booster!

We used the ideas of our classmates and our own ideas to write an I Am poem. Then we wrote our poem on our colourful art that we had painted the day before. They really brighten up our room and serve as reminders to think positive!

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We are continuing to practice using the scientific method to answer questions about the world around us. Today we found ourselves investigating the mystery of dancing raisins.

We learned that fizzy drinks have bubbles because of the carbon dioxide gas that is in them. When you put raisins into a cup of fizzy liquid, bubbles will attach themselves to the surface of the raisins and act like a flotation device, causing them to rise up to the surface! When they reach the surface, the bubbles escape and the raisin sinks back down again. We experimented with three different liquids – club soda, Sprite, and club soda mixed with baking soda and vinegar.

Which liquid do you think made the raisins dance the most? What does this mean about the carbon dioxide in that liquid? Ask your scientist what they discovered!

When we do experiment write-ups in our science notebooks we follow the following criteria:

• title and date at the top of a new page
• include all the following sections with titles: question, hypothesis, materials, procedure, results, conclusion
• writing is neat and legible
• data tables are drawn with a ruler and have headings

It is important to follow all instructions and criteria neatly and carefully… in the name of science!