Key of Harmony

I was very lucky to be invited to hear the Burnaby District Children’s Choir, which is called “Key of Harmony”, perform their Christmas concert at the Brentwood Park Alliance Church this evening.  Thank you, Maya F.!!

We are very lucky, at Rosser, that Mr. Phelps has taken on this job this year.  It is great to be able to host this choir at our school as it makes it so accessible for our students.  We have thirteen students (from Grade 1 to Grade 4) in the District Choir this year.  Division 5 has three of these students in our class – Maya F., Ella, and Jackie!!

The choir sang a nice selection of Christmas songs intermingled with an audience participation sing-along of some Christmas carols.  I think I am starting to get that “Christmas feeling”.

Our Nutcracker Visit

Last Friday our class joined most of our school on a trip to Michael J. Fox Theatre to see the Royal City Youth Ballet’s production of The Nutcracker.  We travelled there via school bus.  I was very impressed by how well behaved the class (actually the whole school) was on this trip.  I had a great vantage seat to observe our class while they were watching the show.  I really enjoyed seeing how enthralled they were with the action and the music.  It was a truly spectacular show and a great experience for the students.

Gingerbread Houses

On Friday I sent home a notice about this activity.  The children really enjoy making these candied houses!  Please send in the items on the notice by Friday, Dec. 14th so that I can get things all ready in time.

In addition to the items on the list, if any of you has any empty small sized milk cartons (creamo or whipping cream, as well) could you please rinse them out and send them in with your child?  We used to have a surplus of these but now that we don’t have the milk programme anymore we don’t have as many.

Thanks for your help with this project!

Burnaby Heritage Village Field Trip

On Friday I sent home a notice about this planned trip with Division 6.  It is a great place to visit – especially just before the holidays with all of its decorations.  I am hoping that we have enough drivers for this trip.  Last year we had to cancel our class (this year’s grade 2’s) from the trip due to lack of drivers.  Please fill in the form and return it as soon as you can – but definitely before the due date (Thursday, December 13th).  Thanks!

Request for Items

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!

The Polar Express

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’.

Fun with Clay

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!!

 

Christmas Raffle Baskets

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.

Term One Student Work

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.

Our Christmas Concert

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.