Lochside Division 16

Welcome to our class website!

This site is meant to serve as a window into our classroom as well as provide students with resources and supplementary learning materials.   

The Extra Resources page contains many wonderful resource links available through both the Saanich school district or government of BC websites.

Please use this website along with classroom emails to stay informed during the school year!

March 15


What a term it has been!


Students handed in their Two World's Meet poster projects today and they look great!  I'm excited to look over these more closely and for the opportunity for students to share these with others.  After the break, and after students have had a chance to complete their optional bonus projects, we will set them up in the classroom and invite parents in to check them out!


Speaking of bonus projects, students celebrated the completion of our Harry Potter unit today with some great presentations!  It was great to see the extra effort and creativity shared by a number of students in the form of board games, models, sock puppets and a trivia game complete with the Sorting Hat!  The trivia game, Harry Potter Jeopardy, was an excellent and engaging way to bring this unit to a close.  The questions were well thought out and the visuals were eye-catching.  Thank you for sharing this with us Sarah!  


I hope you all have an excellent break together and have plenty of time to connect with your families and enjoy some sunshine.


I look forward to welcoming students back on Wednesday, April 3rd!


March 8


Students are working hard on their Two World's Meet final projects.  Thank you for your efforts in sending in poster boards this week as well as helping your child with some of their editing!  We were able to start gluing down titles and thinking about paragraph/picture layout today.  Our goal is to finish these projects up next week, however, we don't plan to share them until April. This will allow students who are completing a bonus supplemental project some extra time for completion.


Students will receive their report cards on Thursday.  I've been very impressed with the growth this term!  Everyone in the class has gained confidence and become more independent as a learner.


Some highlights of the week include:


*Finishing up our badminton unit with rotating matches.

*Completing a H.P. and the Philosopher's Stone quiz.  Our final one will be next week!

*Read aloud with Mr. O'Connor's class.

*Multi-digit multiplication in math.  A number of students have been working with 3 digit by 2 digit multiplication.

*Working on Harry Potter bonus projects.

*Learning about salmon prey/predator relationships in science.

*Basketball Jamboree!


Thank you to everyone who was able to make it in to the class for our open house last week.  Students were very proud to share their learning with you!


March 6


Climbing wall field trip!  It was great to see students take healthy risks and enjoy a unique form of fitness at the Boulders climbing gym.


February 23



Students have been incredibly busy with activities in social studies, science and language arts.  Our Two World's Meet lessons are nearing the end with only European/Indigenous relations left to go.  Our focus will then shift to a final research/inquiry project based on a topic of choice.  Students are bringing home a project overview booklet today which I would like you to look over together.  They should be able to explain which parts we will be working on at school and which parts may be completed at home (the bonus project).  The main thing I ask you to do is discuss your child's topic of choice to ensure it is something that you are both comfortable with and then initial that you agree to their choice.  The main concern here is for students who would like to research residential schools or another area with exceptionally heavy content.  Your child might not be ready to learn the full extent of the atrocities that occurred and should therefor be revisited at a later date.  You will be the best judge on this important decision.


Our novel study unit continues to be our main focus in literacy.  Please enjoy the pictures of our applied skills wand projects!  A lot of time, effort and enthusiasm was put into the creation of these wands and their descriptions.  There may be a few students who have yet to complete these.


A few other highlights include:


*Our field trip to UVic to enjoy the symphony!

*Witnessing and participating in a salmon dissection with a volunteer from the Stream to Sea program

*Starting a badminton unit in gym

*Starting multi-digit multiplication in math.  For some students this was a tricky concept.  Parent support with Mathletics activities would be of huge benefit.


Please note that next Thursday, Feb. 29th, is an early dismissal day.  Division 16 will be hosting an open house as an opportunity for you to check out some of our ongoing projects.  Students will be dismissed at 1:48 and the open house will start afterwards.


Thank you for your continued support!


February 9


The big highlight this week was our field trip to Panorama Rec to skate with our buddy class.  Students really enjoyed this opportunity!


There is a lot going on academically right now with our Two World's Meet, novel study and Pacific salmon units.  Thank you for your continued support at home!


February 2


Students have had a lot of excitement this week for number of reasons.  First of all, our Coho salmon eggs have arrived!  We had a great lesson with a representative from the Stream to Sea program who delivered our 100 eyed eggs.  He was very passionate about pacific salmon and this rubbed off on the students as they learned about life-cycles, predators, and the role salmon play in a healthy ecosystem.  We look forward to watching these salmon develop and ensuring that as many as possible survive to be released into Colquitz Creek after spring break.


Another exciting activity this week was beginning our ADST (applied design and skills technology) project of making wands.  Students have planned  everything from wood type to core elements and have just begun to construct their wands.  We are using chopsticks, hot glue, and any other items from home or the classroom that are needed to bring each student's wand to life!  Students have also started planning for their creative writing piece that will accompany their wands.

Some other highlights of the week include:


*Maple Man!  We learned all about the Canadian tradition of making Maple syrup

*Two Worlds Meet.  Students thought deeply about perspective as they wrote a journal entry relating to Christopher Columbus

*Gym:  We've continued working on our basketball unit.

*H.P. Chapter questions and wand brainstorming resources


January 26


I hope this message finds you well!  It was great to get back into the swing of things this week.  In social studies, students learned about the fall of Constantinople and how that marked the beginning of European exploration.  Students also started learning about how one of those explorers, Christopher Columbus, sailed to the "New World."  In a future lesson, students will discuss the impacts of this discovery from different perspectives.  The class also played their first game of "Settler's of Canada" with Ms. Howells.  All of the intermediate classes are participating in this interactive game that teaches students about settlers, trade and more!


Another major theme this week has been our novel study of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone.  It's great to see the enthusiasm in class for this novel.  A portion of this unit needs to be completed at home.  Students are aware that they may bring their novels and literacy duotangs home in order to stay up to date.  I've made a schedule which will be in the google classroom that your child can use. I've heard that some students are reading the novel at home independently, others are listening to the audiobook version, and some are sharing the reading with their parents.  These are all great ideas!  Thank you for your support with this unit.


Some other highlights of the week include:

*Setting up our fish tank as a class as we prepare to receive our Salmon eggs!

*Learning how to play bump and half court basketball

*Enjoying a trail walk with division 17

*Reading with family and friends for Family Literacy Day



January 19

This week was definitely an interesting one! Watermain bursts, snow days and freezing rain! We listened to Ch. 4 in Harry Potter today and the questions have been assigned. Please make sure you are up to date by Monday. We will be continuing on in class and with homework for the upcoming chapters. We learned about the first explorers, St. Brendan the Navigator, Huishen, Marco Polo and the Vikings (Leif Eriksson).


 Below I have added the links to some of our Genius Hour presentations. I am in awe with their amazing projects! 


Teo: Best Italian ranch pizza & How Pizza was Invented 

Serena: How to make Taco salad

Sam: How to make Gulab Jamun

Jeevan: Best type of Basketball shoes

Isaac & Quentin: How to code a Video Game 

Olivia: Breast cancer awareness 

Ella: Best chocolate chip cookies 

Aria: Cake Pops

Ivi: How to hit better 

Logan: How to throw a curveball 

Zara: How to make a 3 layer cake 

Maya & Charlotte: Homeless in need 

Bailey & Quillan: How to make a friend 

Ryder: How to make brownies 


Sarah: Completed and did a presentation on the history of Girl Guide Cookies. She also showcased her plethora of pins she has earned! 

Levi: Created a basketball-hoop and did a presentation on how he made it. All the kids wanted to try using it! 

Armand: Created a tri-fold on how to code a video game, and some interesting facts about coders.

Elliott: Created a poster board on various styles of art, and drew a beautiful vase of flowers. 


January 12

I hope you are all surviving the cold weather!


It was great to welcome students back to school this week and to hear about all of your wonderful holidays.  We started the week with a holiday write where I learned about many of these highlights.  


We have started two very big and exciting units in social studies and literacy.  In social studies we have started a unit called, "Two World's Meet."  Students will be participating in lessons and a culminating inquiry project on Canada's history.  This includes topics like early explorers, the fur trade, interactions between European settlers and indigenous peoples and much more!  Our launch day for this unit was on Wednesday and students learned about a number of key terms like: cooperation, perspective, trade, influence, empathy and more.  We have set up our field notebooks and students are ready to use these to work on a variety of interesting activities.  


In literacy, students have begun our novel study of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone.  After listening to the first chapter the class completed comprehension and vocabulary questions to strengthen their understanding of the book so far.  We are looking forward to delving into this great novel and working on a variety of interesting activities related to it!


Some other highlights of the week include:

*Starting basketball in gym

*Creating robot pictures with the introduction of "The Wild Robot" school-wide read

*Enjoying another great book tasting in the library

*Thinking about goals for the new year with Ms. Howells


I'm looking forward to a great second term of school with many exciting learning themes!


December 22

The main focus this week (apart from the upcoming holidays!) was our sewing project.  It was great to see the focus and enthusiasm for this assignment and a number of students are eager to continue developing their skills at home!  Students also showed excellent focus and determination on our math lessons on addition with regrouping.  I was impressed how quickly they gained confidence in this area.  A little practice at home (After a well deserved break) would be great to help us pick up where we left off in the new year.


Thank you for the trust you've placed in Ms. Howells and I in teaching your amazing children.  We look forward to all of the great learning in term two!


Have a wonderful holiday and we look forward to seeing you in the new year.



December 8

This week we continued on with our paragraph writing unit with transition words.  A major theme within our writing topics is sentence fluency and transition words are important to make writing smooth and engaging.  Students also discussed their favourite books.   In an effort to increase reader engagement, we have started a classroom book review wall.  The hope is that students will be able to use these titles as recommendations for future reads!  Some other highlights of the week include:


*Hockey in gym

*Ms. Howells ice cream experiment in science!

*Practice for next week's Winter Concert in the gym

*Card making for Care Homes with Iva


Thank you for sending in felt for our upcoming applied skills and design activity.  Students are excited to get started!


December 1


This week we had a number of discussions about daily reading in the classroom and at home.  Students have become increasingly independent with their reading logs and have spent more focused time at the task as a result.  One of our literacy activities this week was around reading strategies to make better sense of the books we read.  We discussed making connections, visualizing the story or asking questions to improve comprehension.  Students thought about the strategies that they most often use and then made a class poster to help each other out.  We also talked about how important it is to read novels or books where the text is the highlight rather than the pictures.  This type of reading material helps the reader to develop their ability to visualize what they are reading.  Some other highlights of the week include:


*learning about the split strategy and jump strategy to solve addition questions

*floor hockey games in gym

*making list word topic sentences

*matter and Genius Hour with Ms. Howells!

November 24


We've enjoyed another short but productive week in class.  As a class we brainstormed some of our highlights and areas of focus this term.  It was such a powerful lesson for students to see just how much we've accomplished in since the beginning of the year!  In math we've moved onto addition starting with mental math and strategies for solving basic facts quickly.  This is a great review for many students as we prepare to tackle more complex equations.  Practicing some quick solving at home with a card game, white board, pen and paper or flash cards are some ways to help support your child in this area.  Some other highlights of the week include:


*Pastel Winter Fox art.

*List Statements as a form of topic sentence.

*New spelling words (No quiz this week).

*Floor Hockey in gym.


November 10


Students enjoyed another great week of learning.  In English, the class learned how to make a T-chart in order to brainstorm paragraphs.  Next we will be looking at how to construct strong topic sentences that grab the readers attention.  Students also completed spelling review activities for units 1-5.  In math we have started looking at strategies for rounding numbers.  Students learned how to locate the place value that is to be rounded and then look to the right to determine whether or not that number will be rounded up.  We finished the week with a quiz on place value/rounding that will be handed back early next week.  Some other highlights of the week include:


*Remembrance Day.  Students observed songs, poems and speeches about this important day.  It was great to see the level of respect and appreciation demonstrated by division 16

*Directed drawing frogs.  Students learned to draw realistic frogs with a step-by-step lesson

*Small-sided soccer games were continued in gym.

*National Aboriginal Veterans Day.  Students learned how to use google read as an option to read an article.  They then answered questions in the google classroom about National Aboriginal Veterans Day.


I hope you have a great long weekend.  I look forward to welcoming students back on Tuesday.


November 3


With Halloween happening in the middle of the week it was definitely the highlight for students.  As a fun but relative math lesson, students worked in teams to remove, separate and count pumpkin seeds.  Each group had to collaborate to find a system of counting and from there we were able to compare, order and discuss place value.  We discovered that three pumpkins contained nearly 2000 seeds!  On this same day students also partook in a costume parade where they were able to see all of the great costumes around the school.  Some other highlights of the week include:


*Paragraph writing.  Students have been working on the proper organization of paragraphs.

*Buddy Halloween dance in the gym.

*Small sided soccer games in gym.

*Spelling Unit 5 words and quiz.

*Beginning a unit on matter in science.



October 27


One of the highlights this week were our sessions with Capital City Bikes.  This consisted of a classroom safety lesson as well as a practical session on the bikes outside.  Students learned about everything from ensuring the proper fit of their helmets to practicing hand signals while riding.  It was great to see students gain confidence in this area!

Another area of focus this week was on digital literacy.  Students have had a number of lessons on being responsible digital citizens through activities like the digital passport and Interland.  These activities are available to practice within the "Student Links" folder when students sign into their school accounts.  With these lessons complete, we are ready to participate in more activities within the google classroom as well as using online resources for future research assignments.

Some other highlights of the week include:


*Meeting younger buddies from Ms. Erikson's class!

*Learning about the expanded form of numbers as well as comparing and ordering in math.

*Playing Four Corner Soccer in gym.

*Working through activities for spelling unit 4


October 6


It was great to sit down and have productive conversations with so many of you this week.  I greatly appreciate your support on the home front and look forward to the year ahead!  Even though the week was shorter due to the holiday Monday and early dismissal days, students partook in a lot of great learning.  We started a new unit of paragraph writing in literacy this week.  Our initial aim is to recognize the proper paragraph structure with highlighting activities before moving into student writing.  The class also partook in their first spelling quiz.  Our main focus with these units is to build new vocabulary and confidence as writers.  Some other highlights of the week were:


*Patterns in math.  We looked at input/output patterns with multiplication.

*Nature scene watercolour painting in art.

*Soccer in gym.  Ask your child about the game we played called, "Numbers!"

*First trail walk.  After a discussion about safety, we enjoyed our first trail walk on the Lochside trail.

*Our new agendas have arrived! Please pay $6.00 through RYCOR or cash or cheque if you have not yet done so.  Cheques must be payable to SD 63.


Please double check your child's backpack as a number of forms etc. were sent home today.  I hope you have a great long weekend and look forward to seeing students back in class on Tuesday.


September 29


Students had another great week of learning!  One of the main themes of the week was learning about territorial land acknowledgments.  In preparation for Orange Shirt Day, students partook in lessons around the various Indigenous groups of Canada (First Nations, Metis and Inuit) and explored the Indigenous Map of Canada in the gym.  We discussed the meaning of a Land acknowledgement after looking at various supplementary materials and then students created personal land acknowledgements honouring the traditional territory of the W̱SÁNEĆ people.  It was great to see students honouring our local First Nation while engaging in a meaningful writing activity!  Some other highlights of the week include:


*Painting our directed draw Lighthouses.

*Patterns in Math.  We looked at repeating patterns while starting at random numbers as well as patterns containing a repeating multiplication/addition sequence.

*New spelling words.  Students will continue these words next week with a quiz planned for Friday.

*New game in P.E..  With the gym space being used for our giant Indigenous Map of Canada we took P.E. outside.  Students learned a game called Speed.  Ask your child to explain it to you!


I am looking forward to seeing many of you next week during our parent/teacher conferences.


Have a great long weekend and I look forward to seeing students back on Tuesday, Oct. 3.


A few division 16 territorial land acknowledgements


I acknowledge and give thanks to the traditional W̱SÁNEĆ land that we live, go to school, work, and play on. I give thanks for my home and the grocery stores where we get our food. Also for the swimming pools and libraries. Thank you for the beautiful lakes and oceans. I love the mountains that I get to hike on and the school where I learn. I appreciate the beautiful sunset that I watch from my deck. I give my thanks to the W̱SÁNEĆ land and its first peoples. 


I acknowledge and give thanks to the traditional W̱SÁNEĆ land that we live, go to school, and play on. I’m grateful for the beautiful W̱SÁNEĆ seas that I can sail on peacefully. I give thanks to the beautiful trails and wildlife. I can sleep in my home and play in my backyard thanks to your beautiful land. I love the trees that gave their lives for all my amazing books. Thank you so much for that. 


I acknowledge and give thanks to the traditional W̱SÁNEĆ land that we live, go to school, work, and play on.”

I acknowledge and give thanks to the traditional W̱SÁNEĆ land that we live, go to school, work, and play on. I enjoy walking on their Mt Doug PKOlS hikes. And all the sports you can play, all the food we get. And the houses we live in. The people we know. And water their land provides.


I acknowledge and give thanks to the indigenous people that were here before us. I hope we can help keep the land healthy.Something that I want to do to help is plant more trees and bushes. I enjoy waking up in the morning and looking out my window and seeing the sunrise. I also enjoy all the nature and parks we have here. 


I acknowledge and give thanks to the traditional W̱SÁNEĆ land that we live on and go to school, work, and play on. I Am thankful for the beautiful land we live on. I love the really nice swimming water we have. I Am thankful  for the beautiful weather we have. My favorite thing I love to do is watch the sun go down and watching the sun shine on the grass. I Am so thankful for the land we live on. 

September 15

It has been great to both welcome back students from last year as well as meet new students joining us this year.  I can already tell that division 16 will be a cooperative group of learners with a positive outlook on school.  They are a class that like to socialize, laugh and stay active!  


Students have engaged in a number of community building activities including classmate interviews, interest surveys, friendship building skills and a rotating seating plan.  We have completed activities around having a growth mindset when faced with a challenge and generated a class list of expectations to ensure that learning remains meaningful and focused for all.


Although classroom community building has been our focus this week, we have also gotten underway with a number of new academic units.  Students began contributing to their, "Book of Thoughts" journal in literacy.  These have been sent home and are ready for you to read!  I hope that you enjoy hearing about your child's week.  Please ensure that you read the information sheet on the inside cover of this journal before writing back to your child.  The main point is that this is intended to be an unedited piece of writing in order to promote the sharing of thoughts and ideas rather than spelling accuracy.  We will have many other opportunities to improve spelling and grammar in a wide range of activities. In math, we reviewed a number of concepts and then applied them to a task titled, "Figure Me Out."  This activity was great for review as well as an opportunity to learn about each other.  Students have also started a unit on Terry Fox in social studies.  Just in time for our schoolwide run today!  


A few other highlights of the week were:

*Self-portraits in the style of Modigliani

*Starting a soccer unit in gym

*New units in spelling


I hope to see as many of you as possible during our "Meet the Teacher" afternoon between 4:30 and 5:30 on Thursday, Sept. 21.  This will primarily be an opportunity to connect and check out your child's learning space.  

We often use Google Classroom to complete assignments. Use this link to log in!  

Use your SD63 Google Account. This is the same account you use on our Chromebooks.

Click the link :) 

Here is an instructional video to support you at home!  Remember to ensure that your child is signed in to their google account and not yours.  Log in information can be found in your child's agenda.