Welcome to Concord! We hope the ABC’s of kindergarten will help you and your child be more comfortable and informed about our school. A – Awesome! This is going to be an awesome year! I look forward to spending this year with your child and watching her grow and learn. Your child’s first year at Concord Elementary is going to be both fun and educational. I hope you are ready for an awesome Kindergarten experience. Absences – Due to the amount of material that your child misses when absent, please try to limit absences to as few as possible. If there is work that needs to be made up, I will send it with your child when he/she returns to school. Please send a written note or doctor’s excuse within two days of your child returning to school. It is also important that your child arrive on time and stays until the end of the school day.. We will begin classwork as soon as the students arrive. If your child arrives after 8:00, you should report to the office to check your child in. B- Birthdays Your child’s birthday is a special time and should be celebrated! You are invited to send a special snack on (or the day closest to) your child’s birthday. Please send cupcakes, cookies, or donuts – something that does not have to be cut and served. You may also send birthday plates for snack time if you would like. Backpacks- Our class does not use backpacks on a daily bases. I find that kindergarteners forget to get things out of their backpacks and it takes too much valuable class time for me to go through backpacks each morning. It is a good idea though to have a backpack for your child to use on days when she may have lots to carry like snack, a homework binder or other extras. Most of the things your kindergartener need to carry will fit nicely in her daily take- home folder. C – Calendars In your child’s take-home folder will be a monthly calendar. This calendar will inform you of your child’s snack day and special school/classroom events. Your child’s behavior will be marked each day. Please be sure that you do not remove monthly calendars from your child’s folder. D – Donation Money The $25.00 donation that is asked for from each child is greatly needed for our classroom. This money goes to pay for classroom materials, art supplies, craft supplies, supplemental books, and other materials needed to provide the best teaching for your child. If you have already paid your donation money, THANKS!!! If not, please do so as soon as possible. Dismissal – The dismissal bell rings at 2:45 on Monday and 2:55 Tuesday- Friday. You may wait in the car line to pick up your child or wait in the front of the school (in the grassy area). If you choose to go through the car line, please put your child’s name in large print and dark letters on a piece of paper in your windshield. If you pick up your child out front, please wait in line and be ready to tell the teacher at the door your child’s name. Be patient with the dismissal process. It can take a little while at the beginning of the year but is usually a simple process within a week or two. If your child will be a bus rider, he/she will wait in the lunchroom at a table with other children who ride the same bus. I must know the bus number and the drivers name so that I can help him/her find the right spot to wait. Please be sure that I know how your child is getting home. I will give you a separate sheet to fill out for me. If there is ever a change in how your child will get home, I must have it in writing. I can not go on your child’s word alone. E – Emergencies Please make certain that I have current phone numbers where you may be reached in case of an emergency. F-Field Trips We will go on field trips this year in addition to 2 Children’s Theater performances. Children’s Theater tickets are purchased at the beginning of the school year, so please be sure to pay for these in the office if you have not already done so. You will be given further details about trips and chaperones later in the year. G – Goals My goal for your child is this: That your child have fun while learning, as well as gain independence and responsibility throughout the school year. It is also my goal that your child be adequately prepared for success in first grade. Please support your child in any way possible in reaching these goals. H – Helpers Two children per day will be our classroom helpers. They will have many jobs that will help our classroom run more smoothly. Each child enjoys the chance to be a helper. I – Illnesses If your child is running a fever, please keep him/her home until he is fever free for 24 hours. We practice regular handwashing, but it is hard to keep everyone well if someone comes to school sick. If your child has something that is highly contagious such as pink eye, please send your child to school only after it has cleared up. If your child begins to feel poorly at school, I will do my best to determine if they should call home to be checked out. Sometimes, however, it is hard to determine if your child is truly sick. If your child tells you he doesn’t feel well before school and you think he is able to come to school, PLEASE do not tell him to call home if he doesn’t feel better. A child will not feel better if given the option to call home. Instead send me a discreet note in your child’s folder to let me know what is going on so that I can monitor your child more closely. Thank you for your help in these matters. J – Journals Your child will write in a journal many times each week. Journals will be mostly pictures at first and will become more complex as the year goes on. The children will begin writing sentences, and some will even write stories. K – Keep in Touch You are a very important part of your child’s success in Kindergarten. Please put a note in your child’s Take Home folder if your have any questions for me. I will try to respond with either a note or phone call or e-mail on the day I receive it. Likewise, I may also send you a note from time to time. If you would like to speak with me in person, please call the office to set up a conference. It is very important that we meet during my conference times and not in the mornings as you drop your child off. I hope not to sound harsh, but routine and structure are very important to a smooth day in Kindergarten. If I am distracted meeting with a parent at the start of a school day, it starts the day off on a bad foot. Again, I am very interested in maintaining open lines of communication with you. You are my best resource when it comes to learning how to meet your child’s needs. L – Lunch Your child will receive a lunch menu each month. Lunch costs $1.75 daily. It is very helpful if you will send lunch money on Mondays for the week or even monthly. Your child’s money will be kept in her own lunch account. I will give you the lunch number ASAP. Please review this number with your child until she has memorized it. Please try to discuss lunch choices with your child daily to avoid confusion when we get to the lunchroom. If your child brings a lunch box, please send foods that your child can open easily and manage by him/herself. I will help as much as possible in the small amount of time that we have for lunch. On Fridays your child may purchase an ice cream to enjoy after she eats her lunch. Ice cream cost 75C and will be taken out of your child’s lunch account. Please include ice cream money with lunch money and mark on the front of the envelope if your child has permission to get ice cream. We will start getting ice cream the first full week of school. M – Money All money should be sent in an envelope with your child’s name, my name, and what the money is for. The children usually don’t remember what it is for by the time they get to school. This helps return lost money and cuts down on confusion with accounting and receipting. Thanks! N-Nine Week Grading Period-We are on a nine-week grading period. You will receive your child’s report card at the end of each grading period. Progress reports will come home in between these reports. O – Open House Our school will have an Open House for you to visit our classroom. This usually happens in September. Stay tuned.... P – Play I firmly believe that children can learn a tremendous amount through play. We will have playtime daily, and this will be outdoors as much as possible. We also play a wide variety of games that focus on concepts and skills taught in kindergarten. It is a great way to keep students motivated and involved in learning. Q – Quick Goodbyes You are welcome to walk your child to my room the first few days of school, but please encourage your child to walk alone after that. Children think they are so big when they do this. You are doing your child a great favor by letting them come to class on their own!! What an easy way to boost pride and self-esteem! If your child arrives before 7:55, he/she will wait in the gym with the rest of his/her classmates. Please drop your child off at the side door of the school. Do not come in the back parking lot of the school. This is a very dangerous and busy area with teachers pulling in. It is also against school policy, and is strictly enforced. R –Rest Time- We will have rest time for approximately an hour. Your child is not required to sleep but is required to rest on his mat. Please be sure to send a cloth rest mat. I will send rest mats home at the end of each month to be washed. You may also send a small blanket or beach towel that rolls up easily in your child’s mat if you would like. S – Snack We will have a daily snack time, and your child will be responsible for supplying snack for the class approximately once per month. Please do not send candy, candy bars, or gum. Some ideas: goldfish or other crackers, cookies, Little Debbies, and dry cereal (Fruit Loops, etc.). Of course, you may send other things as long as they are individually wrapped. Individually wrapped snacks allow the children to have a choice, and independently help themselves. I will let you know how many children to send snack for on each monthly calendar. Watch for your name on the snack calendar! The children will also have juice with snack daily, which costs $0.35 per day. Please send a month’s worth of juice money at the beginning of each month in an envelope marked “juice money.” Juice money must be sent separately from lunch money. These go into different accounts, and I have no way to separate the two. T – Take-Home Folders This will be my primary way of communicating with you. Your child will bring it home daily. Please remove your child’s work and look over it with him. He is very proud of his work and will love sharing it with you. This is also a great way to keep your child motivated and yourself more informed about his progress. It is important for your child to return his folder each day. I will replace your child’s folder at the beginning of each month or as needed. Traffic light- Our discipline system consist of a traffic light. You will get a separate not on this. I will also review it with your child in class. U – Units We will study many different units and topics through the year. Some of these are: farm, ocean, community helpers, plants, and animals, just to name a few. Some units that we will focus on in the beginning of school will be our names, colors, and learning all about each other and our new school. V – Volunteers I love to have volunteers for various jobs that help us have a more productive school year. Please complete and return the attached volunteer sheet if you are interested in helping. W – Weekly Notes You will receive a weekly note in your child’s folder to let you know of current happenings. Please read and keep it at home for your reference. X – eXciting eXperiences There are many to be had this year, and I hope you and your child are looking forward to them like I am! Y – Yearlong Calendar You will be given a school year calendar from the Board of Education. Please keep it for your reference throughout the year. Z – Zippers and Buttons Please send your child in clothes that he can fasten himself. This helps greatly with restroom time. Keep in mind that it is a good idea to send your child in clothes suitable for play. If you tell your child not to get dirty he will worry about it all day. With our daily playtime, lunch, and art projects clothes can be messy at the end of the day. Please send your child in shoes that will work well for PE and outdoor play. Most of the time tennis shoes work best. Flip-Flops are very popular right now but they are not appropriate and safe for PE or other school activities. Wow! That was a lot of information. I hope I didn’t overload you. Please keep this is a safe place so that you can refer back to it if needed. I am very excited about this new year. Please trust that I will love and nurture your child and treat him as my own. I will have high expectations for your child’s learning. I will do everything within my power to help your child reach his full potential. Please let me know if I can help you in any way! My love and best wishes to all of you as you begin this new school experience.