Grade 1/2 Experiences at Rosser Elementary
Students enjoyed making these lovely Easter Lilies by tracing their own hands and curving them into the lily petals. These were mounted onto colourful egg-shaped backings. Final touches were added by making a grass base, stems, and leaves out of green contruction paper – as well as making yellow stamens by twisting yellow tissue paper and gluing them into the petals.
Enjoy the long weekend! It is supposed to be sunny and warm.
Happy Easter!! Watch out for bunnies:)
I hope you all had a great Spring Break!! From the stories I have heard from the children it sounds like everyone enjoyed the time off. As of last night, the Burnaby School Board has approved a 2 week Spring Break for our District for next year!! We will now have the time that most of the other districts around the province have been enjoying these past few years.
Beginning next week there will be a few changes in our classroom. We will be having a new student arrive – probably on Tuesday. The students are all very excited about this new addition to our class.
We will also be having a slight change in our daily schedule. Mrs. Cobo will still be teaching in our room on Tuesdays between Recess and Lunchtime. On the other days in the week, Mrs. Gojevic will be teaching in the class at this same time. This will allow Mrs. Cobo to have more of her Resource time available for our (several) new Level 1 ESL students who have arrived in the last month. Mrs. Gojevic will be doing Calendar and teaching Math with the class. As you all know, this time block is when I am out of the room teaching the Reading Recovery programme to individual students.
The students experimented with oil pastels and created these lovely 3 layered shamrocks out of green construction paper. They were only permitted to use the different hues of green and blue oil pastels.
They make a lovely display on our hallway bulletin board! Enjoy the Spring Break week off. As I am writing this it is sunny and I am about to take Nikita out for her afternoon walk. See you all in a week.
Today we walked to Gilmore Community School to take part in the annual Primary Days of Music festival. We joined our hosts, Gilmore, and four other elementary schools – Buckingham, Lyndhurst, Parkcrest, and Capitol Hill – in singing many songs ‘en masse’. Each school also sang two songs on their own.
Our group behaved (fairly) well. I thought their two songs were quite lovely and they seemed to enjoy singing with so many other children all at once. All in all, it was a great experience for all – especially the grade ones who are not included in this festival in most schools. This is traditionally a festival for only grade two and three students. Being a small school does have its benefits.
On Thursday at 9:00 a.m. the school will be having an assembly to showcase some recent activities that have been happening in some classrooms. As always, parents and guardians are welcome to attend.
Unfortunately we are not in session for St. Patrick’s Day this year. That does not mean that we won’t be learning about some traditions and symbols of Ireland, though. Mrs. Schwarz has been playing some Irish tunes during the Music Listening programme each day. We will be reading a few stories and doing some activities. On Friday we will be finishing up our ‘layered’ oil pastel shamrocks that we began last week. I will be posting pictures of these at the weekend.
Students have been thinking and writing about what ‘3 wishes’ they would hope for if they were to ever catch a leprechaun. They know that they should wear green on March 17th – or they are subject to a pinch! Rumour has it that the Kindergarten class has been busy preparing leprechaun ‘traps’. We will have to wait until we return from Spring Break to see if any traps are sprung or if any wee folk are captured.
A conversation was overheard today, from a few of our girls, while they were wondering if there were any ‘girl’ leprechauns. Hopefully, when they see these pictures on the white board tomorrow, that question will be answered:)
Students have (mostly) completed their partnership research. Today those who were completely finished presented these reports orally to the class. I was quite impressed with the good job done by the students. I am hoping that the few who are left will complete these tomorrow and be able to present them to the class by Friday.
Along with the research, students completed several other penguin activities – including these ones on the bulletin board.
Our unit will be all wrapped up by Friday and we will be beginning a new theme after Spring Break.
The Me-to-We Club is planning a ‘totally for fun’ Spirit Day this Friday. Students are encouraged to wear pajamas. They are also permitted to bring their favourite ‘stuffy’ to spend the day with them at school.
Tomorrow the students’ work from Term 2 will be coming home – along with their report cards. Please spend some time, with your child, looking through their work.
Please sign the card (in the envelope) and return it with the envelope as soon as possible. These will be used for the end of year report cards in June.
If you would like to speak with me about your child’s report, please email me and we can arrange a mutually suitable date and time.
Thank you.
After a two month process our art pieces are ready to be adjudicated by the Burnaby Art Gallery tomorrow morning.
This ‘competition’ is a biennial event put on by the Burnaby Art Gallery – every other year this is available to elementary school students. Each year there is a central theme. This year the theme is ‘places of memory’.
Division 5’s Places of Memories
This was quite a wonderful process for our class. We initially read Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge, by Mem Fox. This is a great story about a young boy who lives near an “old folks’ home”. When he hears that his ‘senior’ friend, Miss Nancy, has ‘lost her memory’ he begins a quest to discover what memories are, and then works to find her memories for her. It is a rather touching story.
We spent a fair bit of time discussing and learning about memories, including thinking about what emotions are involved in our memories. Students drew and wrote about memories associated with a variety of feelings. We then focussed on powerful memories – ones that are so strong that they are not easily forgotten.
Students made a preliminary drawing about the place associated with their ‘powerful family memory’. They then drew a second smaller drawing where they zoomed in (focussed) on the key elements of that memorable place.
Their final pictures were created on heavy card stock using plasticene as the medium. Students used their prior knowledge of colour theory to create a variety of shades and tints by blending different colours with white or black. They also made interesting colours by blending different colours together to achieve their desired effect.
Students wrote about their pictures (memories), as their “artists’ statements”, which are a requirement for entry into the Arts Alive programme. They also chose titles for their pieces of art.
As you can see, from the above photo, these finished pieces are on display in the Multi Purpose room at school. Tomorrow morning a Jury Panel, from the Burnaby Art Gallery, will come to Rosser and look at this art. Each piece will be photographed to be included in the digital display which will be shown on a television screen at the gallery. Some pieces (hopefully) will be chosen to be taken to the gallery for display. We will find out tomorrow!!
Mrs. O’Meara’s and Mrs. Iverson’s classes also produced pieces of art for Arts Alive this year. Hopefully some pieces will be chosen from each of the three classes.
Once the Jury Panel has left our school we will be hosting a ‘gallery walk’ for the other classes in the school to come to see all three classes’ work. Then our great pieces of plasticene art will be put in the display case outside the Multi-Purpose room. Please come by to look at them!!