Our Box Top competition ends this week. The winners will be announced on Friday, December 18. If you have a bag of box tops sitting at home, send them to school with your child as soon as possible. For a reminder on how the competition works, check this link: BOX TOPS
Author: Amy Hoekstra
National Reading Researcher, Richard Allington
Last week Friday, key members of our school districts spent the day with Richard Allington, a national researcher on the best practices for teaching reading instruction. It was a day packed with information and the Georgetown team left with a full list of ideas to consider for implementation this year. For me, in particular, I was excited to meet this expert who has been so influential in shaping my learning about teaching practices. 
Our team will be meeting in early January to identify how we can make improvements to our practices in the teaching of reading–especially with our struggling readers. Allington’s book, What Really Matters in Response to Intervention-Research Based Practices, will be the focus of our work.
Posing with Richard Allington: Diana Bast, Julie Iwema, Kristina Speidel, Sarah Woodring, Richard Allington, Kym Burdis, Julie Reifschneider, Ann McDonald, Theresa Reagan, Lynn Quigley, Amy Jurewicz
Raey Guang Email Pen Pals
Our sister school, Raey Guang Elementary has forty children that would like to become email pen pals with children from our school. If you are interested in this, please complete this pen pal survey form. I will work with a teacher and the principal from Raey Guang to match children. This is open to children in grades 3, 4 and 5. I would like to send the names to Taiwan over the holiday break so the correspondence can begin in the new year!
Mrs. Reagan
Santa is a Science and Technology Wizard
Raise your hand if you think Santa uses magic to find the just right gift for every boy and girl? If you thought this, as I did, you will be amazed to learn that there is new 
evidence to suggest that it looks like magic but is in fact advanced technology that allows him to create scientific tools to help him get his job done.
Examples of these tools are: Terahertz wave radiation scanner, metamaterials that allow for lightbending, heads-up display glasses, and much more. Although some of these gadgets are being tested in labs currently, most of Santa’s tools are hundreds of years more advanced that what we have access to today!
You can listen to Gregory Mone, editor for Popular Science, share these tools on NPR: Santa Claus Relies On Robots, Gadgetry Many more examples are shared in Mone’s new book, The Truth About Santa: Wormholes, Robots, and What Really Happens on Christmas Eve.
‘Twas the week before vacation…
And all through the school, the children were learning and the teachers were cool.
Having used up all my poetic ability in the copy change above, I will now get to the week’s events. It will be a very busy week, with teachers finishing up units of study, children counting down the days until vacation, holiday parties held Thursday and Friday, and our Holiday Concert Scheduled for Thursday at 7 pm. In addition, we will wrap up our Reading Counts for the first half of this year.
If you are in the building this week, please be sure to check out the lost and found table in the rotunda. There are snow pants, jackets, sweatshirts, and many pairs of hats–mittens–and gloves. We would love to get our lost items matched up with their owners before vacation begins.
Here’s to a great week ahead! Mrs. Reagan
Our 2nd Snow Day!
It is December 10th and we are experiencing our 2nd snow day of the school year! Use this day to relax and play in the snow…if it warms up!
Have fun! Mrs. Reagan
PS: For parents who are wondering about the the snow day POSTPONEMENT of our holiday program, please be aware that the program will be held on December 17th at 7 pm at Resurrection Life Church. So, same time, same place with a new date.
You can read this post: THE SHOW MUST GO ON
Closings for 12/09/2010
Hudsonville Public Schools
All Evening Activities Canceled including Community Ed
Notice Time: 2:32 pm on Wednesday, Dec 9, 2009
For up to the minute school and church closing information, go to NEWS 8
Practice for 12/09/10 CANCELED
Due to the BLIZZARD warning that will be in effect late this afternoon and tonight, Advanced Basketball and Soccer are canceled. This will not be on TV. We have been asked to pass the information along via our blogs.
School will be in session all day with the usual dismissal time of 3:40 pm.
Please pay attention to the news tomorrow morning for information about school delays/closings. There is a link to the NEWS 8 site on the right side of this blog.
Helping Families in Need
Our Kids’ Hope Director, Nicole Poolman, has offered to organize food collections for families in need. Nicole will be working with her own church’s food pantry as well as Fair Haven’s Hand 2 Hand backpack program.
If you know of a family within our school that would benefit from this program, please complete this form: FOOD DONATIONS
All submissions are anonymous. If you do not know a family to nominate, but would like to help with this program, there is a spot on this form for you to leave your name and contact information.
Thank you for your support.
Mrs. Reagan and Nicole Poolman
Kid Rex…A Kid Safe Google Search
If your children use your computer to search, 
I would recommend establishing
KID REX as the search engine of choice.
