Author: Amy Hoekstra

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Kindergartener’s First Day

If you have a pre-kindergartener or kindergartener starting school this year, please keep in mind that the start dates are as follows:

  • Tuesday/Thursday Alternating Friday:  September 8, 2009  (Grades 1-5 begin on this day also)
  • Monday/Wednesday Alternating Friday:  September 9, 2009

Your child can ride the bus to school on the first day or ride in the car.  I am aware that the Appleseed communication encourages parents to provide car transportation for PreK and K students on the first day of school, but this is your choice as a parent.

Our PreK and K Open Houses will be held on September 1, 2009.  This is geared toward parents attending with their PK/K child.

  • Mrs. Estefan and Mrs. Weiss  and Mrs. Bohl’s MW will hold their open houses from 5:30 to 6:15 pm.
  • Mrs. Bohl’s TTH and Mrs. Nederveld will hold their open houses from 6:30 to 7:15 pm.

The alternating day Friday schedule for this year can be found here:  PK/K FRIDAYs

School Hours and other schedules can be found:  HOURS and   SCHEDULES

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Community News Announcement

Announcing a new pre-professional dance academy coming to our area!  Turning Pointe School of Dance is a non-profit 501(c) 3 organization committed to providing students with quality dance training while maintaining a family friendly environment.  In operation for ten years in Holland, this dance school is now  opening a studio in Hudsonville — complete with a new sprung dance floor as well as full mirrors and barres.  The Hudsonville studio is located in the Creative Kids Learning Center building near the intersection of Chicago Drive and Balsam, serving the entire Hudsonville, Jenison, Grandville area and surrounding communities with classes for students ages four and up.  For more information please visit their website or call the studio: 616.394.7109.

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Summer Surprise!

One of my favorite parts of summer involves going to special events — especially those that help me connect with family and friends.  Two weeks ago, my niece invited me to watch her celebration performance at the end of her Grand Rapids Civic Theatre Camp for Kids.  While waiting for the show to begin, I ran into one of our 2009 Talent Show MC’s, Cielle!  She was also performing in the Civic production.

Cielle’s brother Aiden and her good friend Greta were also attending.  It was a wonderful surprise to see three Georgetown students in the middle of the summer while also watching my niece perform.  The performance was great fun to watch!

I hope you are having a great summer with family and friends…and you never know…I might run into you somewhere soon!

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CHORES Prepare Your Child for School

If you have a child who is preparing to enter preschool, pre-kindergarten or kindergarten in the fall, I would like to give you permission to shift away from skill and drill on letter names, color and shape identification.  I, along with the early childhood teaching team, encourage you to prepare your child for school by having a set list of simple chores (jobs, to do’s) that can be completed each day.

Much of what we do in school involves asking children to complete tasks after hearing and seeing two or three step directions.  Chores or daily jobs involve a series of steps that can be repeatedly daily, and this repetition builds more success and hopefully jobs that are completed better each day!

And, to make this blog post more credible, there is research support.  I can’t begin to tell you how much I love research that promotes the benefit of daily chores for my own children.

To find out more details about the benefits of learning two step directions, visit  Connect With Kids.

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Tweets from Outer Space

This past week, I began to follow my first astronaut on twitter, and I must say, it has been exciting!  NASA Astronaut Mark L. Polansky is sending twitter updates about the multiple aborted launches, the actual launch, burns, and the upcoming rendezvous with the International Space Station.

I can still remember the summer of 1969, standing in front of a black and white television watching Apollo 11 astronauts land on the moon.  As a seven year old girl, I could sense the excitement in the room and recall that many of the questions I asked were “un-answerable” by the adults present. “How fast did they go?  Is this like an airplane?  Are there any girl astronauts?  Is that like the sand on Lake Michigan?  Why can’t they breathe the air?  Do they sleep?  How do the go to the bathroom?”

Today, parents can watch the launch with their children and have instant access to answers by visiting NASA, Wikipedia, and other sites.  In addition, if you missed the launch, this can be viewed at anytime of the day or night on YouTube.  For up to the minute information about the flight, you can follow Commander Polansky’s tweets as he navigates the Endeavor to the International Space Station.  And, if this isn’t enough, you and your child can get a sense of who the astronauts are through Facebook and My Space — the ultimate social networking sites.

As I have said before, technology is an amazing tool for learning…and parents have easy, free and instant access to sources to answers about space, astronauts and much more!


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Enrollment Forms

I have received many emails and phone inquiries about enrollment forms for children in grades PK-12.  If you need enrollment forms for PK, K, elementary or secondary to one of the Hudsonville Public Schools, you can access these via our district site’s ENROLLMENT link.  If you have any questions about these forms, do not hesitate to contact Robin VandenBerg:  rvandenb@hpseagles.net or 669-1740 x 55110.

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Georgetown Contact Information

The school office will be open beginning August 24, 2009.  Office hours will be 8:00 am – 4 pm.

PHONE

School Hours during the school year:  8 am to 4 pm, Monday through Friday

School Phone:  1-616-797-9797

School Fax:  1-616-797-9929

District wide, we have new and more memory friendly email addresses in place for all staff.

EMAIL

1.  EMAIL Pattern:
The district email follows this pattern for all staff:
first letter of first name + first seven letters of last name @ hpseagles.net

2.  CHANGES in Email Address:
Make sure that the office AND your child’s classroom teacher always have your most recent email addresses.  If your email addresses change,  notify the office and your classroom teacher as soon as possible.

3.  Blog Updates:
To receive regular updates of the school blog and your child’s classroom blog, register for email updates on each blog’s home page.

Staff Email (listed alphabetically by first letter in first name): Email Directory

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Smarty Games: Reading and Math

Richard Byrne, author of the blog FREE TECHNOLOGY FOR TEACHERS, shared a new website, SMARTY GAMES, designed to help elementary students develop basic math and reading skills.  After visiting the site, I decided that this would be helpful to many students during the summer months.

Free featured games for mathematics cover basic addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.  Reading games include games that focus on alphabet recognition and story content, plus more.

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Read Kiddo Read

It’s mid-summer and I am sure that a hand full of parents are looking for interesting links to reading.  I stumbled upon a link to a site that is operated by James Patterson. It is called: READ KIDDO READ

The website is filled with incredible recommendations for readers, ages 0-Adult — broken up by age groups.  In addition, titles to catch boy’s interests are also promoted.  If you have run out of titles to recommend to your young reader, this website is well worth the visit.

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