First Grade News - Mukilteo School District



Welcome to…

Learning!

Our Class News

In an effort to be in communication and in team with parents, weekly newsletters

will be sent home on Friday afternoons. Important events and reminders, as well as information about our classroom you may find interesting will be shared. There may

be weeks when there is no newsletter because of time constraints or just because there aren’t any announcements for you. If this is the case, you may always check The Falcon Spirit (the school newsletter).

Communication

Our communication is vital; PLEASE feel free to contact me at anytime!

Here are the best ways to reach me:

1. Send a note to school with your child.

2. Email me at trentmb@mukilteo.wednet.edu

3. Call me at school between 8:00am and 4:00pm. at 366-3100.

4. Leave a message for me in the school office or with the office secretaries.

5. Please DO NOT leave a voicemail message as it is not checked often.

Friday Folders

On Fridays you will receive a large folder with your child’s name on it. Enclosed will

be items from PTSA, our school, our principal, and our classroom. After checking the folder and going over the papers inside with your child, please return the folder to school Monday morning. This procedure will be gone over carefully with the children and ultimately it will be their responsibility to remember the folder, but at first, it will be helpful for you to remind and reinforce this work habit with your child.

Lunch

Student lunches are $2.75 and milk is 50 cents. Prepaying lunches for your child is beneficial so students don’t have to carry money or if they forget or lose their lunch.

Snacks

We will have a snack time around 10:30 each day. Please try to send a small snack with your child. Healthy food items like vegetables, cheese sticks, fruits, and breads are best. Your child will have access to the drinking fountain so sending a drink for snack is not necessary. Students are welcome and encouraged to bring a closeable water bottle to school to drink throughout the day.

Birthdays

Students are welcome to bring non-edible treats such as pencils or small tokens on their birthdays. We will celebrate with your child prior to our lunchtime. Please plan

on sending around 25 treats to school. If your child has a summer birthday, you may want to celebrate their half birthday, in September, or at the end of year. Please do not send party invitations to be distributed at school unless everyone is invited. Feelings can be hurt when an invitation is not given to a child. THANK YOU!!!

Homework

Students should spend at least 20 minutes a night reading. This time can be spent with your child reading silently, reading to an adult, adult or sibling reading to the child, etc. This time could also be spent reading to your child at bedtime. However you choose to use this time, please work to make it a priority in your family. It WILL make a difference in how well your child learns to love reading and, equally essential, how to read.

Regular homework will begin at the beginning of October. Please know that I am flexible with our homework policy. I believe family should always come first and we do not wish for a child’s homework to compromise this time.

Goals for homework are:

1. For children to form work and study habits that will continue for the rest of their schooling.

2. To reinforce the skills that the children are learning at school.

Keeping these goals in mind, please use your discretion in how much or how little homework you child is completing. There may be times when the homework is too difficult or too easy for your child. There are plenty of wonderful workbooks and activity books that you can purchase to supplement our classroom homework.

Starting and Dismissal Times

Beginning time is 8:55; dismissal time is 3:25.

If you are picking your child up, please wait outside in the breezeway until the bell rings or meet your child at the vehicle pick-up by the flagpole.

Please note that school policy requires a note, email or phone call if your child is

going home with someone other than the usual pick-up person or in another form of transportation. This is to ensure the safety of your child and your help with this is greatly appreciated. Thank you!

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Classroom Management Plan

S.O.A.R.

“We only get one chance to prepare our students for a future that none of us can possibly predict. What are we going to do with that one chance?” -Stephen Covey

Understanding our role in this; our school has adopted the following mission statement:

“At Mukilteo Elementary we will develop leaders who S.O.A.R.”

S.O.A.R. stands for:

S = Seek Success

O = Overcome Challenges

A = Achieve Goals

R = Reach High

We will work towards this by using Stephen Covey’s 8 Habits of Highly Effective People:

1. Be Proactive

2. Begin with the End in Mind

3. Put First Things First

4. Think Win-Win

5. See First to Understand and then be Understood.

6. Synergize

7. Sharpen the Saw

8. Find and Use Your Voice

The 8 habits will be integrated into our school and classroom standards and expectations so that all students will learn to be leaders in one form or another and will be able to SOAR now and in the future.

So knowing this: …

Basic Philosophy

“A successful classroom environment and management plan is one in which students are respected and treated fairly and one in which students are given the responsibility to make their own decisions and accept the consequences.” (Author Unknown)

I believe that building responsibility and self-esteem is a team effort between students, staff, and parents. Parent support will directly influence a child’s behavior and success at school. My goal is help students make appropriate choices, accept responsibility for their actions, and learn through natural consequences and problem solving.

Classroom Standards

The Shell Plan Shell Stands For: Show Respect.

Help Others

Engage Your Brain

Listen to Learn

Lead to SOAR

We will learn together through books that model appropriate and non appropriate behavior, discussions, role playing and example what it means to follow these standards. These skills will be reinforced and practiced daily. Students will also

be reminded to make good decisions and to solve problems when necessary.

Our work with the 7 Habits will be intertwined with this.

To assist with this work we will be using individual shell charts where students will be utilizing a four point scale to rate their efforts in following the Shell Standards listed within the Shell Plan. In this, students will be monitoring areas that they excel in,

as well as areas that would benefit from further growth. Students will complete

a shell chart daily and will use that information to track how they do weekly. On Fridays a form with this data will come home to you for your review and discussion

with your child. This form is to be signed and returned on the following Monday.

There is a space provided on the form for any comments you wish to make or you

are welcome to email or call.

Please do not be overly concerned if your child does not earn all points every day.

All of us, adults and children, need reminders from time to time to assist us focus on

a learning skill or task.

The Shell Plan will provide a positive way for students to monitor their choices and will provide them with behavior goals to strive for. Together we will celebrate success and work for any necessary improvement. Below is a representation of the chart the children will use daily and the form that will be completed and sent home weekly.

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Promoting Positive Behavior

All students will be respected and treated fairly at all times in our classroom. Students will be given the responsibility to make their own decisions and accept the consequences. Various teaching strategies to engage and motivate the students in the curriculum will be used. Cooperative group activities, hands-on learning, station activities, self-selected projects, and many opportunities to make choices will be given. A positive classroom climate through modeling respect and the valuing of differences between all will be promoted. We will also establish daily routines that provide the consistency and clear expectations for what behavior is expected and when.

Another important aspect of teaching is noticing those students that are doing such a fine job! It is also important to celebrate improvement! A variety of group and individual activities such as: Use of Habit Seekers, Beacon points, etc. will be established to celebrate improvement.

We will also learn to have conversations fostering effective conversations. In this, students who are having conflict will work together to “shine the light on the situation.”

Students will learn that working together as a team, or a crew, will help them feel safe and enable them to grow both academically and socially.

Our class will be known as the Crew.

A crewmate is:

C = Cooperative

R = Respectful

E = Enthusiastic

W = Willing to work

Welcome aboard the “US” Friendship and to a great year of working and learning together.

Let’s Make a Different Way Of Thinking

“Wonder is the Beginning of Wisdom.”

~ Socrates

When I was growing up I was to be “seen but not heard”. I was to act and do as my elders expected. I was to listen and follow directions, “to do as I was told”, to follow the status quo. Mind you, there is and was nothing wrong with this. I learned respect and learned how to behave in a socially acceptable manner. I was taught well by my elders, learned how to be a good person and was provided with many opportunities at home, school and in the community to practice what was expected. I said please and thank you, learned to read and memorized my facts.

I was also given the opportunity to wonder. It is in the wonder that one begins to question, to ask, to seek answers…to use one’s voice.

Karen and Richard Carpenter wrote lyrics to a song titled Bless the Beasts and the Children that says “Bless the beasts and the children, for in this world they have no voice. They have no choice.”

When one uses ones voice to wonder, to ask questions, one begins to think! In the thinking, the wondering, one begins to move beyond surface level facts and responses and learns to ponder, to reason, to ask questions to better understand, to seek answers to what is known and unknown. Providing practice and choice in what and how to think, and in the ability to reason and problem solve will open chances for this to become a new way of thinking.

And so, let’s foster an effective use of voice, intertwined with what is known and unknown, that enables our own selves and our youth the opportunity to grow in their creative and critical thinking and in their ability to reason. Doing so will not only utilize learned skills but will also bring possibilities not yet begun to be pondered or begun to be thought about.

“Isn’t it splendid to think of all the things there are to find out about? It’s such an interesting world. It wouldn’t be half as interesting if we know all about everything, would it? There’d be no scope for imagination then, would there?”

~ L.M. Montgomery

~ Merry Trent

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