Grade 1/2 Experiences at Rosser Elementary
Students made some very neat looking spiders to help decorate our classroom for Hallowe’en. We began with pine cones which the students painted black. Once the paint dried the students added black pipe cleaner legs. With googly eyes attached to pom pom eyeballs they look very cool ‘hanging around’ our room!
Last Thursday we did a great activity with our Division 2 buddy class. We heard the story – Where The Wild Things Are – and saw the short video, as well. Then, divided into two groups, we worked either in Mrs. Iverson’s room or our room. We created some great – scary looking – monsters using chalk pastels on black construction paper.
Check out the bulletin board outside of our room and the one upstairs by Mrs. Iverson’s room. Both boards have a variety of pictures from each of the classes. Here are two of our students’ work:
I think that they look great. I hope you agree!
The Leadership group is running a Food Drive this week to help to replenish the local Food Bank. Please help out by sending in some canned or non-perishable food items with your child for our class box.
Thank you for your support!
Last Friday, during our Art period, students performed experiments with colour. We started with the three primary colours – red, yellow, and blue. Students learned that ‘primary’ colours – meaning ‘first’ – are important because they can make other colours but other colours cannot make them.
Using these three primary colours students made the ‘intermediate’ colours – orange, green, and purple.
Once students had each created these three new colours they were given a new piece of paper. They were asked to paint a picture – of whatever they wanted – but they were to show the six colours (the three primaries and the three intermediates) in this picture.
I think they look pretty great!! I hope you agree.
Our daily schedule has been slightly altered. We have added another PE block on Tuesdays during Mr. Phelps’ time in the room (between Recess and Lunch).
There is also a change with our weekly spelling lists/tests. Mr. Phelps will now be doing the Words Their Way programme with the class – also during his time slot. This week he is doing assessments on the students to determine their spelling groups. Beginning next week the students will have a spelling list glued into their Planners. They will do activities with these words throughout the week and will have their spelling tests on Fridays. Mr. Phelps will mark these and then they will be sent home.
If you have any questions about Words Their Way, or PE, please feel free to contact Mr. Phelps.
The leadership group are running a clothing drive until October 29th. If you have some used clothing that is no longer suitable (size-wise or other), please bag it up and deliver it to the stage in the gym. These bags of clothes will be delivered to a needy, local charity after the 29th.
Thank you for supporting this cause.
Last week we began our study of the Elements of Art. We did crayon rubbings with which the students demonstrated their understanding of the six elements. Most of these elements are fairly self-explanatory (colour, shape, line, form) but as an FYI – ‘texture’ is how something feels or ‘looks’ like it feels, and ‘value’ is the lightness or darkness of something. Value can be with colours or non-colours (black, white, and grey). The difference between ‘shape’ and ‘form’ is the dimensionality – e.g. a 2-D shape drawn on the board is a ‘shape’ but as I can’t pick it up off the board it has no ‘form’.
Here are some of the crayon rubbings:
We left Burnaby on a beautiful, sunny, blue-sky morning. As we neared the pumpkin farm in Maple Ridge we noticed grey clouds begin to cover up that blue sky. Shortly after arriving the skies opened up and we were in a downpour!! This was not something we expected but I was very impressed with the manner in which students (and parents) mustered through and all enjoyed a very fun morning.
We began in the barn area and had fun feeding, and patting, several different farm animals – including: sheep, goats, and miniature ponies. We also saw a rooster and a hen, along with several partridges. Students will now know what they are singing about at Christmas time – “a partridge in a pear tree”!!
We left the barn (still in the rain) and enjoyed the outside cut-outs.
We then walked past the vegetable garden and had a tractor ride. We saw the emus that one of my Reading groups has been learning about. We moved on to the tent area and enjoyed some juice.
After our break we began our forest walk. At this point the rain began to subside. There we enjoyed several of the different themed exhibitions. Students seemed to enjoy the different areas. We enjoyed our trip through the corn maze and then it was ‘pumpkin time’! By now the rain had ceased and the sky was becoming blue once again!
Students each chose their own personal pumpkin to take back to school – and then on to their homes. It was a very good crop this year!! I chose one for our class which we will be doing some science-y things with in the next week or so.
It was a great experience for the kids. I hope the parents also enjoyed the morning. A HUGE THANK YOU to those parents who drove students to help us keep the cost of the field trip down!! Thank you also to our two student teachers (Ms. Sue and Mrs. S) who drove students and helped to supervise! Welcome to Rosser!
Our school is hosting two student teachers from Simon Fraser University for their 401 (first) practicum semester. Our class will be ‘sharing’ these student teachers with Mrs. Iverson for the next two weeks. Today they both joined us on our field trip to the Laity Pumpkin Patch. After next Friday they will be back on campus for the rest of October.
Beginning on November 4th one of these student teachers will join our class for the month of November for her first (small) teaching practicum experience. The other one will be with Division 2 and Mrs. Iverson.
It is also very likely that one of them will be with our class after the Christmas break for their 405 (full immersion) practicum experience. I will keep you updated.
By now you have had a chance to read through the letter from Mrs. Schwarz about the Sharing Luncheon scheduled for this Friday.
We will be needing some parents to come in to help set up the food contributions from our class. If you are available to come and help out, please email me or drop me a line in your child’s planner.
Thank you,
Mrs. S. Temple