Dear Parents, Hi!

My name is Libby Bouma and I am incredibly excited be student teaching in your chi lds class with Mrs. Dodd for seven weeks after Spring Break. Following student teaching, I will be graduating from Drake University with a Masters of Science in Teaching degree in elementary education with an endorsement in special education. Prior to graduate school, I spent several years as a social worker serving children of all ages. Throughout my time at Drake, I have had the pleasure of working with children in a special education classroom consisting of first through sixth graders, a kindergarten classroom, two first grade classrooms, a second grade classroom, a fourth grade classroom, and a sixth grade science classroom. Together, these experiences have helped prepare me to work in my true calling as a teacher. This spring I hope to learn a lot not only from my mentor teachers, but from your child as well. I look forward to getting to know your child and meeting you throughout the semester! I welcome any questions or comments in hopes that I can help you and your child continue to have a remarkable school year. If you have any questions, please contact Michelle Dodd at doddm@wdmcs.org.

Sincerely,

Mrs. Bouma

Email to colleague Hi Mrs. McNamara, Mrs. Dodd informed me that you have taught a lesson using Oobleck with a previous first grade class. I am interested in teaching a similar lesson with her class during their solids and liquids unit. I thought it would be fun to read Dr. Seuss' book Bartholomew and the Oobleck and then make the substance in class. After making the substance, I would ask inquiry based questions to create higher order thinking as to if Oobleck is a solid or a liquid. I am most curious as to the structure of your lesson and any insight and feedback that would help me plan my lesson and implementing the lesson. I would also be interested in using the Oobleck recipe if you have found one that has worked well for you. Thanks so much! Libby Bouma

Welcome to 3rd Grade!

Hi! My name is Mrs. Bouma and I am so excited to be a part of the third grade team this year. More importantly though, I am thrilled to be your teacher! Its going to be a fun school year filled with lots of learning and fun adventures. This year we will work with fractions and geometry, Earth and space, economics, the human body and how the world works, all through the wonderful teachings of reading and writing. Reading and writing are my passion and I cannot wait to share what I know with you. This year we will engage in multiple activities that include writing workshops, interactive read alouds, readers theater, and roll-a-story. We will also take a look at the many strategies involved in reading and writing including comprehension, predicting, persuasive writing, decoding, making inferences, letter writing, and so many more. Dont be afraid if you dont know what those are yet you will! Our classroom has a wonderful library filled with books for every reader. This library is open to everyone and I encourage all of my students to borrow books of their choice to expand their reading. With this library, I also have the Daily five in our classroom. For those of you who may not know, the Daily Five is a great way to keep literature alive in the classroom on a daily basis. Read to Self- Reading with someone is a fabulous opportunity for students to partner up and read any book in our library. This center focuses on building students fluency and accuracy, while building classroom community.

Listen to Reading- In this center, students will have the opportunity to us the iPad, iPod, or cd player to listen to a book. This is a great way to read challenging text and beneficial for both the higher-level learner and struggling learner.

Writing Workshop- Using markers, colored pencils, sparkly pens and fun paper, our writing center allows students to write stories, letters, book reports and much more! Word Work- Using scrabble tiles, stamps, and whiteboards, this center allows students to learn new words in a unique way. Work with Teacher- This gives me the opportunity to work with small guided reading groups to work on a specific reading strategy such as comprehension, non-fiction reading, synthesizing, finding key words, authors intention, and more. I look forward to our school year ahead and look forward to opening up your world to the love of literacy and how fantastic it can be in our every day lives. Please check out my blog at https://sites.google.com/site/classroomliteracysite/ to learn more about what the year has in store for us all.

Cheers to a fantastic year and see you soon!

Mrs. Bouma