The ABCs of Mrs.

Schneiders Class

Absences:

Behavior:

If your child is absent, you will need to send a note the day that he/she will return so the absence can be excused. Make-up work will be placed in the childs unfinished work folder at school. The student will be responsible for completing the work and turning it in, in a weeks time. In order to provide our students with the excellent educational climate they deserve, the students and I will develop the classroom rules and promises together focusing on safety, respect, and responsibility. This year, I am going to try a new behavior management system. In the past, students have had cards and they turned their cards based on their behavior. Although this was helpful, I would like to try a system that is similar but allows for more positive reinforcement. This system is a Clip Chart and it promotes positive behavior and learning choices and encourages students to selfmonitor. In the beginning of the year, we will talk about and learn appropriate behavior, classroom expectations, and routines and procedures. How it works: Each student has a clothespin labeled with his/her name and begins each day clipped to the center of the chart that says Ready to Learn. This means that the student is doing what is expected of him/her. During the day, students have the opportunity to move their clothespin up or down the chart according to their behavioral choices. Positive behavior beyond what is expected allows the student to move up the chart one level. Inappropriate behavior causes the clothespin to move down one level. Students will never move more than one level at a time, except for EXTREME circumstances. Student might not move their clip every day. Advantages of the Clip Chart: Students are acknowledged for positive behavior choices. Students feel a sense of accomplishment when they make good behavior choices and have the opportunity to clip up. Students who have had to clip down always have the opportunity to improve and clip up later in the day. This helps them continue to stay motivated to make positive behavior choices. In your childs homework folder, there is a behavior log. If your child ends the day below ready to learn they will color in the box for the day so you know what color they finished on. If your child is on ready to learn or higher, your child will not color the box. Please speak with your child EACH night about the behavior for the day and initial their behavior log. If your child finished the day below ready to learn make sure to ask if there is a behavior note or reflection. If there is one and it is not signed and returned the next day, your child will be calling you from school to discuss their behavior the previous day.

If you have any questions, please dont hesitate to ask. Thank you in advance for helping to make the classroom a fun and safe environment for all children.

Outstanding!

Students who reach the Outstanding level will be rewarded for their positive choices by adding a decoration to their clip and putting their name on the good work grid Students who make positive choices will receive recognition as they move up the chart. Students who make positive choices will receive recognition as they move up the chart. Everyone starts the day Ready to Learn. Students can clip up or clip down throughout the day depending on their behavior choices. Students who receive a warning will move down. This serves as a reminder to students to think about the choices they make.

Great Job! Good Job! Ready to Learn!

Warning

Students who continue to make poor choices, will move to Think About It This Mrs. Schneiders will result in a break from the group until he/she is ready to follow the Choice classroom rules and procedures again. During this break they will fill out a quick behavior note home. Students who move to Parent Contact will write a detailed behavior reflection to be brought home and signed by the parent. It must be returned the following Parent Contact day. They may also call home during the day depending on the behavior, sit and reflect/work in another classroom for a short time, or go to the office. Conferences: If you would like to schedule a conference, please send a note with your child, e-mail, or call me. We will try to coordinate a time that is convenient for everyone involved. The school will have student-led conferences this year. We are excited about this new way of conferencing because it truly is student centered and the children are taking ownership of their work. Daily MITs (Specials): MIT Schedule Monday- 2:40- Science Tuesday-No MITs Wednesday-2:40- Music Thursday -1:50- PE (please wear sneakers!); 2:40- Media Friday- 2:40- Art Education: It is my goal to help students learn that education is essential to our everyday living and it can be a lot of fun! I will be looking for opportunities to guide students in areas of their personal interests.

Field Trips:

Grading:

Homework:

We will go on several field trips throughout the year. We are still in the planning stages now. If you wish to chaperone on any of the field trips, please go ahead and fill out a criminal background check. YOU MUST BE CLEARED TO CHAPERONE! As most of you know, our school uses the standards based method to assess children. Most work that comes home will have a P, P*, or NP. NP means your child needs practice on a skill or did not complete an assignment to show their ability. P means that the work is practice and they have done what is expected of them at the time. P* means the child independently went above and beyond what is expected and the work shows higher level thinking. Not all assignments will be formally marked. Often, I will review work orally. The discussion provides valuable feedback but cannot be assessed with a P, NP, P*. This work will come home without a mark on it. Please discuss the work with your child. Formal Assessments will be graded with a 1,2,3,4. 1 means that your child is having difficulty with that skill, needs a lot of assistance on that skill, and is not showing mastery. A 2 means that a child has not mastered the skill independently and may still need some assistance to correctly complete the work. A 3 means the skill has been mastered and can be done independently. Once mastered, the child will often complete work in ways that have been shown. A level 3 is what we want because in childs terms it means I get it and I can do it well. A level 4 means that the skill can be carried into other subjects and concepts without being explained. The relationship between concepts is independently figured out. The work goes above and beyond what is expected. At the Open House, I will address standards based grading more in depth. One thing to keep in mind with standards based grading is that children are assessed on their understanding of an objective and not the number of problems they got correct. We all need to celebrate the growth of a child such as going from not understanding what a character is to being able to tell about characters regardless of when they master the skill. By focusing on each childs individual growth, all children will feel successful and see that they can learn regardless of their grade. Each night (Monday through Thursday), your child will bring home their homework folder. Homework is sent home on Monday each week. Once an assignment has been completed, simply move it to the finished pocket of the folder. If you have a conflict/activity that prevents you from getting homework done one night, simply send in a note to let me know and complete it the following evening. Parents are encouraged to assist their child with homework, but remember it is their work. Homework, not including reading log, should take students 20 to 30 focused minutes. Students need to work in an uninterrupted, no distractions environment to complete their homework. Please try and help your child locate a designated homework area in your house that is free of distractions! Homework will be looked over and graded as complete or incomplete. I will then make notes on who needs extra practice on a skill. I will take the homework out of the folder on Friday. Homework will consist of reading, math, and spelling (or writing). Reading will include reading a passage a few times for fluency and then answering some questions to help practice comprehension. Fluency, which is reading smoothly, is very important for comprehending more challenging books. Please make sure your child reads the passages aloud to practice fluency. Spelling will include words following the phonics pattern for the week. Your child will have a list of activities to choose from in order to complete their spelling homework. Each activity has been given a certain amount of points. Each child is expected to complete at least 15 points. If your child is showing difficulty spelling

the words on the test, I may assign specific activities. Please help your child to attempt different spelling choices throughout the weeks. Math will be assigned to help practice skills previously taught in class. Most of the homework will follow the math program from the county. You will also find a reading log in your childs homework folder. Your child is required to read for 15-20 minutes each night and record in on their reading log. Parents should initial the log each night to verify that the child has read. This may stay in the homework folder. If you find it easier to keep at home, please let me know and return it when it is filled. Finally, this folder will also serve as an open line of communication between home and school. It will be checked each day, so please send any notes to me in this folder. Please put the notes on the top of the finished side, otherwise I may not see them. Interruptions: While I love for parents to visit, I must ask that you not come to class during the day to bring a forgotten item, lunchbox, etc. If you need to drop off an item, please leave it in the office and the office staff will let me know it needs to be picked up. Just for the Brain: Water Research shows that when children drink plenty of water it enhances the students learning. Therefore, everyone is allowed to have a small water bottle on his/her desk during the day. Please make sure that it is a bottle that can be closed tightly. If this becomes a distraction for the child, he/she will not be allowed to have a water bottle. Only water will be allowed NO JUICE OR GATORADE PLEASE! We will have a designated working snack time each day in our class. Please send a healthy snack that is easy to eat with your child every day to school. Snack will be important because we have a very late lunch. Make sure your childs snack is labeled with his/her name on it! Please be aware that your child will have a limited amount of time to eat especially if it is taking away from their work time. A list of suggested healthy snacks is below. Please try to avoid snacks with peanut butter due to the high level of peanut allergies in our school. Fruit slices, Pretzels, Goldfish, Raisins, Chex mix, Trail mix, Baby carrots, Animal crackers, Cereal (low sugar, please) Keeping Safe: Please make sure that your child has tennis shoes each day for recess and PE class. It is a school dress-code rule that flip flops are not allowed. Lunch: We will have lunch every day from 11:20-11:50. Because of the late lunch time, we will have a snack in the morning (See Just for the Brain!) If you would like to join your child for lunch please sign in at the office and meet us in the lobby or cafeteria. Please do not come to lunch for the first 2 weeks of school so we may establish routines. Monday Folders: Your child will bring home a Monday folder each week with the previous weeks classwork and news. Please fill out any forms inside and return the folder with your signature the next day. Please keep all classwork at home unless otherwise notified. Morning Meeting: Each morning, the children will gather together to greet share and bond with each other. This uninterrupted time is essential in building our classroom community. Please make sure your child is in the classroom by 9:05 since we will begin immediately. Sharing is an exciting part of morning meeting; however it often takes a long time. In order to stay on our academic schedule, I will assign children a day to share after the first week of school. It is not required to share. Sharing is limited to educational experiences and items that will enhance the curriculum or a personal current event that your child feels the need to share with the class. Please no toys, stuffed animals, movies, games, posters (unless educational) or topics that may put others down. Morning

Meeting will also include an activity for classroom bonding. We will end MM with calendar time and our math daily routines. This will also begin our daily math lesson. Once again it is important for your child to be at school ready to start at 9:15 since morning meeting does include educational information. Money: Throughout the year, you might send money into school for pictures, fundraisers, field trips, etc. Please send in the EXACT amount as we do not have money with us and are not able to provide change. If you are sending in extra money to help cover the cost of field trips, please let me know! If your child runs out of lunch money, the PTA has set up a class lunch fund. We will cover the cost of your childs lunch for ONE day. The children are asked to pay the money back the following day with CASH (we cant take it out of a lunch check). If your child is still out of money or has run out of money again and has not paid the lunch fund back, they will be given fruit and vegetables. Please check your childs lunch account often. I do not have access to this information. Math: This year we will be using Math Expressions. Math Expressions is a math program that combines the more traditional approaches to learning math with the more hands on approaches that are commonly used today. This program will provide students with a solid mathematical background and help to develop their number sense more fully. Math Expressions starts off very basic to ensure students have that solid background before it moves on to more complex skills. Sodo not worry if at first the math work seems easier than you think 2nd grade math should be. It is a very logical program, and each skill builds on the ones before! Math Expressions includes daily routines. These are routines that are done during Morning Meeting and help students continue working on and/or reviewing important skills. Wake County has provided us with some alignment lessons to fill in some of our math objectives that are not covered in Math Expressions. In addition, they have provided us with some additional daily routines to help maintains those skills. In addition, this program provides nightly homework for each lesson. Math homework may not always be sent home at the beginning of the week because of when skills are taught throughout the week, however I will do my best to send it home on Monday. The math homework may seem like a lot, however it is very important that your child masters the concepts and knows their math facts quickly by the end of the year. The homework will help with this. Please let me know if your child has difficulty with any of the homework. On Fridays, your child will also have a math facts quiz. Knowing math facts quickly will help with more complex math skills. They will have 5 minutes to work on 100 math facts. The goal is to increase the number solved each week. This will show that your child is learning their math facts. Unit one in math will help your child with strategies to solve math facts. Newsletters: A newsletter will be sent home most weeks on Monday in your childs Monday folder. Please read it carefully as it will contain very important information. Organization: Organization is very important to me as your child will learn over the course of the next year. I try to teach organizational skills by having specific folders and notebooks for different subjects. Please make sure your child has all of his/her school supplies each day. It would also be helpful to have your child clean out their bookbag occasionally. Phonics & Spelling: We will primarily be using the Fundations phonics program this year. Each week, we will study a new phonics pattern. The spelling words will be words that follow that weeks pattern. Each week there will be trick words. These are common words that do not follow any pattern and simply need to be memorized. A

spelling test will be given most Fridays. The trick words will also be on the test each week. Questions: You may call me anytime during the day if you have questions at 881-1350. The office will jot me a message and send it to me. I will call you back as soon as possible. You may also email questions to me. I check my email in the mornings and at the end of the school day. Reading: Our reading program incorporates many different components. Students will be participating in Guided Reading Groups, Whole Group Instruction, Independent Reading, and Literacy Centers that are based on the Daily 5. The centers will include Working with Words, Working on Writing, Listening, Reading to Self, and Reading to Someone. All components are important in forming the foundations of reading. In 2nd grade, your child will be expected to work independently on some activities, especially literacy centers. The activities will be planned to help your child master and practice goals and objectives found in the North Carolina Standard Course of Study. STEM: Brooks is a STEM support school. STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics. Incorporating these four strands into coached projects, lessons, and activities will prepare our students for the global and technological challenges of tomorrow. You will see at least one project that involves the STEM focus per quarter. Tardies: The tardy bell rings promptly at 9:15. Please help your child get to school on time. We begin our day by turning in assignments, sharpening pencils, completing a skill morning assignment, determining lunch choices, etc. When your child is tardy, they miss adequate time that it takes for them to adequately prepare for the rest of the day. Please help your child start the day out right. Units of Study: Each quarter our class will participate in Paideia Seminars that are related to our units of study. These seminars will challenge the children to think at a higher level. Another part of the magnet program involves student collaboration in which the children will often work in groups during assignments. Inside each unit may be mini units. We are excited about some new ideas we have created as part of the units. Units of Study 1st quarter- Geography, Weather, Citizenship, Community 2nd quarter- History , Change, and Sequence of Events 3rd quarter- Economics and Sound 4th quarter- Cycles Volunteers: Wake County Public Schools requires any person interested in volunteering in the classroom or on field trips to complete the online volunteer registration. This MUST be done using a computer at a school that can access the Wake County Intranet. Please note that it takes several weeks for clearance to be given, so please sign up ASAP. This must be done every year, so make sure you update your profile so you can be approved for this school year. Please make sure to check the box that says you can work with children unsupervisedso that you can chaperone field trips! If you think you might want to come into the classroom to help with anything, please sign up. Thanks so much Writing: This year I will introduce Writers Workshop to the children at the beginning of the year. We will do several genre studies throughout the year that will consist of an introduction to the genre and daily focus lessons on craft, grammar, spelling, editing, revising, and procedures. Students will be given plenty of independent writing time and one-on-one conferences with me. We will end most writing lessons with an Authors Chair session,

X-tra:

You: Zzzz:

which is an opportunity for each writer to share his/her work if he/she chooses to. I strongly urge you to have your children write at home as often as possible in an informal way. This will help develop a love of writing. Some of the lessons through out the year will be based off of the Lucy Calkins series. We will have birthday breakfast celebrations throughout the year. We will celebrate by having a healthy snack in the morning honoring those children with birthdays in the months we are recognizing. If you choose to help with the snack when your child is being recognized, please remember that all items must be store made, Please be looking for more information about this from myself or the parent curator in the next few weeks. Please do not ask to bring in anything additional for your childs actual birthday. We have planned the birthday breakfast so all children are recognized the same way and to maximize the learning time. Thank you already for being wonderful parents! I look forward to working closely with you this year to help your child be successful in every way possible. Please make sure that your child gets plenty of sleep each night and they get on a routine with their bedtime. We, as adults, know how hard it is to function with little sleep and they have so much more energy than we do. Sleep revives the body and mind!

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------I have read the ABCs of Mrs. Schneiders Class and discussed the necessary content with my child. Parent/ Guardian Signature ________________________________ Childs Name_______________________ Date _________________ Comments____________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________ I have read and discussed the discipline procedures with my child. Please sign and return to school.

________________________________________ Parent Signature

________________________________ Child Signature