Grade 1/2 Experiences at Rosser Elementary
On Friday we will be having our Terry Fox Assembly and Run. This will be followed by our annual Corn Roast. Parents are very welcomed to join us for this important event.
I will be telling the class about Terry and his journey across Canada – as well as his battle with cancer. Students will be decorating a paper ‘running shoe’. They will be encouraged to dedicate their run to someone they know who currently has cancer; has survived a bout with cancer; or who has lost that battle.
Our school has been very fortunate to receive a government grant for the purchase and construction of a new playground to replace the one that we currently have. Students in all classes (school-wide) have been working through a process of looking at all the components that go into a playground. They have been having discussions with peers in small groups as well as with the whole class.
In our division (5) we looked at the five initial proposed ‘mock-ups’ to determine which of the elements were important to our students. The students knew that they were not voting on any one of the whole pictures but that they were discussing the individual parts of the playground.
We came up with a list of items that our class felt were important elements of our new playground. Most of our students wanted: things to climb (nets, monkey bars, etc); things that spin or swing (tires, saucers); slides; bridges; and balance beams.
At tomorrow evening’s PAC meeting Mrs. Gojevic will be looking for input from the parent community. When all ideas are joined together a new ‘proposal’ will be created by the playground company. It is hoped that this process will be quick so that the de-construction of the old playground, and construction of the new one, can be completed before the poor weather settles in.
We are all excited and looking forward to this new addition to our school grounds.
We have been reading and enjoying the books by a great Canadian author – Phoebe Gilman. We began with the original “Jillian Jiggs” and worked our way through additional stories about this delightful girl, along with other of this author’s stories such as: Something from Nothing; Pirate Pearl; The Gypsy Princess; and Little Blue.
Students had many opportunities to respond to these books by: renaming one book; adding another page to the end of another book; describing their favourite part or character in other books; and designing a map to show the travels of characters – to name a few. They have created quite an interesting collection of responses in their booklets.
It has been a really busy start-up to the new school year. We had a very exciting first week in our family groupings with sessions and lessons about healthy living. Once we were settled into our class we got right into learning about each other through our “All About Me” unit. We are currently finishing up our final posters on this project and then I will hang them on our hallway bulletin boards and post some here.
I enjoyed meeting and chatting with parents at our Student Intake Interviews last week. It is always interesting to hear about my students from their parents’ perspective. Please keep these lines of communication open by contacting me via my school email account – shelagh.temple@sd41.bc.ca – or by sending me a note in the front pocket of your child’s planner.
I have updated this blog’s ‘standing’ pages including: our weekly schedule; upcoming events – as well as the ‘programme’ pages on: art, science, and reading.
Now that we are into our regular schedule and routines I am hoping to post regular updates of our happenings in the classroom.