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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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!

You may have seen in your child’s planner that they have been assigned homework for over the winter break! Please note that I have given them a week before and a week after the break to work on it as I understand that it may not be possible for them to work on it during the break. This assignment is to be done at home and is not due until January 11th.

I have asked the students to take five photographs that are related to their LiD topic. I have encouraged them to get creative and try to find a variety of subjects to photograph. For each photo, they need to give it a title, explain why they chose to take it, and tell where it was taken. They should write or type this information on a separate piece of paper. The photographs can be taken on any device and do not need to be printed because they will be handed in digitally on Microsoft Teams. More information on the assignment is already posted on Microsoft Teams. ***If your child is having trouble logging on to Teams at home please let me know as soon as possible so I can help them get logged on.

I hope that the students have fun with this assignment. I look forward to seeing what they come up with!

Division 7 has been participating in a kindness challenge during the last month of school before winter break! We were inspired by the book Come With Me by Holly M. Mcghee which is about a little girl who is troubled by all of the negative things she sees going on in the world. She asks her parents what she can do and they show her that small acts of kindess and joy can go a long way. We decided to do our own small part to make the world a better place.

Each morning we choose a kindness quote and challenge for the day. The challenges are simple and something that anyone can do such as “leave a nice message or drawing on someone’s desk” or “find someone to read to today”. Then we add that day’s challenge to our growing chain of kindness. It is a great reminder of all of the good we have already done. The students have been reporting some wonderful acts of kindness that they have achieved and I have noticed some going on right here in our classroom. I wonder if you have noticed any acts of kindness happening in your homes!

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!

Dear families of Division 7,

This is a note to let you know that I will be sending an interim report home with your child next Friday, Dec. 11th. As you will know from the school notice that went out last week, this will not be a full report card as we would normally be sending home at this time of year. It is just a snapshot to let you know how your child is doing and if there are any concerns. If you wish to set up a meeting with me to discuss the report or anything else, please send me an email and we can arrange a time to meet via Zoom or phone.

As winter break draws near, some students have asked me about bringing in treats to gift to their classmates. We will use the same guidelines as Halloween for those that want to bring something. Due to COVID-19, please make sure that anything to be given out is brought in by Tuesday, Dec. 15 so they can sit in quarantine before being handed out on the last day (Friday, Dec. 18). Everything must be prepackaged and should contain NO NUTS. Please note that it is not expected that you send something in, but I understand that some students may want to.

Lastly, I want to send out a thank you to all of you for your support and cooperation during the first term of the school year. This has been a challenging start for all of us and I appreciate all of the interactions I have had with the Cascade Heights community. Whether you have sent in donations for art projects, commented on blog posts, helped your child with their homework, or simply said hello at pick up/drop off I am thankful to have you all on Division 7’s team!

Sincerely,

Ms. Rudolph

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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