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Weekly Announcements
March 31, 2008
Dear Parents:
My how time flies! With only 4 days until Spring Break, we are working hard to prepare for CRCT. Each day we practice our test-taking skills in reading, language, and math, as well as continue to practice our math facts—we have some students who are almost to Home Plate! Please keep working with your child to help them successfully complete all 12 fact tables. I am so proud of each child’s hard work and I know they can do it!
So that we don’t forget the skills we’ve been practicing, I will be sending home a Spring Break Packet to work on over the break. The packet is meant to keep each child’s skills fresh and to continue to alleviate any stress they may be feeling—the more practice they have, the better! The packet will come home Friday afternoon, and should be returned on Monday, April 11, 2008, for a participation grade of 100. Packets not returned will be issued a 0. I am not grading for accuracy: I anticipate that you will help your child work through their answers and choose the correct ones. Thank you for helping!
Have a great week! ~C.King
Here’s What’s Happening in Our Room This Week:
Reading Grammar Phonics
The Puddle Past Tense Verbs Review
Math Social Studies
Wrap-up Fractions Test-Taking Skills
Story Words: angry, nearly, sorry, okay
October 19, 2007
Dear Parents:
As we continue to work with your children, we continue to shape a curriculum for each individual child tailored to their learning level. In an on-going effort to meet the needs of each child, first grade will begin flexible grouping on Tuesday, October 23, 2007.
Flexible grouping allows educators to remediate or extend curriculum to enable the success of each child. For 50 minutes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, your child may go to another first grade teacher for instruction in language arts to review concepts in reading, phonics, grammar, or writing. As students grow and change, they are able to “flex” to other groups.
There are no grades given, and each lesson is designed specifically for that flexible group. The activities your child will participate in are meant to enrich them, excite them, and challenge them.
We are excited to begin working with students outside our homerooms and we hope that the use of flexible grouping will continue to inspire your child’s love of learning. Thank you for your support and please contact us if you have any questions!
~The First Grade Teachers
Fall Celebration Time!
Our room will be celebrating Fall on
Wednesday, October 31st, 2007
From 11:30-12:30.
We will enjoy four centers full of fun, including:
1. Creating a creepy popcorn hand, complete with candy corn nails and a spider ring!
2. Making faces on small pumpkins with marshmallows, raisins, licorice, and more…
3. Making and taking foam scarecrows
or jack-o-lanterns.
4. Eating “dirt pudding!”
To help us have all this fun, please send in a small pumpkin this week for your child to decorate.
Our room mom, Carol Hamlin, will be contacting everyone for volunteers to help run our centers
and send in any additional supplies.
Thank you for all your help!
Happy Fall, Ya’ll!!
September 21, 2007
Dear Parents:
The First Grade teachers are continually looking for ways to challenge each child. With that in mind, we will no longer send home a spelling list each Friday for your child to review over the weekend. Rather, each child will be “cold” tested on Mondays. If your child does not miss any spelling words on Monday, they do not have homework during the week and they do not take the spelling test on Friday. They will receive a 100 for the week.
If your child misses any words on the “cold” test, they will practice only those words they missed for homework and they will be re-assessed on Friday and given their final grade for the week.
Finally, in regards to how we assess each spelling test, please help your child remember the following:
-1 point for any backwards letters
-1 point for any improperly capitalized letters: only capital letters at the beginning of special names (Matt, Christmas, etc.).
We hope this will continue to challenge each child and be an accurate reflection of what each student is capable of. Thank you for all your help and please let us know if you have questions!
~The First Grade Teachers
Be sure to check out our class website at:
http://www.cowetaschools.org/eses/cking/default.htm
Procedures and Expectations
2007-2008 School Year
Dear Parents:
Welcome to First Grade! This is sure to be an exciting year in your child’s education. I wanted to take this time to express to you how excited I am to be your child’s guide through this very important and rewarding year.
In this letter, you will find an overview of school hours, arrival/dismissal procedures, attendance policy, meals/snacks, birthdays and special parties, personal items, homework binders, parent-teacher communication folders, and behavior policies.
First grade is a very big year for you and your child, and while we do have a great deal of goals to achieve this year, I know that we will all work together to help your child succeed. I appreciate your time and concerns, and please feel free to contact me through the front office or e-mail, which you will find at the end of this letter. Once again, I am thoroughly excited and proud to be your child’s teacher and know that this year will be a positive and rewarding experience for all of us.
Read on to find out more about what’s happening in first grade this year!
JJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJ School Hours
School hours are from 8:00am-2:30pm. Students who come to school after 8:00am must check in at the front office for a late slip before going to class. Check-outs after 2pm are not permitted.
Arrival/Dismissal Procedures
To insure the safety of all Elm Street students, all car riders will be brought to the front of the main building. Buses will be unloading in the back of the main building in front of the kindergarten building. No cars are allowed in this area at any time.
It is extremely important for me to know how your child is going home each day. Elm Street MUST have a written note from home if your child is to go home a different way than his or her regular routine. This includes riding home with friends or riding in a car rather than a bus. We cannot allow your child to go home a different way unless we have a note from you.
All early dismissals must be cleared through the front office. No child may be picked up at the room or at the bus loading area out back. It is a necessary safety precaution that no cars are allowed in this area during arrival or dismissal time. I appreciate your compliancy with these policies.
Absences
When your child is out of school, please send a written excuse the next day. If he or she is to have an extended absence, please let me know. I am willing to work with you and your child to insure they do not fall behind; however, make-up work cannot be made up unless an excused absence is provided. Please refer to the Elm Street Elementary Student Handbook for clarification on excused and unexcused absences.
Meals and Snacks
Breakfast and lunch are served daily. The price of breakfast is .80 daily. Breakfast is served from 7:30am-7:55am. The price of lunch is $1.75 daily or $8.75 weekly.
Please send your child’s lunch money in an ENVELOPE labeled with his or her name. Parents or relatives may join students for lunch, and I encourage you to do so. This is a wonderful opportunity for you to visit with your child, as well as see our classroom and what we are working on. And as always, it makes the children feel very special and loved to have a visitor. The price of adult lunch is $2.50. There is a “special” place on the stage for students and their visitors to eat lunch.
Ice cream is served everyday and the cost is $0.50 for regular ice cream and $1.00 for novelty ice creams. Ice cream money can be sent in on a daily basis and will be your child’s responsibility.
We will have a scheduled snack break every day during the morning hours. Snack time is very important to your child’s nutrition, growth and development in relation to physical and social aspects, as well as your child’s ability to concentrate on the tasks at hand.
**Please remember to send a snack with your child EVERY DAY.**
If you do not pack a snack everyday, please be sure to contribute to our snack cabinet.
I encourage you to pack something nutritious that does not contain a great deal of sugar, for sugar will only tire your child in the long run, making concentration difficult.
Also, please do not pack a drink for your child for snack time. I would like each child to use their water bottle with a pop-top lid to use during this time. This will allow us to avoid messy spills and sticky situations and keep our new carpet looking great! Thank you for your understanding.
Birthdays and Special Celebrations
I would love for your child to share his or her birthday with our class; this is indeed a very special part of growing up. If you wish to provide cake/cupcakes/snack in celebration of your child’s birthday, please contact me ahead of time. Also, please do not send party invitations to be passed out during class time (see school handbook).
We will have several celebrations during the year: Fall Festival, Winter Celebration, and a Mexican Fiesta.
Our room mother will contact you on what supplies or materials are needed to make these celebrations fun and engaging for your child.
Personal Items
As you know, children have a way of misplacing their things. With that in mind, please try to label everything your child brings to school, including: coats, backpacks, school supplies, water bottle, lunchboxes, etc. This way if something is lost and then found, I can return it to its rightful owner.
Homework Binder
I will send home a weekly homework calendar to serve as a guide that includes reviewing sight words, reading the weekly story at night, as well as spelling. This will go in your child’s homework binder.
Please use the binder to hold all spelling lists, reading stories, sight words, homework, and agenda.
I will also use this binder to send home any papers from me or the school office. This binder MUST be returned EVERYDAY. It is very important that you help your child complete these goals. First graders need a great deal of reiteration, and their homework will help serve this purpose.
Agendas
Your child will also receive an agenda. Every day, your child will write down any homework assignments, as well as their behavior color for the day. I will use this agenda for day-to-day correspondence with you. It is you and your child’s responsibility to check the agenda every night, sign it, and return it to school the next day with your child.
Weekly Folders
Every Friday, I will send home a folder that will consist of your child’s test scores from the week before, as well as a classroom newsletter, new spelling list, and homework calendar, as well as any work your child did the previous week. This folder will also give your child’s conduct grade for the week. It is your responsibility to sign it and send it back on Mondays. The purpose of this folder is a school-wide initiative to promote parent-teacher communication in a clear, uniform manner. I hope you find it valuable and informative.
Behavior Policy
Good behavior and responsibility are extremely important in our classroom. The less time we spend taking care of disruptions, the more time we have to learn and enjoy school.
Rules:
1. Respect yourself and others
Consequences:
*One warning will be given when a rule is broken. The child has the chance to correct their own behavior.
*Second warning—the child will pull their orange card, lose their daily penny, and one point deducted from the 100 point nine week conduct grade.
*Third Warning—the child will pull their yellow card, lose a privilege to be determined by the teacher, and another point deducted from the conduct grade.
*Fourth Warning—child will pull their red card, be removed from the group, and will telephone their parents.
Please also remember your child has the opportunity to earn a penny for each day they end on green. Pennies can be traded in for larger coins and each month we will have Market Day to shop!
Curriculum:
As mentioned earlier, there is a great deal of curriculum to cover in first grade. Reiteration and remediation are crucial for committal to long-term memory.
Reading:
To assess your child’s reading level, I will issue a Basic Literacy Test (BLT) at the beginning of the year, and then another at the end of the school year. This test will assess your child’s phonemic awareness, sight word recognition, and reading fluency. It will indicate what reading level your child is on, and therefore allow me to create lessons to meet your child’s needs.
First grade also utilizes the STAR test. We will give this test in August, January, and again in May. This test is computer-based, also testing fluency, word recognition, as well as comprehension. This test will be used to diagnose your child’s Accelerated Reader level. Your child will then be able to read books on their level and take a computer-issued comprehension test after each book.
I also do small group reading each day, assuring that your child gets the individual instruction they need to be successful in reading. Through a Basal Reading Series, we will cover the Quality Core Curriculum mandated by the state of Georgia. We will use this series to increase phonemic awareness and fluency, read for meaning, recall information for critical analysis, as well as sentence construction, research, grammar and mechanics, and writing (www.doe.k12.ga.us, 2004).
Math:
Math is very hands-on in First Grade. By the end of the year, your child will be able to add and subtract two digit numbers, identify plane and solid shapes, skip count by 2’s, 5’s, and 10’s to 100, use estimation strategies, construct graphs and interpret data therein, tell time to the hour and half-hour, and identify coins and count money.
While we do have a workbook series that we use weekly, many of our math lessons are focused on using our hands, working with partners, acting out, and problem solving. These methods allow exploration and understanding, rather than rote memorization.
Science and Social Studies:
We cover several units in this area, including: Maps and Globes; Citizenship; Families; Sound; Magnetism; Animals; and Weather. Your child will use inquiry to understand how to read a map, use books and other media to conduct research, and to describe objects, things, places, and people.
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As you can see, there is a great deal happening in first grade. Once again, I encourage you to contact me with any questions or concerns that you may have. I truly believe that there must open communication between the parents and teachers in order to maximize a student’s learning experience. I hope that all the information provided is clear and concise and leaves you feeling confidant about first grade.
I hope that I have eased any confusion or concerns that you may have had, and let’s work together to make this a fantastic year!
Sincerely,
Charlotte King
Charlotte.King@cowetaschools.org
Be sure to check out our class website at:
http://www.cowetaschools.org/eses/cking/default.htm
References:
Georgia Department of Education’s Content Descriptors for first grade. Retrieved November 9, 2004 from www.doe.k12.ga.us
