Kindergarten and Grade 1 Experiences at Rosser Elementary
Last week we began our bat study with the reading of this great book. Students then did a sequencing activity which resulted in the creation of their own little booklets. Through this story students learned a lot of valuable information about bats – and the differences between them and birds. We will continue to explore these differences as we learn more about these flying mammals – bats.
As part of our exploration of bats, today we did a survey of how we feel about these interesting – and sometimes scary looking – animals. Students decorated their own bat (with whatever colours they wanted) and then we placed these in one of three columns in our bulletin board bat cave. Students had the choice of “I like bats . . .”, “I don’t like bats . . . “, and “I am not sure how I feel (about bats) . . .”
I have been encouraging students to make up their own minds and not to choose the option that their friends – or the majority of the class – chooses. This has been a bit of an issue with our morning sign-in graph as many students just put their ‘doodle bug’ name where they see everyone else answering – oftentimes without even reading the question. We will continue to work on this.
We have been learning about one of the elements of art – colour theory. Students were directed to use only the three primary colours – red, yellow, and blue – to create the three intermediate colours – orange, purple, and green. Students began by creating a design of a variety of shapes with a felt marker. They then filled these shapes in by blending the primary colour wax crayons to create the intermediate colours. They experimented with differing degrees of pressure (for darker and lighter hues) and different amounts of each primary to create a variety of shades and tints.
Division 3 is holding a bake sale this Wednesday at Recess and Lunchtime. They are hoping to raise enough money so that they can sponsor an owl at the rehabilitation centre. Please help them with their cause by sending some cash with your child on Wednesday so they could purchase a baked item.
When students are doing their ‘seatwork’ assignments there is a wide variety in the final outcome of what each student will produce. There are, of course, different learning outcomes for different subject areas; just as there are different levels of expectations for each grade. I use this visual to explain the difference between a minimal effort and one that has met all the expected criteria. This idea is used for all areas of our curriculum – not just their artwork – and visually demonstrates what is meant by including ‘details’. For artwork they can see what is meant by ‘details’ through the gradually more developed pictures. In their written work, students are reminded that ‘details’ are the way their writing has answered the reader’s questions of ‘who’, ‘what’, ‘where’, ‘when’, ‘why’, and ‘how’.
Today we launched our new science based theme – bats!! We began by recording what we KNOW (or think we know) about bats. I asked the students for their input and wrote out their responses on chart paper. There were no ideas left out (right or wrong).
We then made a similar chart paper with the things that we WONDER about (i.e. our questions about bats):
We are all looking forward to learning more about these fascinating animals!!! We will keep you posted.
Last weekend we celebrated Thanksgiving. Before the long weekend we had some class discussions as to what it meant to ‘be thankful’. I put the students into partnerships with one student from each grade together. Here are a few of their thoughts:
As the winners of the Terry Fox fundraiser, our division won a play activity with the Me to We club. This afternoon we were treated to fun-filled hour of gym activities set up the Ms. Sikic’s club. There were five stations including: tail tag; bean bag hand ball; one where you knocked over skittles while on a balance ball; an obstacle course to maneuver while carrying wiffle balls in a scoop; and a scooter course. The class was divided into five groups and they rotated through the different stations.
We gave our hosts a great big “thank you” for their thoughtful planning and their clever station set ups.
We had an exciting morning on our field trip today. Students learned a lot about how a farm provides us with our food – which we buy from our grocery stores. Students had an opportunity to see a real cow being milked by a milking machine, and then saw the milk being fed to the baby calf, Charlie.
I’d like to thank all the parents who helped us out by driving and supervising on the trip. We couldn’t have done this trip without you.
As a finale of the trip students were able to choose a pumpkin to take home to carve for their Hallowe’en celebrations.
I hope everyone had a fun-filled morning.
We held our Terry Fox assembly and run this afternoon. The Grade 7’s put on a wonderful assembly which consisted of: a slide show; a video clip of Terry’s Marathon of Hope; student speeches about Terry; the whole student body singing an inspirational song; and the announcement of the poster contest and which division raised the most money.
Guess what?!?!? Our division (5) raised the most money of all the other divisions. We raised $76.00!!!!!!! We are all very happy and excited to have been able to raise this money in support of cancer research in Terry’s memory. I send a HUGE THANK YOU to all the parents who helped their child understand and appreciate the importance of charity for such a worthy cause!!!