We are EXCITED!! We’ve teamed up with the first graders in Mrs. Koops’ class and we’re ready to kick out some major kindness for kids this Christmas season. Tomorrow marks the start of our Christmas Kindness Project 2015, benefitting the children at the Helen DeVos Children’s Hospital.
Bentheim is a special little place on the planet. It is full of incredible families who are raising kiddos with indescribably big hearts. I’m talking HUGE. They are full of joy and go out of their way to make others feel special.
With that said, we are on the brink of a special time in first grade. Here’s a peek at tree. Every good story starts at the beginning. Here’s ours…. The tree is bare underneath, but I predict it won’t look like this for long. :)
Follow our collection journey as we seek to bring joy to others.
Oh, we love, love, LOVE Thanksgiving in first grade! This is a big deal in the Fab Firsties room! We throw a little *big* shindig every year and the Fab Firsties take center stage. None of our celebration happens without them!
First, every student gets the honor of inviting a special guest to our Feast. They make formal invitations to each special guest. They also make sure that our superintendent, principal, secretary, custodians, lunch ladies and paraprofessionals receive formal invites, too. The more the merrier! :)
On Monday, November 24th we spent the entire day prepping for our big Feast. We started with getting ready and really feeling the *chef* role. :) The children had to prepare special gifts for the guests and scrub and wrap potatoes. They had to make homemade applesauce, pumpkin pie filling and over a hundred mini pumpkin pie crusts…from scratch, of course! The children made jello with strawberries and wrapped silverware. They whipped up 12 dozen cornbread muffins and were plain ole tuckered out from the busy of the day! Here are some pics of the prep time!
Check out all these darling chefs!
After all that prep work, Tuesday, November 25th rolled around. It was FEAST DAY! The turkeys, all 42 pounds of them, were roasting. The classroom was all decorated and place settings were ready. We chilled out for a bit together as a little group of Pilgrims. :) We celebrated all our preparation and enjoyed a sweet little Thanksgiving book, One is a Feast for Mouse. It’s darling. Check it out and add it fast to your collection. Darling.
Our guests arrived and the children gave them a little treat. :) Enjoy a video of their poem “The First Thanksgiving” and special thanks to Cora’s mom for capturing it on video. :)
We feasted, we dined and we made memories with our special guests. Enjoy these festive shots!
Special thanks to my treasured husband, Mr. Josh. He was our turkey carver extraordinaire. I’m so thankful to do things like this with him by my side. :)
This day was amazing. Thank you to all the families who donated items to the feast and who selflessly gave of their time to pull this whole thing off. I’m thankful for it all and the gift it all was to my students and me. Thanks for the memories!
This fall has certainly brought some wonderful weather our way! We’ve had a little of everything from warm and sunny, big ole raindrops, and fresh layers of snow. All these changes have brought some amazing weather shows and some of the Fab Firsties have captured them for the class!
A couple weeks ago we had SIGNIFICANT wind…to the tune of 60+ mph gusts! Ben, his bro and his mom captured these videos of Lake Michigan in South Haven. AMAZING!
Last week we had some heavy rain and in its wake was an amazing double rainbow. Cora and her mom captured these photos of this sight by their house and so did I! :)
Veterans Day 2015 marked a special day in first grade! We were blessed with a couple fantastic Veteran visitors!
Our first guest was Mr. Gord Kempkers. He described his experience in the United States Armed Forces. He was drafted into the Korean War. He told us he had just gotten married when he had to leave. He was worried and scared if anything were to happen to him and leave his new wife alone, but he trusted that God was going to take care of him. Mr. Kempkers told the class about the food he ate while he was overseas. Most of his food came in sealed plastic bags or cans and he had to eat everything with little wooden spoons. He smiled as he told the story of meeting his wife for dinner in Hawaii after he was discharged from the service. They sat down to eat and he found real silverware clumsy and heavy and it was a challenge to use his knife and fork because he had used a spoon for so long! The class also loved his stories about bathing in the river and sometimes using soap…only when the soldiers received it in the mail! Thank you, Mr. Kempkers, for your service to our country and to our classroom! We LOVED meeting you and hearing your stories of service!
Our second Veteran guest was Mrs. Linda Joliff. She served in the Air Force. She worked in the offices and did payroll. She told the kids that everyone loved her because her job was to write their checks! :) On her trip to Texas to the base she arrived just after dinner was served and missed her first meal and never had dinner on her flight. She had to wait until breakfast the next morning! But, as hungry as she was, a cool thing happened after breakfast her first day on base. A representative came to the base to seek out new members for the Drum and Bugle Corps. Guess what? Mrs. Joliff had 6 years of french horn experience under her belt and she was invited to be part of the D&B Corps! She got to play for all sorts of important leaders when they visited the base! She also told the class that she only had 6 minutes to get ready every morning! That included changing from pjs into clothes, making her bed, washing her face, brushing her teet and getting all of her long, long, long hair brushed and pinned up on top of her head! They were amazed! Thank you, Mrs. Joliff, for your service to our country and to our classroom. We LOVED meeting you and hearing your stories of service!
Before we knew it the leaves changed from green to shades of autumn, the calendar switched from September to October, Parent-Teacher Conferences were all wrapped up and November was knocking on the door. That means…HARVEST PARTY TIME!
To kick things off we *had* to make a special spidery snack for Mrs. Z.’s birthday. :)
After we were sufficiently fueled it was time to party! :) We enjoyed ice cream sundaes (yes, more party fuel!) and then hit the games hard. Our afternoon was filled with some rousing rounds of “Bobbing for Donuts” and “Mummy Races” to celebrate Halloween and fall harvest! Enjoy!
OOHHH!!! WE LOVE VIP DAY! We welcomed Moms and Dads, Grandmas and Grandpas into our classroom and they got to experience a bit of first grade! Together students and VIPs compared life in first grade now and what it was like for the VIPs when they were in first grade. We found out that Deakin’s Grandpa went to school in our sweet little Bentheim Elementary and he shared how much things had changed since his time there! Fascinating! VIPs also got to travel with students to Info Tech where they got to help check out library books and work on a project using our tablets. We had a great morning together and memories were certainly made! Take a peek at these beaming Fab Firsties!
In our local community of Holland there is this incredible corner of the world called the Outdoor Discovery Center. This nature preserve is incredible! If you’re ever in our neck of the woods you must plan a visit. There are beautiful trails and habitats, animals, including live birds of prey and a beautiful new Visitor Center. Click this link below to visit the ODC’s website.
Hamilton Community Schools has a fantastic relationship with the ODC. Our Little Hawks Preschool and the 7th/8th grade STREAM School all take place at and in partnership with the ODC. Hamilton first graders get the unique opportunity to take three field trips to the ODC, spanning the seasons of the academic year. These visits provide connections to our science curriculum while given us first-hand experience with changes in nature over time. For our fall visit we explored the wetlands and the meadow habitats and we’ll check changes in these areas when we visit again in the winter and spring seasons.
Enjoy some of our shots from this trip! And…get yourself to the ODC stat! It’s a little piece of heaven on earth!
October 2, 2015 was a BUSY day! Not only was it World Smile Day 2015, but it was also…
BENTHEIM HAWK WALK 2015!
We had a BEAUTIFUL day for this event! This is our only PTO fundraiser for the year and it is always an incredible event! All the Bentheim students and teachers walk, jog and dance on the Bentheim playground track for an hour. The event is made possible by our fantastic PTO and the generosity of local businesses and individuals.
Here’s the Fab Firsties crew ready to Hawk Walk it up!
Smiling!
READY TO HAWK WALK!
Take a peek at our Hawk Walk shots. Thanks to all the sponsors of and donors to this event! You are blessing our sweet school immensely!
Special thanks to Mr. Josh for being our Hawk Walk DJ. You’re amazing. Thanks for doing life with me. #teachershusbandsrock
The iconic smiley face above was created by Harvey Ball in 1963. Since its creation it has been a symbol of happiness, goodwill and good cheer. Over the years, however, Ball was concerned that the meaning beyond the cheerful graphic was getting lost. He wanted to ensure that people wouldn’t forget kindness in everyday life. That desire brought about World Smile Day! Celebrated first in 1999, Ball’s dream was to have at least one day set aside every year to make others smile and be a day full of acts of kindness. World Smile Day is always celebrated on the first Friday in October and you can read more about it here if you’d like. :)
To celebrate, we made created a special writing project chock full of things that make us smile. Oh, what joy abounded as the children shared their hearts. Everything from family to pets to macaroni made the lists. One in particular stole my heart…
Check out these World Smile Day Ambassadors for 2015.
One of our FAVE famous Americans to study is Johnny Appleseed. We learned about his gentle, helpful heart, his incredible love of apples and his dream of spreading delicious apples as pioneers traveled west across the United States.
We celebrated this man with a good ole slice of caramel apple pie, delivered by Mr. Josh! :) (If you’ve never had this pie, you must, and I mean MUST, run to Meijer immediately and get it in your cart. One sniff of the deliciousness through the box and it will take every ounce of willpower to not eat it in the parking lot. I’m serious. It’s that’s great.) The kids enjoyed the pie immensely!
Check out their smiles with their Johnny Appleseed frying pan hats. Oh, and check out the one piece of pie that is almost completely devoured. The kiddo that belonged to this pie declared (a few bites from the end mind you) that she didn’t really like the pie. I dare say the evidence, or lack thereof, speaks for itself. :)
