<sup>So much to celebrate!!! As we closed out the month of September, we were able to look back and celebrate all of the successes, achievements and blessings that God has put in our lives even throughout the past month.Thank you for the part each of you have played in helping your child grow and learn. 

On Friday morning, Meta shared with the class a DVD produced by Adoption Associates. He shared with us the story of his life and the beautiful love that God his filled his life with. We talked about how we can see that God has been and is faithful in the life of each person in our class. God love us. In turn, we want to share loving kindness with those around us. We read I Corinthians 13 and reflected on what love looks like and how we feel when we are blessed with love and when we bless others with our love. It is my prayer that these words would characterize our classroom environment:

4</sup> Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵ It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶ Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
⁸ Love never fails.

We've been using manipulatives in math to understand the value of numbers and compare their differences. Above, you see Cooper using pattern blocks to make two-unit patterns and three-unit patterns. 

We have added Read to Someone in our Daily 5 reading program. Your child has been paired with another student with whom he or she is comfortable. About twice each week, your child will read a book with this partner. One child will read aloud a book he or she is confident in while the other child asks simple comprehension questions. Already, I am seeing confidence, enjoyment and ability growing in our budding readers!

Our email accounts have been activated (thanks, Val!) Each child is working to publish an ebook of the story he or she is working on. When completed, we will be able to email you a copy of the final results. They are just beautiful! You'll hear your child's voice reading the text which accompanies each illustration. They are so proud. So am I :D  Keep an eye on your inbox!

We closed the week with our writing celebration. The children were spectacular!!! Each child read his or her story from the director's chair and used the microphone. I snapped a picture of each student and emailed it to you. If you did not receive a message from me with your child's picture, please notify me and I'll try again. After we enjoyed each story from our authors, we treated ourselves to some punch and cookies and talked casually about our goals for the next writing unit. I will be keeping this story to hold for our end-of-the-year writing gala! At this event, you will be invited to read through all of your child's published work and compare this first story with the final publication. Such a tangible way to see growth in your little writer. We have much to be grateful for and much to celebrate!

Senorita Verastegui has been working with the children on various projects that flow well with what we are studying in the classroom. You can take a peek at some of this work on her wiki: 

 http://walden.hollandchristian.org/groups/spanishk1st2ndgrades/

Important Dates:
October 10: Grandparents/friends Day
October 18 & 19: No school. Staff Development
October 22 & 23: No school: Parent/Teacher Conferences.

So much to celebrate!!!  As we close out the month of September, we were able to recognize so many achievements, successes and blessings given by God in the last month. Thank you, to each of you, for your part in helping your child grow and learn. In the photos above you see the work we did comparing the value of number using manipulatives (top). Meta is showing his two-unit patterns the three-unit patterns (below).

Today, Meta shared with our class a videotaped interview with himself and his family made by Adoption Associates. Each student was able to hear about the blessings that God has filled Meta's life with and we talked about how God has been and is faithful in each child's life. It was a beautiful morning to celebrate God's rich love in our lives. It is our desire to share loving kindness to others. We then read and talked about I Corinthians 13. As faithful children of God, we want our classroom environment to reflect the love outlined in this letter. We will trust, be patient, show kindness, not be boastful or proud. It is my prayer that our classroom can be characterized by these words:
⁴ Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵ It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶ Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
⁸ Love never fails.

We've introduced the Read to Someone task as part of our Daily 5 reading program. Your child has been paired up with another student he or she feels comfortable with. Once or twice each week this partnership reads a book or two together. While one partner reads, the other asks a few comprehension questions. Already, I am seeing confidence and ability growing in our readers!

Some of the students were able to publish an ebook version of the story they created in Writing. Now that our email accounts are up and running, thanks Val!, you may begin receiving projects from time to time from your child. Check your inbox for some proud surprises.

Our writing celebration was spectacular!!!!  Each student took the director's chair and read their story using the microphone. Could it be any cooler?!?!?  As each child was reading, I snapped a quick picture and sent it to that child's parent. If for some reason you did not receive an email from me with a picture of your child reading, please give me a shout...or better yet, an email, and I'll attempt again from home where things are a little less fast and furious. After listening to each story, we celebrated with some punch and cookies. The purpose of this celebration is not only to showcase each individual's story, but also to build anticipation and excitement for our second unit in writing. I will be keeping these stories until our final celebration at the end of the year. By then, your child with have six or seven published pieces ready to share with you at a final end-of-the-year gala! So much to celebrate!

Important dates:
October 10: Grandparents/friends Day
October 18-19: No school. Staff Development
October 22-23: Parent/teacher Conferences 3:00-9:00

 God's Promises: This week we are beginning to read and talk about the Patriarchs in the Bible, that is, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and their descendents. We have been talking about God's promises to His people waaaay back then that still hold true for us today. What a beautiful, tangible reminder of God's steadfast love on Tuesday morning when God greeted students with a beautiful rainbow over South Side. Praise God!

                                             Busy writers with so much to say in their stories.

The students are wrapping up their first unit in writing. Here you see three students laying out all of the stories they have written in the past few weeks. They have selected one of their favorites. Next week, we will work to "fancy them up"....a.k.a. editing the story, to prepare for publication. Writing time is a favorite for many students. I can't wait for you to see your child's stories!

Thank you for your participation in the walk-a-thon fundraiser!!!!  What an amazing success. An unbelievable $27,000 was collected by the families at South Side and Pine Ridge. Your support takes my breath away and I know I speak for everyone who is a part of the educational process at South Side and Pine Ridge when I say "thank you, from the bottom of my heart, thank you!" On that note, our class won the pizza party due to your support!!!! Your child will enjoy pizza for lunch next Friday, the 28th. No need to pack a lunch on the 28th. I'll send a reminder email the night before. Thank you for your efforts!

Our children will partake in Discovery Assessements, which is a district-wide assessment tool adopted by Holland Christian this year. The students will take the reading portion of this test in our media center on the computers Tuesday morning. The following Tuesday we will take the math portion of the test. The format is multiple choice and should take about 30 minutes for each test. I will not use the term "test" with the students as there is no need to raise the level of anxiety. I'll simply ask them to do their best to answer the questions and show what they know. I will share your child's results with you at conferences. Please feel free to contact me with any questions or concerns.

A few important dates: 
September 28: Pizza Party--No need for lunches from home.
October 10: Grandparents/Friend Day
October 12-23: Fall Break/Conferences--No school

As I'm writing this, I'm realizing that we're closing out our fourth week of first grade already. As they say, time flies when you're having fun. It's been a fun, eventful and productive week. I'll just take a few moments with you to highlight some of the goodies from this week.

Daily 5--as I mentioned at Parent Night, Daily 5 offers one of the most effective templates for learning to read that I have ever taught or experienced. Your children are working in a language-rich environment, progressing through five Language Arts tasks that vary from day to day. They carry part of the responsibility for improving their skill in reading and writing, while I coach each of them individually. We've got two of the Daily 5 components up and running effectively. The children are involved in Read to Self or Word Work each day. Next week we're going to add Work on Writing. As the children are working on their tasks, I am able to confer one-on-one with each student, at his or her independent reading level. We create a new reading goal and I hold them accountable for this goal the next time we confer. It's awesome. We usually get a few cheers when the kids hear it's time for Daily 5.

You may be able to see a few post-it notes on the posterboards behind these Daily 5ers. These posterboards categorize our reading goals and students place their name on the goal they are currently working toward. They're either working to improve their Comprehension, Accuracy, Fluency or Expanded Vocabulary (hense the acronym CAFE board). I hope I haven't put you to sleep with all this nitty gritty. I'd be happy to share more with you if you're interested. We're going to have so much growth in reading this year.

Our science unit on animals and life cycles is wrapping up. You may have heard that this week we had a missing caterpillar transform into a butterfly right inside our paper towel holder. No worries. God performs miracles even inside paper towel holders. We brought the monarch (who looked particularly clean and dry I might add) outside and he fluttered away as if he meant to house himself in our sanitizing station. The kids were just a tad excited about this event.

                                    Here's the beautiful little bugger fresh from the paper towel dispenser.


One final note before I mention our important upcoming dates. It has become evident that we're starting to enter cold season. Several kids have developed coughs and sniffles. As we closed the day on Thursday, I prayed with the kids that God would restore the health and energy of those children struggling with coughs and sniffles. Suddenly, the room erupted in dry coughing and dramatic sniffing. Everyone seemed to catch the bug at that moment and I'm sure your children made God giggle just a bit. Thankfully, He doesn't need to hear the sound of my voice speaking our prayer, because I was momentarily completely drowned out by our coughing. Your children are so loving and they each want to be loved. They ARE loved by our Heavenly Father, by their supportive families, by one another, and they are loved by me.

The following are a few noteworthy dates:

September 17 Walk-a-thon pledges/forms due  AND  School Pictures
September 19 Walk-a-thon: 1:30-2:15@ HS
September 20 Math Homework Due
September 21 Library Books Due AND Spelling Test
October 10 Grandparent/friends Day
Oct. 18-23 Fall Break/Conferences: No School

Error Alert!!!  Grandparent/friend Day is Wednesday, October 10...not the 12th as I originally posted on the blog. My apologies.

Well, it became painfully apparent today that Karen VanMeeteren's and my heart lies with teaching and working with children. Predicting weather? Not so much! My apologies that we were not able to go on our field trip to the Outdoor Discovery Center. A staff member from the center called us at 10:00 a.m. and asked if we'd like to consider cancelling the trip based on the radar's forecast. We took a look, saw ALL the rain storms throughout the midwest and did decide to cancel our outdoor trip. Wouldn't you know it? Not a drop of rain fell all day! A special apology to the four parents who were geared up to chaperone with our kiddos. This is such a special experience for both the parents and the children. Thank you, again, for your willingness. After school, Karen and I called the Outdoor Discovery Center and their options for rescheduling were pretty limited. The DeGraaf Nature Center, however, has an opening for our group next Friday afternoon, September 14. We've reserved that time for our next field trip. I will contact each chaperone to talk about availability to try again. Thank you for your flexibility. Your children dealt with our change of plans like champs! We had a fun Friday afternoon that included crafting some cute caterpillars and beautiful butterflies.

Speaking of beautiful butterflies, look at these sweet moments:

 

What a glorious Wednesday morning we had in the classroom. God's love is written all throughout the beauty of creation we are surrounded by. The children were witness to two of God's miracles in the classroom. Just before the day began, one of our caterpillars wrapped himself in a beautiful chrysalis right before our eyes. How amazing to observe this tiny miracle of God's nature. We'll see this little fella emerge in about one week as a transformed, intricate monarch butterfly. To God be the glory!

If you look closely, you can see the caterpillar hanging from above is covering its body with the green chrysalis. Amazing! It was fully encased in about 60 seconds.

We let two emerged butterflies go free in the morning as well.  About half of the kids were able to hold and inspect the butterflies before the little insects thought wiser of our plan and flew off. We read Psalm 121 and talked about how God cares for his creatures, even as tiny as a beautiful butterfly. How much more doesn't He care for us?

We are working to memorize Genesis 1:1, the introduction to the story of God creating the earth. For the month of September, we will also add John 3:16, God's redemption of the world. I will send home the verses for you to practice at home with your child next week, but, primarily, we are practicing these verses in school.

In math, we are moving beyond readiness skills and are delving into numeration and addition. Our learning consists of a balance of direct instruction, hands-on exploration as well as some fun math games to review our skills. A two-sided math homework paper came home today and will be due next Thursday, please.

Ask your child about his or her big, beautiful, blue writing folder. We have a room full of enthusiastic writers. It is a favorite time for many of our children. This is a time in the day they get to tell about what's important to them. We begin our writing time with a short mini-lesson each day followed by quiet, independent writing as I confer with five to six kids each day. I can't wait to watch your budding writer blossom!

A few important dates:

• Thursday the 13th, math homework is due.
• Friday the 14th your child's two library books are due.
• Friday the 14th we will travel to the DeGraaf Nature Center for a pond life experience and insect sweeping.
• Monday, September 17, picture day.
• Wednesday, October 10, grandparent/friend day

Help Wanted:

• Mrs. Hofman has asked for parent volunteers to join our class in the library on Friday mornings from 9:30-10:00. The responsibility includes helping children select books, checking books in and re-shelving what we've returned. If you think you would be able to commit to helping us once a month, would you please contact me? I will create a schedule and get that back to our volunteers. Thank you for considering this.
• We are still looking for story reader volunteers for the classrooms at South Side. If you have the time and interest, children LOVE to hear stories from a variety of readers. Please contact me and I'll get more information to you if you're interested in adding "story reader" to the repertoire of all you do.

Thank you, Thank you, Thank you for a wonderful week with your enthusiastic children. I pray that God blesses each of you with a restful, fun, safe and healthy weekend.