Welcome Back to School!

Transcription

1 Welcome Back to School! Curriculum Night Third Grade Ms. Parker I m looking forward to a wonderful year filled with learning, laughing, sharing, and growing! For Curriculum Night tonight, we will be covering some of the basics of our classroom, grading, discipline philosophies, and our curriculum. Daily Schedule 8:05-8:30 Students arrive/morning Work 8:30-9:30 Math 9:30-9:50 Whole Group Reading 9:50-10:00 Snack 10:00-10:30 Spanish 10:30-11:35 Ability Group Reading 11:30-11:50 Recess 11:50-12:10 Lunch 12:10-12:25 D.E.A.R 12:25-1:10 Writing 1:10-1:50 Science/Social Studies 1:50-2:35 C.A.M.P. 2:35-2:55 Read Aloud 2:55-3:10 Recess 3:10-3:35 Closing 3:35-3:50 Dismissal

2 Classroom Expectations/Discipline At SkyView Academy we use the Capturing Kids Hearts program for encouraging and teaching self-discipline ( My goal is to have a self-disciplined classroom where the students feel safe, encouraged, motivated, cared for, and challenged to reach their highest potential. Instead of classroom rules dictated by the teacher, the class works together to create a social contract, which will outline how we will treat one another and how we expect to be treated by others. The social contract empowers students to take control of their own actions and help one another, reinforces our core virtues, and helps prepare students for the professional world. While the students are learning to be self-disciplined, we use the Capturing Kids Hearts clip chart. This helps provide consistency while the students are in specials, Spanish, lunch, recess, or with another teacher for flexible skills grouping. The chart allows for movement throughout the day. Each student begins every day with a fresh start on green. Gold Star Day! Purple Role Model Behavior Blue Having a Good Day Green Ready to learn-way to go! Yellow Slow Down and Think/Refocus Orange - Lose half recess/discussion/refocus Red - Lose all recess/discussion/refocus At the end of the day students will color their planner to reflect the color of their clip. In addition to the clip chart, we also work to recognize and reward the students for their hard work and self-discipline. We have positive rewards built in at individual, team, and whole class levels. Individually: In our class the students can earn sand dollars. The students can earn sand dollars throughout the day by following the social contract and for moving his/her clip up the chart. At the end of the week, the students can spend these quarters at our classroom store.

3 Team: To encourage teamwork, when the students sit in groups they work together to earn team points. These team points may earn sand dollars or a trip to the class point basket for everyone in the group for each group member Full Class: The students can also work as a full class to earn class points. When all of the students in the class are doing exactly what they should be doing, they can a class point. When they get to 25 class points, the class gets to pick a fun reward to do as a class. Homework The third grade students will have approximately 30 minutes of homework per night, excluding Fridays and weekends. Homework is not just busy work, it is a way of reinforcing and enriching the concepts that we learn in school each day. Homework is valuable to help your child establish independent study habits and self-discipline. Homework breakdown: Approximately 20 minutes math Approximately 10 minutes spelling Recommendation: 20 minutes reading (alone or with someone) Some tips to make homework more meaningful Provide a quiet, comfortable place for your child to do his/her work. Get your child in the habit of doing homework away from the distractions of television or toys. Same place, same time, every day. Show in interest in your child s work. Talk about events of the day. Try to get beyond the I don t know or Nothing responses that are so common at this age. Make it clear that your child s work is their responsibility, but be sure they also know that you ll be there to help if needed. Please allow your child to do the work and ask to see it when it is completed. Consider yourself a consultant, coach, checker, and cheerleader. Lastly, avoid conflict during homework time. Contact me immediately if this is the case and we can work together to help your child feel successful! This should not be a challenging time of day for your child or you! *The students may have Science or Social Studies tests throughout the year at the end of a unit. You will receive a study guide to help your student review for these tests approximately one week before the test date.

4 Each day, your third grader will bring home a planner. The students will write in homework each day. This will help the students practice personal responsibility as well as keep you informed as to what your child needs to do each day as well as your student s behavior clip color on a daily basis. Please have your student return it to school the following day. Medications/Allergies - Don't forget to tell the office if your child needs medication or has allergies. Volunteers - You are always welcome in the classroom! I love having parents come in to assist with groups or help with projects. We couldn't have made it this far without the help of parents. We will be using the Volunteer Spot again this year to organize parent volunteers. If you are new to Volunteer Spot, it is an online calendar where you can easily see when a teacher needs volunteers, for which subject, and you can sign up right online. You can access this calendar through the SkyView Academy website under the Volunteer tab. If you have any trouble with the Volunteer Spot you can contact Ray Uhrig our school Volunteer Coordinator at [email protected] If you would like to volunteer in the classroom you will need to check with the front office to make sure that you have signed a Confidentiality Agreement Form before you will be able to come in to volunteer. If you have signed up for a time to come in to volunteer and you are unable to keep that commitment, please send me an as soon as possible so that I can make other arrangements. Due to busy schedules, I know that some of you may be unable to come in during the school day to volunteer. If you would like to help out with projects that can be completed at home, please send me an and I will make sure to send home some projects (usually cutting, coloring, etc.). Would you like to be a speaker? - I would love for you to share your expertise with the students. If you would like to come in to be a speaker or to "head" a project with the students please let me know your specialty/area of interest (business, health, science, recycling, history topics, anything). There will be a sign up sheet on the board on Curriculum night to list your specialty. "About My Child" sheets If you haven t already, please return these sheets to me as soon as possible. There is no one who knows more about your child than you!

5 Communication I truly believe that communication is key to having a successful year! I will communicate with you often and in many different ways throughout the year. I encourage you to contact me if you ever have questions, concerns, or if you would just like to chat. I check my daily and promise to respond to your s as soon as possible. Please allow hours. My address is [email protected] Voic I check my voic daily as well. You can call the main school number ( VIEW) and they will send you to my voic box. During school hours I will not be available to answer phone calls; however, I will do my best to return calls the same day. I am also available most days after the students leave until around 4:00pm. If you would like to come in to chat, please send me an or give me a call and we can set up a time. I am unable to meet during carpool as I am responsible for watching the students until ALL CALL. Website: Instead of using a lot of copy paper I will do a lot of communicating through our classroom website. I update the class website weekly (usually Friday evenings). Here you will find... My contact information Our daily schedule Homework assignments Upcoming events What we are learning for the week (Spelling, Social Studies, science, etc.) Lists of websites for practice, extension, and challenge activities Other helpful links And more... Please be sure to check here often! The SkyView website is also an excellent place to look for schoolwide information!

6 Thursday Folders: SkyView Academy uses a school wide communication system: Thursday Folders. Every Thursday your child will bring home a white folder. Inside this folder you will find many of your child's graded assignments from the week, information from the office, information about upcoming events and classroom projects, field trip forms, etc. Please sign the cover sheet and return this folder the next day (Friday) whenever possible. Classroom Parent- If you love a good party and wouldn't mind planning a few for the class, please sign-up to be our Classroom Parent. I will also need this helper to assist with our third grade Roman Market day and setting up our classroom Volunteer Spot. Ability Grouping - Thank you for your patience while we assess the students to place them into groups. If you have questions about your child s placement, let s set up a time to meet. Curriculum SkyView Academy is a Core Knowledge school. (Attached is a copy of the third grade overview of the core knowledge topics your child will be learning this year) Here are the programs SkyView uses for the different core subjects: Reading: Reading Street Spelling: Reading Street Writing: Every Child a Writer Math: Saxon Math Grading- In third grade, your child will receive letter grades for Reading, Writing, Spelling, Math, Science, and Social Studies. We will be entering grades into the online grade book (Infinite Campus Parent Portal) weekly. Snack Yes, we will be having snack daily! Since we only have a short amount of time for snack, please send in only small snacks that do not require spoons. Please no messy snacks and no drinks other than water in the classroom. We do have third grade students with nut allergies so please be considerate of this when choosing snacks as well. Please encourage your child to pack a nutritious snack such as raisins, graham crackers, cheese, fruit snacks, and carrot sticks. You

7 child is also welcome to bring a water bottle to school. Please make sure it is easy to use and is leak proof. The bottles with a straw or flip top really help us reduce spills. Thank you! Field Trips We take 1-2 field trips in third grade. These are culminating activities for our science and social studies units from throughout the year. We will need many volunteers to accompany us, and will send home information approximately 2 weeks before our trip dates. Book Orders Book orders will be sent home once a month in Thursday Folders. You may order using the paper form, or you may order directly from the scholastic website at P.S. I love my job. I promise to do the best that I can to help your child have a successful year. Together we can be a great team! I hope that this answers many of your questions. If not, please come visit me. If you have any comments or if you would just like to get to know me better, I'd love to talk with you. I m looking forward to a wonderful year! Ms. Allison Parker