I can’t believe this is the last blog post for the year… your kiddos are officially second graders!!! I just wanted to share my gratitude with all of you for what we accomplished this year. I appreciate your partnership to help your children get to where they are today. We made it through a year of not having the chance to meet in person (at least for some of you), no parents allowed in the building, being virtual for a few weeks, and so many more changes. I am incredibly proud of how flexible your children were and the grace they gave me every day. It’s tricky being a first year teacher (on my own) and having it take place during a global pandemic didn’t make it any easier, but it was my students who pushed me to do my very best! I truly adore all of your kids, and I am SO thankful I had the honor of being their first grade teacher. Thank you for sharing your kiddos with me and all that you have done to support me this year. Please stay in touch and know that you can always email me if you have any questions regarding school throughout the summer. Thank you, thank you, thank you! ♥

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CELEBRATIONS

Birthdays: This week we celebrated Major and Zoe’s birthdays. Happy birthday, Major and Zoe!

 

Donut Day: We earned all 15 stars for our final reward day. The kiddos enjoyed some yummy donuts!

5th Grade Clap Out: Since the fifth graders will be moving to the middle school next year, we wanted to send them off in a special way!

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LEARNING

Sports Day: To start off sports day we created our very own realistic fiction story by rolling a dice. We rolled the dice to choose our athlete, setting, and problem. For word study we did a word sort and sorted words based on if they make the sound ‘oo’ like in hoop or ‘oo’ in look. In math, we worked on partners of 10 by coloring jerseys, and we even played some basketball with cheese puffs. Each cup they made a cheese puff into had a number under it, so they had to add all three numbers together. The partner with the highest score won! We enjoyed field day during specials where we did a three-legged race, a sponge bucket fill, and more fun games.

 

Lemonade Day: As a class we made some lemonade together… it was so tasty! We reviewed our “how to” writing skills and wrote about how to make lemonade. For reading, we worked on our retell skills about a lemonade story. After trying both lemonade and pink lemonade, we worked on our graphing skills to see which kind was liked best by the class! For word study, the kiddos tried to make as many new words as they could using the words ‘cold lemonade’.

Beach Day: We are SO excited for summer, to kick off beach day we created summer bucket lists! We got to spend one last day out on our beach towels enjoying some of our favorite class books. In math, we caught fish and found seashells to work on our comparing skills. We completed a fun beach crossword for word study!

Last Day Fun: We had a fabulous last day of first grade!

     

Notes for parents:

• We will have no baggie books this last week of school. If you have any laying around at home please send them back to school with your child this week!
• Here is the document with all of the fun days for the last week of school. [embeddoc url=”https://abbyblauwkamp.edublogs.org/files/2021/05/end-of-year-fun-1-1.pages” download=”all” viewer=”google” ]

Upcoming Dates:

• Monday, May 31 – Memorial Day
• Tuesday, June 1 – Art
  • Sports Day/Field Day
• Wednesday, June 2 – STEAM
  • Major’s birthday!
  • Lemonade Day
• Thursday, June 3 – Music
  • Celebrate Zoe’s birthday (June 13)!
  • Beach Day
  • Hager Park Popsicle Playdate @ 6:00 pm
• Friday, June 4 – Early Release
  • Last day of school!

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CELEBRATIONS

Graduation Walk: The Hudsonville seniors did a celebration walk around Georgetown and we had so much fun cheering for them!

Olympic Rotations: Since we had some rain on Friday morning, we weren’t able to do the Olympics. Instead, we did some fun classroom rotations for the last time this year!

Mrs. Blauwkamp – Directed Drawing and Word Search

Miss Hutchison – Silent Ball and Four Corners

Mrs. Kuiper – Kahoot

Mrs. Cooley – Memorial Day Craft

Star Students: Our Star Students this week were Melwyn, Lily, Major, Ava, Sydney and Finn. They were able to bring in a stuffie for the day!

Mystery Reader: We had three Mystery Readers this week! Isaiah’s mom read the book The Incredible Shrinking Teacher. Gracie’s mom read Animobiles. Our last reader was Gabba’s mom and she read Yay, You! Thank you for “visiting” our classroom for these fun read alouds!

Family Time: This was our week doing family time! Chase joined the shoe-tying club and we had no new friends join the lost tooth club. We did have a group of friends join the kept tooth club, meaning they didn’t lose any teeth in first grade: Kendall, Joshua, Claire, Atticus, and Tucker!

Birthdays: This week we celebrated Isaiah’s birthday. Happy birthday, Isaiah!

Quote of the Week: All of our friends have received a quote!

This week’s quote – Count your rainbows, not your thunderstorms.

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LEARNING

Writing: We spent this week working on a first grade memory book! I hope that this special keepsake will help your child remember all of the fun memories from first grade.

Word Study: We wrapped up our first grade word study review by studying digraphs this week (sh, ch, ph, th, wh).

Math: We took our final math test which covered double digit addition with regrouping. This unit was short but important. Please continue to practice with your child at home throughout the summer!

Reading: We are ending the year with a review of non-fiction books. We are looking at non-fiction text features such as – Table of Contents, Diagrams, Labels, Headings, Titles, Glossary, Index, and Bold Words.

Notes for parents:

• Please remember to fill out the survey that was emailed to you about a popsicle playdate the last week of school if you are interested in participating!
• A note will come home tomorrow with all the last week of school events your kiddos have to look forward to!
• This Friday (May 28) we will be having First Grade Olympics! Please have your child wear gym shoes, comfy clothes, and a shirt that represents their team color.

Olympic Teams:

• • Green Team – Breckon, Finn, James, Chase, Ellery, and Zoe
  • Yellow Team – Major, Atticus, Sawyer, Gabba, Melwyn, and Evelyn
  • Orange Team – Bryce, Kendall, Lucy, and Ava
  • Blue Team – Isaiah, Joshua, Claire, Lily, and Sydney
  • Red Team – Tucker, Norah, and Gracie

Upcoming Dates:

• Monday, May 24 – Gym
  • Isaiah’s birthday!
• Tuesday, May 25 – Art
• Wednesday, May 26 – STEAM
• Thursday, May 27 – Music
• Friday, May 28 – Gym
  • 1st Grade Olympics

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CELEBRATIONS

Ice Cream Party: We had so much fun celebrating our early release day with ice cream sundaes! The kiddos worked on solving math problems individually, with a partner, and with their table group to earn toppings. Everyone ended up earning all the toppings 😉

Star Students: Our Star Students this week were Kendall, Sawyer, Gracie, Joshua, and Breckon. They were able to bring in a stuffie for the day!

Mystery Reader: We had Sawyer’s sister as our Mystery Reader this week! He read the book Spaghetti in a Hot Dog Bun. Thanks for “visiting” our classroom for this fun read aloud!

Family Time: No new friends joined the lost tooth club or shoe-tying club this week. Next week will be our last family time!

• Quote of the Week: All of our friends have received a quote!

This week’s quote – Life is like ice cream, enjoy it before it melts.

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LEARNING

Writing: We wrapped up our last unit by publishing our series books. We worked on a series book box and illustrated a cover page and an All About the Author page. Please take some time to sit down and listen to your first grader read his or her stories and compliment them on their ideas, handwriting, punctuation, and details.

Word Study: We’ll be spending these last few weeks reviewing some of the most important foundational skills that our first graders need to know in order to be successful second grade readers and writers. This week, we reviewed beginning blends with S (sc, st, sp), L (bl, pl, cl), and R (br, gr, tr, etc.)

Math: We took our unit 7 test and began our last unit for the year! Unit 8 is an introduction to double digit addition. We would like our kiddos to have exposure with some of the methods they can use because this will be a big focus in second grade! This week we learned how we can use the making a ten strategy for pictures, and they were also introduced to the new group below and new group above method for vertical problems. Another method we talked about was adding the tens together first then the ones, and then add to find the sum of the tens and ones.

Reading: We are ending the year with a review of non-fiction books. We are looking at non-fiction text features such as- Table of Contents, Diagrams, Labels, Headings, Titles, Glossary, Index, and Bold Words. We even did some reading outside!

Friendly reminder that tomorrow is the last day to place your May/June book order!

There is an option to have it shipped to your house. As soon as you create/pay your “send to my house order” it will finalize and ship to you. Otherwise, it should arrive at the end of May or the last week.

Tutoring:

• If you are interested in summer tutoring for your child please contact one of our excellent tutors below. Most of them will be holding sessions here at GES.
  • Bethany Gates (2nd Grade Teacher) bgates1@hpseagles.net  (Tues/Weds)

• • Abbi Garrison (4th, previous first grade teacher) agarriso@hpseagles.net (Weds)

• • Karyn McIntire (Instructional Paraprofessional) kmcintir@hpseagles.net (Mon-Thurs)

• • PRIVATE TUTORING OPTION: Achieve Tutoring, Jenison; 616-916-8989

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Notes for parents:

• Please send a towel back to school with your child. With the nice weather, hopefully, we’ll be able to learn outside more again!
• We will be having a little ice cream party this coming Friday to celebrate all our growth this year! If you would like to donate any supplies, please view the sign-up sheet here.
• The due date for our last time to order from Scholastic this year is Thursday, May 20. There is an option to have it shipped to your house. As soon as you create/pay your “send to my house order” it will finalize and ship to you. Otherwise, it should arrive at the end of May or the last week.

Upcoming Dates:

• Monday, May 17 – Gym, LIBRARY BOOKS DUE
• Tuesday, May 18 – Art
• Wednesday, May 19 – STEAM
• Thursday, May 20 – Music
  • Body Safety Presentation
  • Scholastic book orders due
• Friday, May 21 – Music
  • Early Release (students dismissed at 12:15 pm)
  • Ice Cream Party

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CELEBRATIONS

Craft Day: For earning another 10 stars, the class voted on having a craft day! We had some fun crafting a variety of things on Friday. We had watercolor paint, beads, puff balls, stickers, and lots of fun colored paper and coloring pages. The kiddos had a blast having some free time to be creative and make whatever they wanted to!

Star Students: Our Star Students this week were Atticus, Ellery, Isaiah, Gabba, and Norah. They were able to bring in a stuffie for the day!

Mystery Reader: We had Major’s grandpa as our Mystery Reader this week! He read the book Copycat Dog. Thanks for “visiting” our classroom for this fun read aloud!

Birthdays: This week we celebrated Tucker and Norah’s birthdays. Happy birthday, Tucker and Norah!

Family Time: No new friends joined the lost tooth club or shoe-tying club this week.

• Quote of the Week: All of our friends have received a quote!

This week’s quote – You are braver than you believe. Stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.

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LEARNING

Writing: Students wrapped up their realistic fiction series for our From Scenes to Series unit of study! This week we focused on using correct punctuation and using illustrations to tell important details. We learned that writers can use illustrations to give clues about the setting, bring characters to life, tell secrets to the reader, and add extra realistic details.

Word Study: We’ll be spending these last few weeks reviewing some of the most important foundational skills that our first graders need to know in order to be successful second grade readers and writers. This week, we practiced sorting long and short vowel sounds. For example, “cut” has a short vowel sound, and “cute” has a long vowel sound.

Math: We continued learning about shapes this week, and the kiddos learned the names of some 3D shapes as well: sphere, cylinder, rectangular prism, cone and cube. We also learned how we can put both 2D shapes and 3D shapes together to create new shapes. Towards the end of the week, we started studying measurement and what the words longest and shortest mean. We practiced putting items in order from shortest to longest and vice versa. On Friday, we learned we can measure things with length units such as paper clips. We took a quiz over both shapes and measurement this week, and we will be taking our unit 7 test next week.

Reading: This week we wrapped up our Meeting characters and Learning Lessons Unit. We worked on learning lessons from our books and talked about how the lessons we learn in a book can be like a fortune from a fortune cookie.  We made comparisons and practiced giving our opinions about the books we have read. We will end the year with a review of non-fiction books.

Tutoring:

• If you are interested in summer tutoring for your child please contact one of our excellent tutors below. Most of them will be holding sessions here at GES.
  • Bethany Gates (2nd Grade Teacher) bgates1@hpseagles.net  (Tues/Weds)

• • Abbi Garrison (4th, previous first grade teacher) agarriso@hpseagles.net (Weds)

• • Karyn McIntire (Instructional Paraprofessional) kmcintir@hpseagles.net (Mon-Thurs)

• • PRIVATE TUTORING OPTION: Achieve Tutoring, Jenison; 616-916-8989

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Notes for parents:

• Please send a towel back to school with your child. With the nice weather, hopefully, we’ll be able to learn outside more again!
• We only have one slot left for Mystery Readers this year! If you are interested, please view the sign-up linked here. I am looking forward to having you “join” our class for a fun read aloud!

Upcoming Dates:

• Monday, May 10 – Music, Library (last time to check-out books)
• Tuesday, May 11 – Gym
• Wednesday, May 12 – Art
• Thursday, May 13 – STEAM
  • Tucker’s birthday!
• Friday, May 14 – Music
• Saturday, May 15 – Norah’s birthday!

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CELEBRATIONS

Star Students: Our Star Students this week were James, Tucker, Evelyn, Zoe, Lucy, and Bryce. They were able to bring in a stuffie for the day!

Mystery Reader: We had Kendall’s dad as our Mystery Reader this week! He read the book Mr. Wrinkles. Thanks for “visiting” our classroom for this fun read aloud!

School Lunch Hero Day: To celebrate all of our amazing lunch heroes, we made this special display in the cafeteria.

Family Time: James joined the Lost Tooth Club! Continue working on those shoe-tying skills.

• Quote of the Week: All of our friends have received a quote!

This week’s quote – Throw kindness around life confetti.

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Writing: In writing this week we added some new tools to our writing toolboxes! We learned how to “show not tell” by adding tiny realistic details. Later we learned all about repetition and the importance of patterns in writing. Next week we will wrap up our realistic fiction writing unit and students will publish their very own boxed book series!

Word Study: In first grade, one of the best ways for students to learn something new is through play and practice! We practiced proper use of capital letters through lots of different word games this week. Please encourage your child to capitalize proper nouns and the start of each sentence when they’re writing at home!

Math: This week we focused on time in our day and the tasks we carry out at specific times. We also learned how to tell and write time in half-hours which you saw on the first quick quiz that came home! The remainder of the week was dedicated to shapes and their attributes. On Friday, we learned about equal shares and how to create equal shares with various shapes.

Reading: This week in reading we learned about main characters and supporting characters too! This was a great tie in to our writing as it has been so fun creating our own characters. We also talked about changing our voices when our character’s feelings change and looked for clues on how to read our stories.

Tutoring:

• If you are interested in summer tutoring for your child please contact one of our excellent tutors below. Most of them will be holding sessions here at GES. 
• • Bethany Gates (2nd Grade Teacher) bgates1@hpseagles.net  (Tues/Weds)

• • Abbi Garrison (4th, previous first grade teacher) agarriso@hpseagles.net (Weds)

• • Karyn McIntire (Instructional Paraprofessional) kmcintir@hpseagles.net (Mon-Thurs)

• • PRIVATE TUTORING OPTION: Achieve Tutoring, Jenison; 616-916-8989

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Notes for parents:

• Please send a towel back to school with your child. With the nice weather, hopefully, we’ll be able to learn outside more again!
• For our realistic fiction writing unit, our final project will be creating a series boxed set. We would greatly appreciate the donation of cereal boxes for this project! Please send in any empty cereal boxes with your child between Monday, April 26th and Friday, May 7th.
• We only have two slots left for Mystery Readers this year! If you are interested, please view the sign-up linked here. I am looking forward to having you “join” our class for a fun read aloud!

Upcoming Dates:

• Monday, May 3 – STEAM, Library (last time to check-out books)
• Tuesday, May 4 – Music
• Wednesday, May 5 – Gym
• Thursday, May 6 – Art
• Friday, May 7 – STEAM
  • Have cereal box sent in by today!

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CELEBRATIONS

Star Students: Our star students from last week and this Monday were Gabba, Sawyer, Finn, Atticus, Sydney and Zoe. Here is a sweet picture from our lunch together! We also had two friends, Chase and Claire, who began the next Star Student round of bringing in a stuffie for the day.

Mystery Reader: We had Major’s dad as our Mystery Reader this week! He read the book How Many Animals Fit on My Tractor? Thanks for “visiting” our classroom for this fun read aloud!

National School Principal’s Day: To celebrate National School Principal’s Day, our class wrote about what we think Mr. Waldie does all day. We put all of the notes together in a book for Mr. Waldie!

Birthdays: This week we celebrated Chase’s birthday. Happy birthday, Chase!

Family Time: Ellery joined the Lost Tooth Club! Continue working on those shoe-tying skills.

 

• Quote of the Week: All of our friends have received a quote!

This week’s quote – You don’t have to attend every argument you are invited to.

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LEARNING

Writing: For this unit, our final project will be creating a series boxed set. We would greatly appreciate the donation of cereal boxes for this project over the next two weeks! This week students continued working on their realistic fiction series. We learned how to develop dialogue in our stories and “put ‘said’ to bed” by using other words such as yelled, cheered, or mumbled. We focused on how to make our stories realistic. Students were taught to write about real places and ordinary people and things INSTEAD of ninja cats that fly to outer space. 😉

Word Study: We used our word study time to fit in some assessments this week.  We made sure to focus on capitalization skills in our writing and looked for our spelling rules in our reading. 

Math: We completed our unit 6 test this week and started right up with unit 7! This unit covers geometry, measurement, and equal shares. The first few lessons are all about time and learning how to tell and write time in hours. We began by looking at a clock and the different parts that make up a clock. They learned the difference between the hour hand and the minute hand and that when the minute hand is on the 12, it is an o’clock time.

Reading: We have started our final reading unit of the year!! This unit is called meeting characters and learning lessons. We are putting together all that we have learned to really dig into books! It is so exciting to see our students really be able to dig into beginning readers and chapter books. We practiced taking a sneak peek, retelling our story, and worked on reminders of how to read and share with a partner. 

Notes for Parents:

• For our realistic fiction writing unit, our final project will be creating a series boxed set. We would greatly appreciate the donation of cereal boxes for this project! Please send in any empty cereal boxes with your child between Monday, April 26th and Friday, May 7th.
• Here is the link to the April Scholastic flyer that was attached to the book order note!
• If you would like to sign up to be a Mystery Reader, please view the sign-up linked here. I am looking forward to having you “join” our class for a fun read aloud!

Upcoming Dates:

• Monday, April 26 – Art, Library
• Tuesday, April 27 – STEAM
• Wednesday, April 28 – Music
• Thursday, April 29 – Gym
  • Chase’s birthday!
• Friday, April 30 – Art
  • Scholastic book orders due

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Earth Day: On Friday we celebrated Earth Day! We did a virtual visit with our adopted cow, Belinda, made “dirt” cups, watched The Lorax, and made a craft

Mystery Reader: We had Zoe’s dad as our Mystery Reader this week! He read the book Should I Share My Ice Cream? Thanks for “visiting” our classroom for this fun read aloud!

Star Students: All of our star students from last week will get to have their special lunch on Friday along with our last star student.

Family Time: No new students joined the lost tooth club or shoe-tying club this week.

• Quote of the Week: All of our friends have received a quote!

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LEARNING

Writing: This week students created their very own character that they will use for their realistic fiction series! They used a character web to describe what the character looks like, where he/she lives, and what kind of trouble he/she could run into! Students began writing book one of their series. I was blown away by their creativity! For this unit, our final project will be creating a series boxed set. We would greatly appreciate the donation of cereal boxes for this project over the next two weeks!

Word Study: We began a new bend of our unit and learned all about capital letters this week. First graders learned that we need capital letters at the start of a sentence, the start of the name of a person or place, the start and end of a letter, the word I, and starts of dates.

Math: We completed our first quiz of the unit which you should have seen come home earlier this week! We also began learning how to compare within a story with the help of comparison bars. These are very similar to math mountains, but instead of trying to figure out a total we are comparing to see who has more/less and how many more/fewer. We will be taking our test for this unit next week.

 

Reading: We are wrapping up our unit on Getting to Know our Characters. The week readers worked to retell- identifying the beginning, middle and end of what they read. We also focused on finding our stories’ problems and solutions. This was a great connection to writing and helped to give us ideas for the stories we are writing.