Grade 1/2 Experiences at Rosser Elementary
Hello all,
We are getting low on our supply of plastic grocery bags. These are used for students (weekly) to take home oversized library books that don’t fit into backpacks – especially on rainy days. We will be needing some for next week when I send home their Term One work. If you have any extras that you could donate to the class, please send them in with your child.
Thanks!
This afternoon I read the story, “The Polar Express” by Chris Van Allsburg, to the students. Many were already familiar with this story. Over the next week or so we will be exploring this book through a variety of activities including: class and small group discussions, sequencing the events, and illustrations. We hope to watch the movie as a wrap up to our ‘mini-unit’.
We have been enjoying getting our hands dirty in Art class!
Our Grade 1’s spent a wonderful afternoon yesterday creating nice, fat, jolly looking snowmen – and some snowwomen, as well!! Students built these snowpeople around a wooden dowel, attached to a baseboard, which creates a hollow form inside. They then made hats for them. I attached these after school when I took the snowmen off of the dowel so they could dry.
As our Grade 2’s had made snowpeople last year in my class, this year they created Christmas bells. Most of the students made these last week – two who were absent last week worked yesterday on their bells. We were very fortunate to have Mrs. Figueroa’s student EA (Miss M) come into our room as an extra helper. You can tell which are the most recently made due to the colour difference.
Once all of the pieces are dried they will be fired in the kiln, glazed, and then re-fired. Final touches will be added and then they will be ready to go home!!
Thank you for the great collection of donations that you sent in for our ‘baking’ basket! Mrs. Alves picked up our box today and was very impressed with the amount of items in it. She, and her helpers, will be putting the baskets together shortly and then tickets will be going on sale from the office. There will be a notice sent home with more details shortly.
As we are wrapping up our first term of the school year I have been busy writing the students’ report cards. These will be sent home on Monday, December 10th. I will also be sending home a large portion of the students’ work from this term. Art pieces, Journals, writing books, and other ‘year-long’ items will be kept until June. You will be receiving this term’s: math booklets; DOL (daily oral language) sheets; spelling units; reading response papers; Science (bats) items; Social Studies (All About Me); along with any other term specific work. Please refer to these items when reading your child’s report card and the enclosed Term Overview of things that we have done this past term.
Mr. Phelps has been working with the students preparing them for this annual event. We are all looking forward to a wonderful show – with no power outage this year! The shows are both on Thursday, December 20 with the matinee at 1:00 p.m. and the evening show at 7:00 p.m. Students will be getting 2 tickets per family for the evening show. Extended family members are encouraged to attend the matinee show where no ticket is required. Don’t forget to bring a non-perishable food item for entrance to the show.
This Friday we are all going to the Michael J. Fox Theatre to see this ballet. The Nutcracker has long been a Christmas tradition. The costumes are generally spectacular and the music by Tchaikovsky is magnificent.
Mrs. Schwarz has been introducing the music – one song each day – during the Music Listening programme this week. My personal favourite song from this ballet is the “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies”.
Mrs. Levington will be reading the story of this ballet to our class during our regular library session on Thursday afternoon. This will help the students understand the storyline as the story of ballet is told strictly through music and dancing – without dialogue.
As we will be leaving early on Friday via school bus we will be eating lunch earlier than normal. Please ensure that your child brings lunch with them when they arrive in the morning. A lunch delivery at noon will be too late for them to eat as we will be gone by then.
This trip to the ballet is a great opportunity for the students to experience. I am looking forward to it and hope that the students also enjoy it.
We created some beautiful poppies for Remembrance Day. We began by drawing the poppies on white drawing paper. Students then traced over their pencil lines with china grease markers. Using tempera paint, students painted the centres green and the petals red. They were encouraged to go ‘over the lines’ of the china markers. A few days later, when the paint was dried, students cut out their poppies and glued them onto dark green construction paper.
I really enjoy how all the poppies are uniquely different from each other. These 9 are only a sample of the class collection. They are all displayed in the classroom on the back bulletin board – with two on the bulletin board outside of our door in the hallway. Drop by to see them if you get a chance.
I have just added one of my favourite recipes to the website where Rosser recipes are being collected for our community cookbook project. It was a really easy process. Here is the link:
Username: rosserelementary Password: rosser8801
Please take some time to go to this website and add your child’s favourite recipe. It would be great if all of the students could have an entry in the finished book. I am looking forward to seeing the completed cookbook.
We had a very fun-filled and exciting Hallowe’en day. We began with our Hallowe’en parade in the gym with the whole school. Don’t they look great??
We had our regular morning routines through until lunchtime. After lunch we were invited by Mr. Phelps to watch “The Great Pumpkin” cartoon with Charlie Brown. I then read them “Froggy’s Hallowe’en” before we went up to the Haunted House put on by the Me to We club. Our class collected a whole box of canned goods for the Food Bank!! Well done!!
The rest of our afternoon was spent with Hallowe’en games, cupcakes (for Marco’s birthday), and Centres. A very fun afternoon.