Dear Parents,

Welcome to First Grade and the 2014-2015 school year! You will be amazed at just how much your child will grow this year. You will see changes in your child’s thinking as he/she becomes familiar with abstract concepts and symbols. You will see your child’s literacy skills develop. The transition from kindergarten to first grade will take some time and adjustments. Students will have to learn to focus longer and adjust to working independently at times. Individual responsibility also increases from kindergarten to first grade.

Our first few weeks of school will involve many activities to help us get to know each other, develop caring respectful relationships, establish a routine with procedures, and learn our school rules, as well as a review of what he/she learned in kindergarten. I would like to take this opportunity to explain my classroom management and provide some important information about what to expect in the next couple of weeks.

As well as general information about our classroom, this folder contains valuable information about our class and school, the rules and policies, homework routine, grading scale, and other items that you need to be aware of. Please read it carefully and sign and return all papers that need your attention. Return all signed papers in this folder by Monday, August 20th. I encourage you to keep this information to refer to throughout the year.

My main goal is for every child to achieve his/her potential and have a positive learning experience. If, at any time, you have questions concerning our class procedures or your child’s progress in school, please contact the office or me to plan a conference time so that we can work together to reach that goal. You can email me at . You can also download spelling and vocabulary lists and practice many first grade skills by visiting the school website, Click on the Oneonta Elementary School tab. Then, click on School Staff in the red box on the left. Scroll down and choose my name. Lists are found by clicking on Forms.

First grade is the foundation for your child’s future learning. Working together we can help your child have a great start. I am looking forward to a fantastic school year!

Sincerely,

Mrs. Phillips

First GradeGeneral Information

  • Absences and Tardiness –Please have your child in the school building before the first bell rings at 7:40 a.m. The tardy bell rings at 7:45, and I am scheduled to begin reading instruction at 7:50. Students need to be in the classroom by the first bell in order to have time to unpack and write their assignments in their agenda. If your child is tardy in the morning, not only do they miss important instruction, it is hard for them to catch up and focus on the lesson. Afternoon pickup for car riders is 2:45 p.m. in front of the school, and bus riders will be walked to the buses at the same time. A parent note or doctor’s excuse is needed for any day your child is absent if it is to be marked as excused. Please refer to the school handbook regarding the number of excuses permitted throughout the year. If your child cannot be in the classroom by 7:45 a.m. any day, they must first go by the office for a tardy slip.
  • Transportation: Car riders will be assigned new numbers this year. Begin now to help your child memorize their car or bus number. If your child is to go home in a manner other than the routine listed on the classroom transportation form, you MUSTsend me a note. Teachers can NOT change transportation plans without written consent.
  • Breakfast/Lunch: Students may bring or purchase their lunch. Student lunches are $2.50. Please send lunch money weekly or monthly, and it will be sent to the lunchroom to be deposited into your child’s account. If your child brings their lunch, they may purchase milk at school. On Fridays students are able to purchase ice cream with their lunch. The cost of ice cream is 50 cents. Please do not send any canned soft drinks in lunches. If you would like to come and have lunch with us, you may do so at any time after the first two weeks of school. Visitor lunches are $3.50. Please be sure to stop by and sign in at the elementary office and meet us in the hall outside the nurse’s office. Breakfast is also available. The cost is $1.25. Always send money in a sealed envelope with your child’s name, lunch number, amount enclosed, and what it is for! This is so helpful and ensures that your money is credited to your child.
  • Water/Afternoon Snack: Hydration is very important for proper brain function. Please send a water bottle that your child can drink from throughout the day to help keep them hydrated. Also, each day please send a healthy snack in a small bag or container with your child’s name on it. Please choose a snack that your child can easily open and eat within 10 minutes with little mess.
  • Classroom Management: Your child deserves the most positive educational climate possible for academic growth. In order to develop this environment in the classroom, I use an assertive discipline program with students emphasizing personal responsibility. I am always on the lookout to “catch students being good” and reinforce that behavior. When negative behavior does occur, the consequences stress self-reflection. Our classroom rules are simple andfocus on respect for self, others, and property, and safety of self and others. I appreciate your follow-up at home with discipline, as it is crucial to maintaining standards for behavior in school. There are many positive rewards for students who consistently follow the rules, including praise, notes home, teacher tickets, and prizes.
  • Agenda and Folders: Each morning your child will copy their homework into their agenda, and I will check it. Each night when your child has completed their homework, please sign your name in the same column for that date. Your child should bring home their agenda and two folders each night, a take-home folder and homework folder. The Reading Street homework that your child is to read to you should be in the pocket of the homework folder unless it is a story in the hard-cover reading book. On those nights, it will be listed in the agenda and should be in your child’s backpack. There will also be an Accelerated Reader Practice Sheet where you will list the AR book that your child reads to you for homework. The Take-Home folder will contain school work, handouts, and notes of correspondence, as well as their conduct/homework chart. Please clean out your child’s folder each night and go over papers inside. If you have any notes or lunch money to return to school, please place them in this folder because I will check this folder each morning. I have stapled a conduct sheet to the folder on the return side. Please leave this sheet stapled in the folder.
  • ReadingHomework: First grade uses the Reading Street program. Your child will be reading material based on his/her reading level. We will have weekly comprehension tests on skills taught during the week, and we will have benchmark tests at the end of each unit. I also use the Accelerated Reading Program to promote reading progress. This is an enrichment program in which students read trade books and take a test on a classroom computer to chart comprehension. In first grade, the Accelerated Reading test scores do not affect the student’s reading grade; however, because consistent practice is so important to reading success, the AR form is used in conjunction with other homework to determine homework grades. The AR goal for the first half of the year is for students to read their library book nightly and pass a test on at least three AR books each week. After Christmas the goal will increase to five books each week. When your child reads a book at home, please write the date,the title of the book, check whether he/she is ready to test, andsign the form. Please fill out this form nightly (even if your child is re-reading the same book they read the previous night) and leave the sheet stapled inside the folder.You can usually determine whether your child is ready to take an AR test on the book by questioning them after they have read to you or by having them retell the story in their own words. I encourage you to give your child all the help he/she needs, especially at the beginning of the year. However, as they become better readers, I hope you will expect them to read more independently. First grade is a very important time in a child’s reading development. The more they read, the better readers they become. We place so much emphasis on reading skills because the ability to read fluently and with understanding affects students’ later success in all content areas. The library does not usually allow students to check out books until about the third week of school, so students will not have AR homework until that time.After the first few weeks of school, reading homework will follow a pretty standard routine. Please sign your child’s agenda each night after you have listened to your child read to you.
  • English/Writing: Your child will be studying sentences, sentence parts, capital letters, end mark punctuation, and some parts of speech, such as nouns, verbs, and adjectives. He/she will also be writing sentences and stories. We will have weekly tests on these skills. As the first grading period progresses, I will also begin to give grades on sentence writing.
  • Spelling Tests: I do not assign written spelling homework; however, we practice spelling words at school, and I hope you will also study the spelling words with your child each week. Your child will have a spelling test each Thursday. I will send a list of spelling words for the unit home before the first test, and they will be listed weekly on the newsletter. You can also view the spelling lists on our class website and play games with the words using the Spelling City link.
  • Handwriting: I expect my students to do their best handwriting and to do their work as neatly as possible. In handwriting grades of S, N, and U are given: S = Satisfactory, N = Needs Improvement, and U = Unsatisfactory. A handwriting grade will be given weekly.
  • Math: Our math text, Go Math! By Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, is aligned with Common Core State Standards. The new state standards focus on teaching students to examine problems and make sense of number tasks. Students are encouraged to use modeling, appropriate tools, and reasoning to solve problems. I want my students to understand what they are doing so that they can build on that understanding. In first grade we learn many new math skills. Besides adding and subtracting, students must be able to skip count easily by twos, fives, and tens, tell time to the hour and half hour, use different forms of measurement, complete and read various graphs, identify fractions, and compare numbers. These are only some of the math skills that we will cover. Your child will engage in many hands-on learning activities as well as pencil and paper tasks. Please go over any pages your child has completed at school. If you see an area with which your child is having difficulty, please practice those skills at home. Our class webpage has several links to math sites that can help your child practice these skills.
  • Grading: Please check your child’s folder every night for papers and notes that are sent home. Your child will begin receiving numerical grades this year. Any paper that has a numerical grade on it was recorded and will count toward his/her average for the quarter. Other papers will receive the following:

Evaluation Key
/ Excellent/Mastered Skill Consistently
/ Good/Improving in Skill Area
/ Unsatisfactory/Having Difficulty with Skill

*Papers that are completed together in class or as a whole group activity will not receive a grade of any kind. This work is done together, and we go over the answers as we work through the activity or problem. Only independent work will be graded.

  • Conduct/Homework Grades: Your child will receive a homework grade this year. Each night homework is not completed, one point will be deducted from their overall grade. Your signature is part of your child’s homework grade, as it is the only way I know the homework was completed. Students willbegin each quarter with 100 points in conduct and 100 points in homework. For each card pulled and each assignment missed, one point will be deducted from the 100 points in each category for the semester. Each Friday I will record your child’s cumulative conduct and homework grades on the form in the Take-Home folder. You will need to sign this sheet and leave it in your child’s folder.
  • Report Cards: Your child will receive four report cards this year, one each quarter. Your child will receive a numerical grade in spelling, reading, math and English/grammar. Please remember that your child must receive a 70 or above in reading and math to be promoted to second grade. For science, handwriting, health, and social studies, your child will receive an S, N, or U.
  • Birthdays: Birthdays may be celebrated during snack time, and you may bring or send a special healthy treat for our class.
  • Conferences: Please send me a note or email if you need to schedule a conference. My planning time is from 11:35-12:05 each day while my students are at P.E. My email address is , or you can follow the link from our class webpage at

______

Student ______

Please sign and return this portion of this note indicating you have received and read Mrs. Phillips’ General Information: ______