Georgetown Elementary School

Posted on March 9, 2011 March 9, 2011

World Read Aloud Day

What would you do if you couldn’t read or write? As you look around your office or your home, think about all that you do to communicate with others, complete your work and get through your day that is dependent on words –both the ability to understand them and the ability to write them.

Today, March 9th is called WORLD READ ALOUD DAY — one day designed to help us focus on the importance of literacy and how it impacts our quality of life and education.

Mrs. Quigley’s 2nd grade class invited me to read one of my favorite books, LOVE THAT DOG by Sharon Creech. Each year, I visit all the second grade classrooms to share this book and the beautiful “heart of the story” that unfolds as we listen from beginning to the end of the book.

The teachers and children at Georgetown celebrated this day by talking about the importance of words and appreciating the beauty of listening to words being read aloud. Visit your child’s classroom blog to find out what book was used to celebrate this special day.

Posted on March 9, 2011 March 5, 2011

PTC Meeting: Thursday, March 10 @ 10 am

Tomorrow morning will be one of our day meetings for PTC. Mr. Nick Ceglarek, Superintendent, is our keynote speaker. He will share information about the district five year strategic plan as well as the upcoming May 3 Bond Vote.

The meeting will be held at 10 am in the Library. We would love to have you attend.

*NOTE: Two PTC meetings per year are held during the day to address parent requests for those who cannot attend our other 3-4 evening meetings during the year.

Posted on March 8, 2011 March 9, 2011

Welcome New Kinders!

PK and K Round Up is occurring throughout our district today. The schedule for these meetings is as follows:

Georgetown will hold it’s meeting at 7 pm in the Multi-Purpose Room. There will be the option to attend a day time program at 10 am (held at Alward or South. The material will be the same for all schools.

If you cannot attend this meeting, simply stop by our school office to pick up the packet of information shared at Round Up as well as all of the registration information.

Our current PK and K students would like to welcome all the new students to our building next year. In this short video, they offer tips on how to make friends, the school rules and much more. Enjoy!

Posted on March 7, 2011 March 6, 2011

Brush off those dancing shoes!

The Georgetown 2011 Talent Show is rapidly approaching! This event is open to students in grades 3-5. The date of the talent show is March 31—with two shows, 9:15 am and 1:15 pm.

If your child is in grades 3-5, they will need to sign up for a rehearsal time. The sign up can be found on Mrs. Bretz’s door.

As this event draws closer, we will post the acts and show time so that parents and family can attend. I will also video tape each act and post these on the blog.

Posted on March 6, 2011

Learning Math in Today’s Classroom

$arithmetic$ Are you confounded by your child’s math homework? Do you sometimes wonder if the math your child is now learning in elementary school involves math concepts that you learned in secondary math classes? Do you ever question your own math ability when you can’t help your child complete a stem and leaf plot, a proof statement or a place value problem?

Over the past three years, our staff has fielded a variety of parent questions about the supposed “new math” that is taught, grades K-5. Our district math curriculum is set by the state of Michigan which follows the national mandates for math education. This ensures that all schools throughout our nation are preparing all learners to know and understand math facts AND understand how to apply use math to create sophisticated algebraic equations.

Why? Society demands this. All of us now need to know how to develop macros equations for spreadsheets and for a variety of other work projects.

Keith Devlin, an NPR math expert explained it best:

“….Computers do arithmetic for us, but making computers do the things we want them to do requires algebraic thinking. For instance, take a computer spreadsheet. The computer does all the calculations for you automatically. But you have to write the macros that tell it what calculations to do — and that is algebraic thinking.

You cannot become good at algebra without a mastery of arithmetic, AND arithmetic itself is no longer the ultimate goal. Thus the emphasis in teaching mathematics today is on getting people to be sophisticated, algebraic thinkers.”

You can find the entire article by clicking on the link below:

The Way You Learned Math is So Old School

Posted on March 5, 2011

The Week Ahead: March 7-10, 2011

The upcoming week will be four days of school for students and five days for teachers. Friday, March 11 is a Professional Development day that provides teachers with an opportunity to attend classes to learn strategies to improve instruction.

Many thanks to everyone who attend Parent/Teacher Conferences last week. As a school, we had an attendance rating of 99% and those who could not attend are conferencing with the teachers by phone or via email. Collectively, as a staff, we feel incredibly fortunate to work with your children each day. Thank you for all you to do help us to learn how to advance your child intellectually, socially and emotionally each year.

I want to offer up a HUGE THANK YOU to the parents who provided us with a just perfect soup bar for dinner the first night of conferences. The teachers are with their students all day long and begin conferences 45 minutes after the students depart for the day. The soup and desserts were a real treat for all of us. Much of the conversation at dinner revolved around this topic: WE HAVE THE BEST PTC IN THE WORLD!

The snapshot of the week ahead is below. Our PTC meeting is this week Thursday at 10am in the Media Center. (Two of our meetings per year are in the morning….a request that has been made by parents who cannot make evening meetings.) Please note that our Superintendent, Mr. Nick Ceglarek, will be the keynote speaker. He will be sharing information about the upcoming bond vote (May 3) and the district’s long term strategic plan. PLEASE COME IF YOU CAN!

Have a great week.

Mrs. Reagan

Posted on March 4, 2011 March 4, 2011

BLOG BITS 3/4/11

Happy March Georgetown Parents!

NEWS FROM THE OFFICE……… Well we made it through our first week of March and everyone survived Parent Teacher Conferences too!! Yeah! : ) We have a big week coming up, it is Kindergarten Round UP! Believe it or not, from here on out, the rest of the school year is going to fly by! For the count down to Spring Break……. 18 more school days!

KINDERGARTEN INFO……. Kindergarten Round-Up will be held on Tuesday, March 8 at 7pm. Please feel free to click the following links for the k registration and the health appraisal.

You may download this and fill them out and return them to Georgetown or you may stop in the office starting on Monday, January 24 to pick these up. We DO ask however, that when dropping off the filled out registrations that you bring in the child’s original birth certificate. If we do not receive the birth certificate along with the registration your kindergarten student will not be added to a classlist until we receive the birth certificate.

5th GRADE NEWS……. Just going to list a few dates for you to put on your calendars to remember for upcoming 5th grade events. Wow…. hold on tight, before you know it you will have a middle schooler! I also wanted to attach the flier that you can fill out and return for the upcoming fundraiser for 5th Grade CELEBRATION!! Come out and enjoy a pancake breakfast at Vitale’s and support our 5th graders. The cost is $7/person and the form AND money need to be turned in by FRIDAY, MARCH 18! Please fill out and return the attached flier……. 5th Vitales Breakfast

3/24 ~ 5th Grade visits the Middle School

3/26 ~ Vitale’s Breakfast Fundraiser

4/12 ~ Instrument Fittings here @ Georgetown

4/20 ~ Parent Informational Meeting @ Baldwin Middle/7pm

4/21 ~ Parent Informational Meeting @ Riley Middle/7pm

5/19 ~ 5th grade CAMP meeting

5/25 thru 5/27 ~ 5th grade CAMP

6/3 ~ 5th Grade CELEBRATION!!!!

PTC NEWS……. WOW ~ ~ Way to go Georgetown students and families! You ROCK the House!!! The basket raffles raised $1800.00 for Georgetown Elementary. This money is used to support learning in the classrooms. The lucky basket winners are……

KIDS CRAFTS (ECSE) ~~ Maggie Ambrose

SCRAPBOOKING (Boes) ~~ Madison DeKorte

GARDENING #1 (Bohl) ~~ Chloe Patrick

GARDENING #2 (Bohl) ~~ Cielle Waters-Umfleet

CAR CARE (Estefan) ~~ Paige Gradowski

TOY STORE (Jabaay) ~~ Ella Reifschneider

MOVIE NIGHT (Jurewicz) ~~ Victoria Eggers

CAMPING (Stadt) ~~ Parker Selders

TOY STORE (Taber) ~~ Rachel Kamer

SUMMER FUN (Woodring) ~~ Carter Braam

FAMILY GAME NIGHT (Kuieck) ~~ Xander Smith

CHOCOLATE DREAM (McDonald) ~~ Nick Randolph

DOG LOVER (Quigley) ~~ Hunter Gulch

EVERYTHING FOR A CHEF (Bialochowski) ~~ Miss Burmeister

HEALTH AND BEAUTY (Flory) ~~ Annalicia Hoag

EASTER TREATS AND ACTIVITIES (Greenlund) ~~ Taylor Truman

SWEETS AND TREATS (VanArkel) ~~ Brenden Tockstein

BOOKWORM (Bowen) ~~ Quinn Baar

COFFEE BREAK (Huizenga) ~~ Mrs. Becky Plumert

THE ATHLETE (Kooiker) ~~ Spencer VanTol

BEACH PARTY (Bouwens) ~~ Maya DeKorte

EAGLE SPIRIT (Burdis) ~~ Kaycie Lawrence

SPORT FAN (Burmeister) ~~ Jaden Jaski

BOOK FAIR……. Don’t forget our spring book fair is coming soon. It will be the week of March 14-18.

JET’S PIZZA NIGHT……. The classroom winner from the last Jet’s Pizza night was Mrs. Huizenga’s class. Way to go 4th graders and parents!! Once again the parents and students did a great job raising money for Georgetown. We raised $140 this time. Mrs. Huizenga will let her class know when the pizza party will be held.

COMMUNITY ED NEWS…….. Please visit the Community Ed website for the current ativities that are being offered right now for students. We also have a rack with fliers right outside our Multi-Purpose Room. Some of the current activities are Tae Kwon Do and Gymnastics/Dance/Cheer. I will attach the link for you to go right to the Community Ed website for your convenience and you may register online through this site. http://commed01.hudsonville.k12.mi.us/Default.aspx .

EAGLE 5K/10K ……… ~ Please read the attached flier for more information regarding this race. The attachment also has the registration form attached to it……. 2011 Eagle Run brochure 021511 . The Hudsonville Athletic Boosters are once again sponsoring the Eagle 10k/5k run/walk on March 26, 2011. The races will begin at 9AM. Runners/walkers will begin at Hudsonville High School and will continue running through the city of Hudsonville. This is a fundraiser for the Athletes of Hudsonville High School. For more information log onto www.eagle10k.com or www.classicrace.com. Be sure to mark your calendars for
this event. If you would like to volunteer to work this event please call 893-5830 or email through the website. Thank you for your support of Hudsonville Athletics.

COMMUNITY NEWS………ONCE UPON A PANCAKE ~ ~ CHARACTER BREAKFAST…….. Allendale Music Boosters invites you to Once Upon a Pancake ~ A Character Breakfast. come have breakfast with your favorite prince princess, and storybook characters from 7am to 10am on Saturday, March12 at Main Street Pub in Allendale. Tickets are only $5 per plate which includes sausages, scrambled eggs, unlimited pancakes and a beverage. Tickets can be purchased at any Allendale Public School Office or reserve your tickets via email to allendalemusicboosters@gmail.com.

3 ON 3 BASKETBALL TOURNAMENT……… for 3rd-6th Grade boys and girls on Saturday, March 12, 2011. Location: HUDSONVILLE UCC, 4950 32ND AVE, Hudsonville. Time: 9-3 pm. Sign up online at www.hudsonvillehoops.com by March 7, 2011. Limited team slots available so register early to make sure your team can play. Shirts for team of four and trophies for winning team. Entry fee is $90 per team and includes registered officials. For questions please call Karl @ 616.485.6233 or email hexcel34@gmail.com.

ALLENDALE CHRISTIAN SCHOOL’S 3 ON 3 BASKETBALL TOURNAMENT – SATURDAY, MARCH 26………. Tournament location for Allendale Christian School’s Fifth Annual 3 on 3 Basketball Tournament will be the Allendale Public High School (grades 5-8) and Allendale Christian School (grades 3-4). ACS is hosting the tournament on Saturday, March 26. This double elimination tournament will have divisions for both girls and boys 3rd-8th grades. Trophies will be awarded to winning teams at each level. Tee shirts will be provided for each player. All area schools are invited to join us. Play will be continuous with refs at each court. Last year there were over 350 players that participated from area schools. Cost is $80 per team. Concessions will be available. Registration forms are due by March 4 and are available at ACS or on our website at allendalechristian.com. If you have questions or interested in becoming a sponsor, please contact Jody Ribbens @ 895-6016.

UPCOMING EVENTS

3/8 PK/K Round-Up @ 7pm

3/11 NO SCHOOL FOR STUDENTS

3/14 – 3/18 Spring Book Fair

3/15 & 3/16 PK/K Screening

3/16 Marco’s Pizza Night

3/17 4th Grade Field Trip to Lansing

3/18 MONDAY/WEDNESDAY KINDERGARTEN FRIDAY

3/24 5th Grade visits Baldwin Middle School

3/31 Georgetown Talent Show

4/1 – 4/10 SPRING BREAK!!!!!!

Have a great weekend!

Mrs. Nurenberg : )

Posted on March 3, 2011

CLASSROOM BASKET WINNERS

Here we go, drum roll please………………

and the lucky winners are as follows:

KIDS CRAFTS (ECSE) ~~ Maggie Ambrose

SCRAPBOOKING (Boes) ~~ Madison DeKorte

GARDENING #1 (Bohl) ~~ Chloe Patrick

GARDENING #2 (Bohl) ~~ Cielle Waters-Umfleet

CAR CARE (Estefan) ~~ Paige Gradowski

TOY STORE (Jabaay) ~~ Ella Reifschneider

MOVIE NIGHT (Jurewicz) ~~ Victoria Eggers

CAMPING (Stadt) ~~ Parker Selders

TOY STORE (Taber) ~~ Rachel Kamer

SUMMER FUN (Woodring) ~~ Carter Braam

FAMILY GAME NIGHT (Kuieck) ~~ Xander Smith

CHOCOLATE DREAM (McDonald) ~~ Nick Randolph

DOG LOVER (Quigley) ~~ Hunter Gulch

EVERYTHING FOR A CHEF (Bialochowski) ~~ Miss Burmeister

HEALTH AND BEAUTY (Flory) ~~ Annalicia Hoag

EASTER TREATS AND ACTIVITIES (Greenlund) ~~ Taylor Truman

SWEETS AND TREATS (VanArkel) ~~ Brenden Tockstein

BOOKWORM (Bowen) ~~ Quinn Baar

COFFEE BREAK (Huizenga) ~~ Mrs. Becky Plumert

THE ATHLETE (Kooiker) ~~ Spencer VanTol

BEACH PARTY (Bouwens) ~~ Maya DeKorte

EAGLE SPIRIT (Burdis) ~~ Kaycie Lawrence

SPORT FAN (Burmeister) ~~ Jaden Jaski

We hope you all enjoy your new treasures!!!! Parents of the students who won a basket will be receiving a phone call to let you know WHERE AND WHEN the baskets can be picked up.

Way to go Georgetown winners! Enjoy!

Mrs. Nurenberg

Posted on March 3, 2011

PE/POPCORN FRIDAY

Georgetown Staff and Students:

Let’s show some Georgetown spirit and all dress in our “PE” attire and have popcorn tomorrow, Friday, March 4! Could anything be better? Find some sweet gym clothes in your drawers and pull them on! AND……… if you want to take it a step further wear your U of M or Michigan State attire to support your favorite team for Saturday’s big basektball game!

GO BLUE!!

Mrs. Nurenberg : )

Posted on March 1, 2011

Millionaire Club Interest Grows!

Since our post yesterday about our most recent millionaires, Mrs. VandenBerg has received several questions about how to track words for this program.

These students have read 18 MILLION words (collectively) since the fall of 2009:

Linnae, Nathan, Bryce, Aliya, Alison, Austin, Jon, Ryan M, Matthew L., Marisa, Cielle, Ryan Y. (2009-10)

Chloe, Quinn, Matthew L., Ezra, Cam and Hunter (2010-11)

*There are readers who are very very very close to reaching the million mark this spring. We will honor them later this year!

If your child takes a reading counts quiz and/or completes a book blog, Mrs. VandenBerg keeps tracks of these words.

Any books that are read at home will need to be tracked by each student on this form: Million word club form. Turn this into Mrs. VandenBerg when it is complete and she will add these words to her master list.

Here is some additional information from a prior post:

If you have ever dreamed of being a millionaire, now is your chance. All students will have the opportunity to become a member of this club if they succeed in reading for 1,000,000 words this school year.

As a member of the MILLION WORDs club, each member will have their name on the MILLIONAIRE’s BOARD (display case in our rotunda) and receive a very cool, totally awesome t-shirt. Each student must keep track of the total words read on this form: Million word club form.

Completed forms are turned into Mrs. VandenBerg (Librarian), our school librarian.

Links to help you calculate words in books are found on the right under READING COUNTs. Quick links can be found here: Ren Learningand Scholastic e-Catalog.

What would you do if you couldn’t read or write? As you look around your office or your home, think about all that you do to communicate with others, complete your work and get through your day that is dependent on words –both the ability to understand them and the ability to write them.

Today, March 9th is called WORLD READ ALOUD DAY — one day designed to help us focus on the importance of literacy and how it impacts our quality of life and education.

Mrs. Quigley’s 2nd grade class invited me to read one of my favorite books, LOVE THAT DOG by Sharon Creech. Each year, I visit all the second grade classrooms to share this book and the beautiful “heart of the story” that unfolds as we listen from beginning to the end of the book.

The teachers and children at Georgetown celebrated this day by talking about the importance of words and appreciating the beauty of listening to words being read aloud. Visit your child’s classroom blog to find out what book was used to celebrate this special day.

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