Please visit the following blog for daily information from Mrs. Wahr’s and Mrs. Dufendach’s classrooms.  Since we team teach, all information regarding calendar, homework, expectations, and helpful links can be found there.

Wahr/Dufendach Team Blog

Over the Rainbow-What a Wonderful World     

Hi!  

      Here you will find a little information about me and the team teaching set-up for this school year!  I have been teaching in Coopersville for twenty-four years.  I have taught first grade, third grade, and fifth grade.  This is my 14th year teaching fifth graders.   I am team teaching with Mrs. Dufendach this school year and will be teaching mainly math, science, and grammar to both of our classes.  Students from my class will benefit from Mrs. Dufendach’s reading, writing, spelling, and social studies lessons.    We still do birthday celebrations, parties, and keep track of the Reading Counts program in our own classrooms.

     I live in Norton Shores (Muskegon) with my husband who teaches at the Muskegon Career Tech Center.  My two daughters and their husbands have blessed us with five wonderful grandchildren from the ages of one to sixteen years old.  We enjoy camping on beautiful Round Lake in Fountain, Michigan and spending time with our family.  I also love Karaoke and bring my machine and CD’s into school for our fifth grade “Fun Friday” hour where kids who have completed all their work for the week can sing with their friends. 

    I have my Masters Degree from GVSU and have almost completed my hours needed for my doctorate degree.  I often have student teachers from GVSU as well as student helpers from the middle school and high school to help out in class.  I feel this helps encourage many young people to get into education or similar professions teaching others.  I am happy to have parent volunteers in the classroom if we can find a need not already filled by these students.  This is sometimes difficult since too many helpers in the classroom raises the noise level and confusion.  I do appreciate a parent volunteer to teach Junior Achievement, and count on parents to donate food for parties and items for the classroom.  Keep in mind, though, that fifth graders are starting to feel their independence and prefer to serve themselves and do parties and many other things without their parents’ help, this often includes our holiday parties.  Don’t be surprised if you attend a party and are more of an observer than a participant.  It goes with the need to feel grown-up of fifth graders!

    My main concern is making all students feel safe and like part of the classroom community.  My hope is that when incidents do occur, and they will, that my students can learn and grow from their experiences, learning to accept others and to make good choices themselves.  I also want all students to succeed.  Toward this endeavor, I provide study guides before all science tests, we keep math journals of our daily math that students can use as a reference tool during assessments, and students are encouraged (and often required) to fix all papers with a “C” grade or below to improve their grade.  If students do their work in a timely fashion and take advantage of all that is offered to them in class, they should be successful!  I don’t assign extra credit for kids to “catch up” a grade; it isn’t needed, and one assignment doesn’t usually change a grade by much.

   I encourage parent involvement and support when it comes to helping children develop a routine for doing homework and reading at home.  Also, it means a lot to the students when a parent wants to look over their work in the evening, offering suggestions for improvement or helping clarify a misunderstanding.  It is sad when kids won’t take their papers home or remove them from their organizer because no one cares about what work they did at school.  I know parents care, not all kids know it.   I do not encourage parents to take over the responsibilities that should be left to the child.  These include keeping their organizer clean, doing work for them instead of with them, even coming to school and picking up lunch boxes and cleaning out children’s lockers on a regular basis.  If you have a child that needs more parenting to be responsible, let’s work together to set up a plan for it.  You are welcome to come and monitor your child after school as he cleans his own locker, or to ask your child to please find all papers that you need to see from the organizer.  Together, I’m hoping we can help your child grow to her own potential.  A lot of growth and maturity is needed this year, the last year of elementary school. 

      For weekly up-do-date information, including the newsletters, please go to our team blog.   If you wish to contact me you can call 997-3168 or e-mail me at CWahr@coopersville.k12.mi.us.  If you have a change in arrangements for pick-up or the ride home at the end of the day, please call Sandy Eisen in the office at 997-3100 to insure the message gets through in a timely manner.