Our class earned a TOY DAY tomorrow, Thursday, March 17, for working hard and trying their best at school! Students may bring one toy that can fit in their backpack (no electronics or weapons). We will have 30 minutes of play time with their toys in the afternoon.
We will have a “surprise day” for our early release this Friday, March 18: March Madness! Thank you to those of you who signed up to donate supplies for this fun day. Students can wear sports or basketball gear if they’d like to (but I know we already had school-wide sports day earlier this week.) Students will be dismissed at 12:15 pm on Friday.
To make the last week before spring break exciting, we’ll be having another surprise day on Tuesday, March 29: Pizza Parlor! I’ll be providing pizza lunch for our class, and we’ve got lots of restaurant-themed math, writing, and reading planned for the FULL day of school. If you would like to donate supplies for our pizza parlor day, please check out this link.
Our next class transformation “surprise day” will be on Friday, March 18. If you’re interested in donating supplies for our March Madness day, please check out this sign up. Thanks so much!
Please join our PBIS team on March 24th from 6:30 for a Family Charter Night. During this time we will introduce you to and guide you through the creation of a Family Charter. Please RSVP here if you plan on attending.
March is Reading Month is in full swing! Every Monday, your child’s blue reading log can be returned to school to earn a raffle ticket for a free book from the book fair! Every Wednesday will be a dress up day, and Fridays we will receive a special snack from our PTC.
CELEBRATIONS
Quote of the Week – This week the quote was- “You don’t need a cape to be a hero, you just need to care.” ELLA was the student who showed us what this quote means this week.
First Grade Family Time – Here are the photos of our award-winning students from Friday’s first grade family time.
Mystery Reader – Brayden’s sister surprised us as our mystery reader on Wednesday!
Space Museum – Mrs. Wysocki’s fifth grade class invited us to visit their “space museum” they created just for us! First graders rotated through stations to learn about planets, stars, space, and the solar system from fifth graders. The fifth graders engaged our learners with Kahoot games, interactive apps, slideshows, crafts, and more! It was such a cool way to collaborate and learn from other students at Georgetown!
OUR LEARNING:
Reading– This week we continued to build on our independent reading skills and focus on asking ourselves, “What’s happening?” and “What might happen next?” so we can understand the book as a whole.
Writing – We are continuing on with our review writing. We are now focusing on writing to persuade others and convincing them of our opinion. We tried adding in comparisons like McDonalds is better than Arby’s because… Many students have the structure of opinion writing down, now we are looking to make their writing come alive and really show their voice and thorough details.
Word Study – We continued our exploration of vowel teams this week by learning about the following vowel teams: ai, ay, ou, and ow. We add each vowel team to a special chart to remind us of their sounds, and we practice reading and writing words using these sounds.
Math –We wrapped up unit 5 this week. We practiced for our test a couple days to help the kiddos feel ready to tackle it! This unit included some tricky concepts, so we are proud of all their hard work. 🙂
Upcoming Dates:
Monday, March 14 – Music
Tuesday, March 15 – PE, Library
Wednesday, March 16 – Art (wear sports gear)
Thursday, March 17 – STEAM (St Patrick’s Day- wear green)
Friday, March 18 – Early Release dismissal at 12:15, Surprise day (March Madness)
Our next class transformation “surprise day” will be on Friday, March 18. If you’re interested in donating supplies for our March Madness day, please check out this sign up. Thanks so much!
Please join our PBIS team on March 24th from 6:30 for a Family Charter Night. During this time we will introduce you to and guide you through the creation of a Family Charter. Please RSVP here if you plan on attending.
We kicked off March is Reading Month this week! The theme this year is Go for the Gold to tie in the Olympics. Your child came home with a reading calendar last week that can be completed and signed each week. Every Monday, it can be returned to school to earn a raffle ticket for a free book from the book fair! Every Wednesday will be a dress up day, and Fridays we will receive a special snack from our PTC.
CELEBRATIONS
Quote of the Week – This week’s quote went to DALLAS for always soaking up new learning!
First Grade Family Time – Here are the photos of our award-winning students from Friday’s first grade family time.
Mystery Reader – Ruth’s mom surprised us as our mystery reader on Friday!
March is Reading Month – We decorated our door for March is Reading Month with our gold medal book choices.
OUR LEARNING:
Reading– This week we continued to build on our independent reading skills and focus on asking ourselves, “Does that look right?” We practiced reading words part by part, trying the vowel sound many different ways, and using a word you already know to figure out a bigger word.
Writing – We started a new unit this week and are learning to write reviews and give our opinions. We started with the great cookie debate and decided what was the best cookie. Our class picked oreos. We then started writing about the collections we brought in and giving our opinion for our favorite and least favorite items. We will follow the OREO structure for Opinion writing. O-Opinion R-Reasons E-Examples O- (restate) Opinion.
Word Study – As word builders, we’re learning how to “build” (read and write) words using vowel teams. This week, we focused on the following vowel teams: ai, ay, oa, ou, and ow. Encourage your first grader to hunt for vowel teams in the books they read at home!
Math – This week in math we worked on writing numbers through 120. We learned how we can use a number grid to help us find 10 more or 10 less than a number. We looked for patterns in the grid to help us with this. For example, when we write the numbers in rows, the ones increase as you go across a row and the tens stay the same. We also learned how to add and subtract 10s as well as multiples of 10. You should see the second quiz coming home soon for this unit, and we will be taking the unit 5 test next week!
Upcoming Dates:
Monday, March 7 – STEAM
Tuesday, March 8 – MUSIC, Library
Wednesday, March 9 – PE
Thursday, March 10 – ART
Friday, March 11 – STEAM
Friday, March 18 – Early Release dismissal at 12:15
Conferences are today, March 1 and Thursday, March 3 after school. I’m looking forward to talking with you about your child’s great progress this year! If you haven’t signed up for a conference time yet, I have a few Thursday slots still available. Sign up here.
The Book Fair is here this week! Our class is visiting the book fair to make our wishlists today. Our book fair shopping day is tomorrow, Wednesday, March 2. Please send money sealed and labeled with your students’ name, or you can add money to their digital wallet online. You are also welcome to shop the book fair if you are coming in-person for conferences!
We are celebrating March is Reading Month! This year, our school theme is “Go for the Gold – Read!” I’ve attached a school-wide calendar for spirit days and a copy of the reading log your child is bringing home today. Return the reading log each Monday for students to earn weekly raffle tickets for prizes!
Lastly, if your child has not yet brought in a shoebox collection for a writing activity, please send one in to school with them tomorrow. We will be using them tomorrow morning. Thank you!
Mr. Waldie sent our conference sign-up link via email yesterday, and I thought I’d resend it just in case you missed it! Please sign up for a conference time at your earliest convenience and select whether you’d like the conference to be virtual or in-person.
Also, our class is having fun celebrating 2’s day today (2-22-22)! They will be bringing home time capsules to open on 3-3-33 (when they are seniors in high school).
Parent teacher conferences will be held on Tuesday, March 1 and Thursday, March 3. Be on the lookout for an email from Mr. Waldie with the link to sign up for a conference time with me! I’m looking forward to sharing your child’s great progress with you.
On Tuesday, March 1 we will begin our 3rd unit of writing, “Writing Reviews.” Please have your child bring in a shoebox or Ziplock bag, filled with a small collection on Tuesday, March 1. This will help your child to write opinions about his/her collection! Please do not let your child bring in food, pets, items of great value, or toy weapons. Please email me if you have any questions! Here are some ideas for shoebox collections: rocks, shells, stickers, pennies, crayons, Lego.
Georgetown’s Boys Day Out will be held on March 19 in the afternoon. A paper was sent home earlier this week with the information. If you have any questions, email Kristi Floriana at kristen.floriana@gmail.com
The Scholastic Book Fair will be coming to Georgetown from March 1-3! Our class will be previewing the book fair on Tuesday, March 1, and our shopping day is Wednesday, March 2.
CELEBRATIONS
Quote of the Week – This week’s quote went to CONNOR for always being up for a challenge!
First Grade Family Time – Here are the photos of our award-winning students from Friday’s first grade family time.
Top Frog – In addition to being the door holder & line leader and sitting in a beach chair, students each write a kind “heart note” to the Top Frog to encourage him/her and make him/her feel loved. Kids love to save these and look back at them later!
Delivering Valentine Cards – On Wednesday, first graders got to “deliver” their valentine cards to their classmates throughout the day! I’m sure they had lots of goodies to show you in their Valentine’s bags. Thank you SO much for sending things in the last couple of weeks! We really appreciate all you do to help support us at school. 🙂
Valentine’s Party – We had a blast at our last holiday party this year! The kiddos loved playing Valentine’s games and making some Valentine’s crafts. They also enjoyed a yummy Valentine’s snack! Thank you to our SUPER parent volunteers! You can check out all the pictures from our party here.
Teacher Rotations – During our morning on Friday, all the first grade teachers rotated from class to class to complete a fun activity in each room. Mrs. Cooley did an adorable cardinal craft, Miss Hutchison played Bingo, Mrs. Kuiper played a math game called Rollin’ Hearts to 100, and Mrs. Blauwkamp did a directed drawing with the kids!
OUR LEARNING:
Reading– We began a new unit of reading this week called “Readers Have Big Jobs to Do.” We learned how to be the boss of our reading and say “I can do this!” when we get to a tricky word. Readers practiced stopping at the first sign of trouble, trying something, and then trying something else to get the job done!
Writing – This week we had a mini-unit reviewing punctuation and capitalization. We practiced the rules and then went back through our nonfiction writing and made sure that we were using capitals and punctuating correctly.
Word Study – We practiced sentence dictation this week, which is where students write sentences that the teacher says. This helps us review spelling patterns we’ve recently learned!
Math – We focused on math mountains this week and how we can use them to help us solve story problems. We talked about how we can have mixed story problems and that sometimes there is an unknown partner and other times there is an unknown total.
Social Emotional – This week we talked about and celebrated World Kindness Day on February 17!
Upcoming Dates:
Monday, February 21 – ART
Tuesday, February 22 – STEAM, Library
Wednesday, February 23 – MUSIC
Thursday, February 24 – PE
Friday, February 25 – Early Release dismissal at 12:15, Miss Hutchison will not be at school
Monday, February 28 – Miss Hutchison will not be at school
Tuesday, March 1 –Parent teacher conferences, send in shoebox collections
Because of the surprise snow day, our class Valentine’s day party will be Friday, February 18.
Parent Teacher Conferences will be held on March 1 and March 3. In order for me to create enough time slot options for both virtual and in-person conferences, please fill out this survey to let me know your preferred conference method and preferred conference date as soon as possible.
GT Students have kicked off Kids Heart Challenge (KHC) this week in P.E. For more information and details please visit the PE Blog. http://mvankoev.edublogs.org.
CELEBRATIONS
Top Frog – In addition to being the door holder & line leader and sitting in a beach chair, students each write a kind “heart note” to the Top Frog to encourage him/her and make him/her feel loved. Kids love to save these and look back at them later!
Mystery Reader – Sylvie’s sister was our mystery reader on Wednesday!
OUR LEARNING:
Reading– We wrapped up our nonfiction reading unit with a celebration this week! Students chose one nonfiction book to become experts on. Then, they recorded a Flipgrid video sharing their name, the title of their book, and three facts they learned from the book! Our first graders all did such an amazing job, if you would like to watch your child’s Flipgrid you can do so HERE..
Writing – This week we started (or continued) working on new Non-Fiction pieces. We are working to fine tune the pieces we are writing and thinking about ways we could improve them by adding photographs or more detailed drawings, adding ending punctuation, and using craft moves like other authors do. For example, speech bubbles or POP OUT words. We have a week and a half left of this unit.
Word Study – This week, we practiced looking for snap words we know inside of bigger words (For example, if we know “eat,” we can use it to read “beat,” “eating,” etc.) We also learned to read and write contractions! We played word games like memory and match-up to practice reading contractions.
Math – The kiddos received their new math books this week! We started unit 5 which is all about place value situations. We will begin to work more with subtraction into the teen numbers and continue working on finding various unknowns in teen problems. This week we focused on the making a ten strategy to help us find the missing partner for addition and subtraction equations and story problems.
Social Emotional – This week we wrapped up Unit 9. We continued to talk about how we can be our best self and we talked more about how we could use the meta moment in certain situations. We practiced breathing and role played through some scenarios.
Report Cards were sent home on February 4th. The scale we use is as follows- 3-proficient, 2-progressing, 1- beginning. Please keep in mind that at this time of year, your child may have some 2’s and that’s completely normal and common as we work toward mastery by the end of the year. At GES in first grade, we also do not use the 3* (this denotes above grade level.) Please also know that our intervention time has been limited this year and we appreciate all you are doing at home to support your child.
The annual PE Apparel ONLINE sale is open now until February 7. Click the link to place an order from the online store https://onitink-hps.square.site/
GT Students have kicked off Kids Heart Challenge (KHC) this week in P.E. For more information and details please visit the PE Blog. http://mvankoev.edublogs.org.
CELEBRATIONS
Quote of the Week – This week’s quote went to CARSON for showing perseverance and grit!
First Grade Family Time – Here are the photos of our award-winning students from Friday’s first grade family time.
Top Frog – In addition to being the door holder & line leader and sitting in a beach chair, students each write a kind “heart note” to the Top Frog to encourage him/her and make him/her feel loved. Kids love to save these and look back at them later!
Mystery Reader – Connor’s mom was our mystery reader on Friday!
100th Day of School – We loved dressing up as 100-year-olds for the 100th day of school! We wrote about being 100, played a race to 100 math game, competed in a Kahoot computer challenge with 100-themed questions, and went on a scavenger hunt for 100 hershey kisses around our classroom!
Donut Party – We reached 30 minutes of quiet, focused independent reading this week, so we celebrated with a donut and dance party! Thank you, Miner family for bringing the donuts for our celebration.
Teacher of the Week – I was surprised last week with a Zoom call from channel 13 sharing that I was nominated as teacher of the week – what an amazing, unexpected surprise! Thank you SO much to whoever took the time to nominate me – your support means the world. I love my job, and I love these first graders!!
OUR LEARNING:
Reading– In reading this week we worked on reading aloud like an expert! We practiced reading with feeling and making our voice match the feeling in the words we read. For example, when we read a page about an owl finding prey we should read in a loud, strong voice and when we read a page about owl babies we should read with a sweet, soft voice. We also worked on reading like writers by noticing numbers, pictures, and maps in our books and talking about keywords.
Writing – This week we continued on with nonfiction chapter books. It’s great to see the amount of writing some students are turning out. We thought about how our readers may look at our books and made sure the facts we were including were on topic and taught our reader. We also practiced editing to make sure our writing had capital I’s, finger spaces, end punctuation and it was neat.
Word Study – This week we spent a lot of time studying snap words. We also practiced Karate Chopping words into the parts and then crashing them back together. We have started daily spelling challenges so that we can continue to apply all we are learning and see these skills transfer into our writing.
Math – We finished up unit 4 in math this week! We started the week by practicing some methods we learned to help us add when working with 2-digit numbers. Then we took a practice test as a class to help us prepare for the test on Thursday! You should see the tests coming home soon. Your kiddo will also be coming home with their math book because we will be getting new books next week for the second half of the school year. Some pages might not be completed, so you can work through those at home to help reinforce those skills if you would like to!
Social Emotional – This week we started Unit 9. Our focus question was who is my best self? We read the book Big Bear Hug and drew a self portrait. We thought about what words we would want others to use to describe us.
Upcoming Dates:
Monday, February 7 – ART
Tuesday, February 8 – STEAM, Library
Wednesday, February 9 – MUSIC, Send in Valentine cards
Thursday, February 10 – PE
Friday, February 11 – ART, Valentine’s party
Monday, February 14 & Tuesday, February 15 – MID-WINTER BREAK – NO SCHOOL
Report Cards will be sent home on February 4th. The scale we use is as follows- 3-proficient, 2-progressing, 1- beginning. Please keep in mind that at this time of year, your child may have some 2’s and that’s completely normal and common as we work toward mastery by the end of the year. At GES in first grade, we also do not use the 3* (this denotes above grade level.) Please also know that our intervention time has been limited this year and we appreciate all you are doing at home to support your child.
The annual PE Apparel ONLINE sale is open now until February 7. Click the link to place an order from the online store https://onitink-hps.square.site/
Our new secretary, Mrs. Audrey Straub (our former PTC president) has been a familiar face around GES for a while. Be sure to say hello to her next time you are in the office. Please email Mrs. Amy Hoekstra (ahoekst2@hpseagles.net), Mrs. Audrey Straub, (astraub1@hpseagles.net) and your child’s teacher with any absences or pick-up changes.
CELEBRATIONS
Quote of the Week – This week’s quote went to HARRISON for showing perseverance and grit!
First Grade Family Time – Here are the photos of our award-winning students from Thursday’s first grade family time.
Top Frog – We started a new round of top frogs last week! In addition to being the door holder & line leader and sitting in a beach chair, students each write a kind “heart note” to the Top Frog to encourage him/her and make him/her feel loved. Kids love to save these and look back at them later when they’re feeling down!
Hudsonville Basketball Player Visit – Hudsonville varsity basketball senior Kinsley visited our classroom on Monday afternoon! We got to interview her, then she joined us outside for recess and taught us a few basketball drills.
Charlie & the Chocolate Factory – Our class finished reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory last week, so we watched some parts of the original movie this week. We enjoyed gobstopper treats and made a venn diagram comparing the book and movie.
OUR LEARNING:
Reading– In reading we continued to get smart about nonfiction reading. We found keywords in our nonfiction books, worked to make our voice smooth and lively while reading, and worked to make our reading interesting and point out the important facts.
Writing – This week we learned how we can add different types of writing into an informational piece. We tried things like making lists, putting in some how-to writing and making the writing persuasive. We wrapped up our second piece and moved on to writing our own independent idea for an informational piece.
Word Study – This week we spent more time looking at words all the way from the beginning to the end. We practiced strategies for how to read long, tough words by looking at chunks, we learned the difference between then and than, we worked to spell words by hearing all the sounds, and we paid attention to the vowel in each syllable.
Math – We studied place value more this week in math and looked more at adding tens and ones. For example, 20+40 or 60+2. Some strategies we are using is using our fingers to count on or picture drawings of tens sticks and ones. We also compared 2-digit numbers. You can see our beginning work on this from quick quiz 2 which was sent home earlier in the week. We tried to make connections like 4+3 = 7 and so 40+30 = 70.
Social Emotional – We wrapped up Unit 8 this week, with our focus question of- how do my emotions influence myself and others? We read Hey, Little Ant and talked about empathy, trying to imagine how friends might feel in certain situations. We even thought of our own story where one character had to react to the actions of another character. Here is the preview link for Unit 9.
Upcoming Dates:
Monday, January 31 – PE
Tuesday, February 1 – ART, Library
Wednesday, February 2 – STEAM
Thursday, February 3 – MUSIC
Friday, February 4 – PE, 100th day of school
Wednesday, February 9 – Send in Valentine cards
Friday, February 11 – Valentine’s party
Monday, February 14 & Tuesday, February 15 – MID-WINTER BREAK – NO SCHOOL
We were so excited to celebrate all of our birthdays today! Here is a glimpse into the fun of our day. All of these pictures can be found in this Google Drive folder if you want to download/save any.
Classroom Transformation
Birthday Balloon Pictures
Teacher swap & birthday cake directed drawing with Mrs. Estefan
Passing out our birthday trinkets/treats
Birthday party stations (games, crafts, and treats)
Group Pictures
Thank you so much to everyone who donated items to help make this fun day possible! I’m so grateful for your partnership this year. ❤️
