Kindergarten and Grade 1 Experiences at Rosser Elementary
As part of our discussion on the changing seasons, students wrote poems about things they see in the Autumn.
These are on the bulletin board by the Office in the hallway.
The grade 2’s did a more challenging version.
Check them out when you get a chance.
Rosser Leadership students are planning a Bake Sale next Tuesday at noon to support several of their causes: their Adopt a Village in Ecuador, Community Homelessness, and the Grade 6/7 Camp next June. If you are interested, please send in cash on Tuesday for your child to purchase a treat. All items are either $.50 or $1.00.
Next week Rosser Leadership students are holding a Scare Hunger Food Drive in support of the Burnaby Food Bank. Please send in canned or packaged food items with your child to donate to this worthy cause.
After our trip to the Laity Pumpkin Patch, we did some Mathematical explorations with our picked pumpkins. These involved the concept of estimations. I gave the students a baseline to judge by with my pumpkin – i.e. its weight, stem length, circumference. Students then did their own ‘good guesses’ on their pumpkins (in comparison to mine) in regard to:
Then students did the actual counting of lines, the weighing, and the measuring of the stem and circumference. We charted the numbers for each student and determined who had:
Students then completed their booklets. These are pinned to a bulletin board in our room. They look like this …
The pumpkins were sent home on Tuesday. Once the students have carved their pumpkins at home, they are asked to count the number of seeds inside their pumpkin. They should then write the number in their planner so that they can record it in their booklet. They are also asked to bring in 6 seeds to glue into their booklets. This is from a story we read called, ‘Pumpkin, Pumpkin’ about a boy named Jamie who grew a pumpkin and at the end, after carving his Jack O’Lantern, he saved six seeds to plant the following Spring.
Thank you for helping your child do these two final stages to complete their booklets.
On Friday we spent some time reviewing Colour Theory, including:
Students then made a tesselation on their paper; initially drawn in pencil and then traced over with black marker. The criteria for their artwork was to fill in each section by only using the three primary colours in wax crayon. They were to create their own secondary colours. Students were allowed to do some sections in primary colours but the goal was to create mostly secondary colours. Adjoining sections needed to be different colours.
These art pieces are placed on the bulletin board at the back of our classroom. There are some not finished; they will be added to the board when they are completed. I think the lesson reinforced the colour theory for the students.
Last Friday we spent the day doing things all about being thankful. We read about the history of Thanksgiving in Canada. Students learned that the first Thanksgiving in North America was in Canada in 1578 (in Newfoundland) with Martin Frobisher and other immigrants from England. They were celebrating being thankful for surviving the long journey and the bounty of foods grown in the ‘New World’. After being celebrated on many different dates over the years, the Parliament of Canada declared (in 1957) that the second Monday of October would be the recognized day of thanks in Canada.
We discussed traditions and modern celebrations. Students enjoyed a sample, or two, of pumpkin pie!
After a class brainstorming of things that we are thankful for, students were paired and set to work writing their own things to be thankful for. These are posted on the bulletin board in the hallway.
These ‘thankful’ posters are intermingled with the tissue papered turkeys that the students worked on during Art on Friday afternoon.
We have wrapped up our Seuss unit with reading and having a class discussion on The Lorax. Some students were aware of the story from the movie version. After our discussion the students brainstormed things that the Lorax would say to the Once-ler if he were given the chance.
Students then chose one of these sentences – or created their own – and wrote it on a Truffula tree. These were then decorated, cut out, and are posted on the bulletin board above their ‘What’s Happening in Whoville’ designs.
All in all, I think that the students have enjoyed our time with Dr. Seuss. There are a few more books that I will read (tomorrow or early next week) as a final goodbye.
We enjoyed the book, “If I Ran the Zoo”, which is about a young boy who finds the typical animals in the zoo just a little too boring for him. He uses his imagination and creates a variety of very Seuss-like animals for his zoo – if he was to have one of his own.
Students made flip books which had 6 typical animal pages and 2 pages where they could create their own outlandish animals. Some students were very innovative with the animals they produced.
These books are pinned to the small bulletin board outside of our hallway door. Check them out if you get by the school!
After reading “Horton Hears a Who”, students drew scenes of what could be happening in Whoville. These are posted on the bulletin board in the hallway.
Some were scenes that could be found in our hometown; some others were more creative – more Seuss-ish!
