Well, it's official - you're stuck with me now until the end of the year. Our goodbyes to Ms. Ledlin last week were tearful, but proud. We all wish her sincere congratulations and luck as she continues her studies at UBC and becomes a fully certified teacher!

I have some photo albums to share with you from the last few weeks and am looking forward to capturing more images over these last exciting weeks of school before summer. Scroll through below to check out images from the Surrey Children's Festival, Inquiry Fair, Ms. Ledlin's goodbye gathering, and more!

Thanks for reading/viewing!
-Ms. Olson

Hello families, 

I would like to extend a warm welcome to another student in our classroom, Matthew! Please make sure you say hello to him and his family if you see them around the school. We are so excited to have them here at West Langley! 

Division 5 has been busy this month with everything from our continued skating field trips, to Genius Hour, to learning with Ms. Ledlin (our student teacher), and much, much more! As the school year is creeping to a close, Ms. Olson would like to let you know more about the project and our presentation times.

About Genius Hour

Genius Hour gives students an hour each week on Thursday afternoons to learn about a topic that they are passionate or curious about. Each project idea was thought of and designed by the student, approved by the teacher, and must be based upon their individual research. Please note that this project is oriented on the documentation of the student's progress, not the final product! In many cases, students won't actually be able to accomplish their final goals by June, but should be able to document their learning along the way.

Several students are building projects (creating board games, stop-motion animation props, robots, etc.), whereas others are creating theirs digitally (making websites, filming stop-motion animation, learning to code, etc.). Please discuss the next steps of this project with your child and what they would like to accomplish by the end of the year. Their work so far can be found in their Google Drive folders. 

Genius Hour Sharing Events

Students will have 2 opportunities to present their findings from their topics and central questions this year.  The first will be at the end of May at the Inquiry Fair and the second will be the final presentation to the class in the middle of June. While that might still seem very far away, it's actually time to start considering what we need to accomplish before then!

Final presentations in June must have a digital component involved so that it can be shared on student blogs. Students are allowed to use any presentation or video software they like to present their learning journey. In class, we will be discussing which presentation tools will most effectively demonstrate their learning and I will guide them to one that will work best for them. Chances are that no matter which tool they end up selecting, there will need to be a lot of photo documentation of their project as possible, so please take lots of photos if they are working on this at home!

Photo Fun!

See the photos below to see some EduMinions learning magic (in no particular order at all; we have been very behind with our sharing!)

The EduMinions have been very busy working on many different projects and performances. Check out our photos below for a summary of special events over the past two weeks! 

Mrs. Gabriel taught us all about the tools of the Sto:lo people over two sessions: one in late November and one last week. We got to build our own pump drills guided by Mrs. Gabriel and then we were challenged to build other tools out of recyclable materials. Thank you again to all of the families who sent things in - the kids enjoyed the challenge to make something immensely!

A lot of work goes into preparing for our winter concert with several rehearsal times, memorizing music, and working on performance points. The EduMinions ended up having a lot of fun doing their songs during the concert (even though they look somewhat serious in the photos!).

Here's a sneak peek at something we've been making that the kids will get to take home on Friday! We hope that you love them and they make your homes more merry and bright. :)

Thanks for taking the time to check out our photo galleries!
-Ms. Olson

At West Langley, we are fortunate to be able to learn about Aboriginal culture and artifacts by having guest speakers come in to teach us about them. Mrs. Gabriel, a local Aboriginal elder, was in our classroom a couple of weeks ago to show us all about the tools of the Sto:lo peoples and will be returning on Thursday December 11th in the afternoon to do a follow-up lesson. 

In the next session with Mrs. Gabriel, we will be creating our own Aboriginal artifacts out of regular household products. But we need your help!

Tonight, if you could rummage through your recycling, we are looking for as many of the following products as we can get our hands on. Please send them to school with your child by Thursday:

• empty toilet paper or paper towel rolls
• pop bottles (plastic, empty, washed, 2L or 591 mL)
• yogurt containers (empty, washed)
• milk jugs (empty, washed, 2L or 4L)
• ruler-sized pieces of wood or straight sticks (30 cm or so)
• cardboard (from either sturdy boxes or cereal boxes)
• string or yarn
• dry scrap newspaper 

Whatever you can pass along to us would be greatly appreciated! Thank you! 
-Ms. Olson

Thank you to everyone for an amazing first week. I am really enjoying getting to know your children and working with them to establish initial assessments after a long three months off. 

But now comes the homework! You will find that I use a myriad of communications in our class to stay connected with parents including a Remind account. Remind is a one-way text messaging service which the kids will be using to send you SMS updates on class events, work due back, or notices to be returned. There will only ever be 1-2 updates per week, so we don't flood your phone with notifications.

The instructions are below to sign up. This is "parent homework" so that you stay connected to what is going on in our class. Parents from last year, this is a new group, so you will need to subscribe to this new class code. 

If you missed connecting with any of our other class social media or class blogs:
Twitter - Follow us @EduMinions
Facebook - Like our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/eduminions
Our Class Blog - EduMinions.com

Hope to see many of you on my Remind list when we are back on Monday! I will be having the students send their first Remind notification parents that afternoon. I know they will be really excited when you receive our text reminders. Have a great weekend!
-Ms. Olson

EDIT: There was an error on the PINK INTRODUCTION NOTICE that was sent home from me today regarding funds that need to be submitted re: primary school supplies, agendas, and earthquake funds. Mrs. Swerdan made them into a lump sum this year and I mistakenly thought they were all still separate costs. Here are the totals that need to be submitted for each grade:
GRADE 3 - $52.00
GRADE 4 - $14.50
Cheques can be made payable to West Langley Elementary School.
Thank you and sorry for any inconvenience!!! :) 

Hello parents & guardians,

Welcome to our class blog and website! Please bookmark this page as it will be a valuable communication tool throughout this year. I will be posting everything from classroom happenings to weekly reminders and so much more!

My goal is to safely integrate digital communications tools to make the home-school relationship as seamless as possible. Students will be learning to use tools effectively and appropriately with mindful digital citizenship at the forefront of their learning.

We will be using several web-based learning options other than this site in our class this year. Not savvy with digital tools? Not to worry! On the class blog, I will be posting some "how-to" videos and informational articles on what you need to do to stay connected with our class! I am also planning to host some Digital Parent Nights, so stay tuned for dates and times. 

Until then, there are several ways to communicate and connect with our class. Feel free to click the social media buttons at the top of this page to explore our EduMinions profiles and pages (including a new EduMinions Facebook page!). 

Stay tuned for a full informational newsletter outlining information and routines for the school year.

I am looking forward to connecting, working, and learning with each of you!
-Ms. Olson

It has been somewhat of a crazy month for everyone... so sorry these are late! I hope you enjoy these last few photos from our class as we explore fractions, an inquiry project on First Nations culture, Genius Hour presentations, and of course, Sports Day.

Be prepared to click a lot - there are several. Thank you to our cameraman, James, for helping to take photos during Sports Day! 

Thank you to the parents of Division 5 for a wonderful year. We couldn't have done it without your ongoing support. We wish you all the best in the summer and will see you in September! 

We have had a wonderful year of Genius Hour passion, engagement, and sharing! Our students were excited to share their project progress with the entire school as well as engage in other student's projects as we celebrated at our annual Inquiry Fair this Tuesday. But we're not finished with this project just yet!!!

As a part of their final assessments, students are required to complete a final presentation of the culmination of their project. The project does not require a completed final product, but evidence of the process must be visible in each student's/group's presentation. In other words, they should be able to show some of the phases of learning that they experienced throughout the time we've spent on Genius Hour. 

By this point, students will have likely chosen a digital medium in which their project will be shared. This can include any presentation, video, or visual software (many are using Google Presentations because it's embedded right in their Google Drive accounts, accessible both at home and at school). You can support your child by helping them to collect and organize photos and to create talking points for their final presentation. Even if your child built something, they need to teach us about their learning and how they got to their final destination!

Our celebratory class presentations will be taking place on Friday, June 6th. Parents will be invited to attend the presentations if they wish. More details will be released on timing soon!

We have been busy practicing our speeches today in class. We will be practicing tomorrow as well in preparation for our in class presentation on Monday. Students are being asked to practice this weekend at home as well. Happy speaking!