Kindergarten ABC'S
Welcome to kindergarten! The beginning of a new school year always brings excitement for students, parents and teachers alike. This year will bring many new and exciting experiences. Your child will make new friends, learn many new things, read interesting stories, and sing fun songs. This year your child will learn all about the alphabet, to help you learn about our Kindergarten class, I have put together the ABC’s of our Kindergarten classroom! I am looking forward to all the possibilities this school year brings!
A
Attendance ~ It is very important to be present everyday possible. We learn so much everyday. If your child is absent, please send a note on a separate piece of paper as to the reason why and I will turn it into the office.
Alphabet ~ Knowledge of the alphabet is key to learning to read and write. We will cover the alphabet however; many children enter Kindergarten already knowing their letters and many of their sounds (not just able to sing the alphabet song), which is great! If your child does not know their letters, please begin to work on this at home immediately to give your child a good start. Begin by teaching the letters in your child’s name.
B
Book Bags ~ Children will need a back pack or school bag big enough to fit their planner, folder and projects coming home. Backpacks with wheels are not allowed at school. Please write your child’s name, teacher name, and how your child gets home on their backpack.
Bus Transportation ~ Children riding the bus must fill out the transportation form and turn it in to the office. You can find out your child’s bus stop at www.flaglerschools.com.
Birthdays ~ Birthdays are a very big deal for all children. If you would like to celebrate your child’s birthday at school, you may bring in a store bought treat for the class. Please let me know at least a day in advance. See Birthday letter in your purple parent folder.
Book Orders ~ Scholastic book order forms will be sent home throughout the year. Scholastic offers great deals on age appropriate books and our classroom earns free books from your purchases.
Behavior ~ Good behavior is essential so that all students have the best learning environment possible. The number one rule in our class, “Treat others as you would like to be treated.” It is my belief that children learn better when they feel secure. I strive to develop a classroom community where students work together and are surrounded with structure and creativity. I redirect students and provide positive reinforcements for appropriate behaviors.
C
Car Riders~ Car riders are picked up using a number system. Please help your child learn their number; it will make the car rider process much smoother. The car rider line does tend to be long the first few weeks, but does improve quickly. Please be patient as our little ones get accustomed to this routine.
Conferences ~ There will be two mandatory conferences scheduled during the school year; usually at the end of the 1st and 3rd nine-weeks. I am also available for conferences by appointment as needed during the school year. Please feel free to contact me to schedule and appointment at 206-4600 x2104 or kopacha@flaglerschools.com.
Centers ~ The students will participate in centers everyday. During this time, I will meet with a small group in order to target specific instructional needs. The center activities are designed for individual learning time.
D
Dress Code ~ Please make sure your child is dressed appropriately for school. As a general guideline, shorts should come to their fingertips and tank top straps should be the width of two fingers. Please dress your child appropriately for the weather. You may want to send a sweater/jacket to keep at school due to the air conditioning working hard during the hot months of the year. Remember to put your child’s name. teacher name, and room number it their clothing. Children should also wear sneakers for PE and recess time.
Discipline ~ All students will begin their day on the green happy face. If at any time during the day your child chooses to act inappropriately he/she will receive:
1st offense: Verbal Warning (now is the time to correct your behavior)
2nd offense: Yellow Straight face: fifteen minutes of group activity or recess/note in planner
3rd offense: Red Sad face: non-participation in group activity or recess/note in planner
4th offense: Yellow Warning Slip is written / note in planner (3 warning slips in a 9-week period and equal to a referral)
5th offense: Referral and sent to the office for further consequences
*Your child may also earn his/her way to a Blue WOW student during the day for outstanding behavior! *Your child’s behavior will be noted in the planner each day. Please sign your child’s planner each night.
Dibels ~ Three times a year your child’s early literacy skills will be assessed using the state wide Dibels test. The oral test is administered on an individual basis by another teacher. After each assessment, a letter will be sent home explaining your child’s results.
E
E-mail ~ My e-mail is kopacha@flaglerschools.com. This is the best way to contact me.
Eat Breakfast ~ You have always heard, breakfast is the most important meal of the day, and it is! With our schedule, children have a long morning and lunch is not until 1:30, they will need a good breakfast. Breakfast is available at school, but the children will be very rushed to eat it.
Early Dismissal ~ If you will be signing out your child from school early, please write a note in your child’s planner. You will need to go to the front desk to have your child called down for dismissal. Regular dismissal begins a 3:15.
Extended Day ~ Students will be walk to the cafeteria in groups at the end of the day.
F
Folders ~ Students will use four folders in class. A yellow folder will be used to bring home daily work. Please remove and review your child’s work with them nightly. The yellow folder should be brought to school daily. A red folder will be used for math homework. Every Friday your child’s homework and classroom newsletter will be sent home in his red folder. Return the red folder, with your child’s homework inside it, by the following Friday. A blue folder will be used for reading homework. This folder will go home on Friday’s and will need to be returned by the following Friday. An orange folder will be used for journals. This folder will stay at school. It is your responsibility to replace folders if needed. I will provide your child with their first folder set.
Foot Wear ~ Your child will be running and playing everyday. Flip-flops or shoes without backs are not allowed. Please make sure that your child only wears sneakers for PE and recess.
Field Trips ~ If you would like to be a chaperone, you must be an approved volunteer. The volunteer approval process takes several weeks, so please complete the paperwork at the beginning of the year.
Flexibility Grouping ~ By the end of the first nine weeks, all students will be placed in a reading group. This will be based on their Dibels results and reading level. My office partner, Miss K will take half of the students and I will have the other half for the reading block part of our day. Miss K’s reading group will focus on phonics. My reading group will focus on comprehension skills. The students will be moved up or down as their needs change. Homework patterns may change for some of the students based on their reading teachers procedures.
G
Getting Home ~ Please make sure your child and his teacher knows how your child will be getting home. On days that your child will be going home a different way, a note must be written in the planner. I cannot change your child’s dismissal routine without a note from home.
Giving Tree ~ In our classroom, there is a giving tree. On this tree, I have supplies and additional craft items needed to help our classroom stay stocked and our projects looking great. If you happen to be in our room and would like to take an “apple” off of our tree to purchase, I would really appreciate the donations. If you are unable to come into the classroom to pick an “apple” but would still like to donate items, you can ask me to send an apple home in your child’s planner.
Grades ~ Letter or number grades are not given in Kindergarten. Our grading system is as follows:
“+” = all items are correct/consistently demonstrating
“check +” = more than half of the items are correct
“check” = half of the items are correct/making progress
“check-“ = less than half of the items are correct
“-“ = there are no correct items/needs improvement
H
Homework ~ (RED/BLUE folders) Homework for the week will be sent home every Friday and your child will have a week to complete the assignments. Please sign the homework to show that you have reviewed it. It is up to your child to turn in his homework. I will ask the children for their homework folders, but time will not allow for me to go and look for it. In addition to the assigned homework, you should be reading, writing and reviewing letters and words with your child nightly. There will be an average of 30 minutes of homework assigned every night. In addition to homework, I want every child to read or be read to every night. Even though some of your children are unable to read words yet, they are able to look at the pictures, tell a story about the pictures, or retell the story to you.
Help at Home ~ Please “help” your child with his work, but do not do it for him.
High-Frequency Words ~ (Also called Sight Words) You will receive a list of words most frequently used in reading and writing every week in the newsletter. Please help your child learn these words. Flashcards and bingo are great ways to help your child learn these words. The more fluently (automatic) a child can read these words, the better a read he will become.
Harcourt ~ This is our new reading series. We will be reading stories, working on letter knowledge, working on phonics and phonemic awareness, and learning how to put all of the components of reading together.
I
Illnesses ~ Please do not send your child to school sick. If your child becomes ill at school, he will be sent to the nurse. If the nurse feels the child needs to go home, she will call the parents. Please make sure there are at least two contact numbers on file for your child.
J
Jackets ~ When the weather starts to cool off, please make sure your child’s name and teacher’s name or room number is in your child’s jacket. You would be amazed at the number of jackets in the school lost and found with no name on them.
Jobs ~ Everyday each student will be assigned a job in the classroom. These jobs range from line leader, to teacher helper, to custodian. These jobs teach the students responsibility.
K
Keep your Readers ~ Your child will come home with little reading books every week. These are great books for your child to read through out the year. I suggest buying or making a special shoebox size box to store your child’s little readers “library”.
L
Labels ~ Please label all of your child’s personal belongings (backpacks, lunch bags, sweaters) with their first and last name, teacher’s name, and room number.
Library ~ Our class will go to the school library on the same day each week. Children are allowed, with parent permission, to checkout a book to bring home each week. The book must be returned the following week in order to check out another book. Children will also learn library skills during our visits.
Lunch ~ I encourage bag lunches the first week of school while students are adjusting to the cafeteria process. Children can bring their lunch or purchase the school lunch for $1.50. Lunch can be prepaid as far in advance as you would like. Any money sent to school needs to be sent in a sealed envelope with your child’s first and last name, teacher name, and child’s lunch number. Please remember to pack a nutritious lunch for your child. Help your child learn to open all juice boxes, chip bags, and any other snacks that you may pack. Kindergarteners are not allowed to bring soda for lunch. When buying lunch, check the school lunch menu to make sure your child will eat the meal being served. Our cafeteria offers PowerAde, Yoo-Hoo, fruit snacks, cookies, rice crispy treats, ice cream and other treats everyday for an extra charge. Kindergarteners are only allowed to buy ice cream or one other treat on Fridays for $.50 to $1.00. We encourage the students to eat the lunch provided instead of snacks due to our limited time to eat lunch. Once our 30 minutes of lunch is up, the students must throw away or pack up any food left on their plate. You may come visit your child during lunch if you like. Please help your child learn their lunch number if they are going to buy lunch.
M
Money Matters ~ When sending in money with your child, please place it in a sealed envelope labeled with your child’s first and last name and what the money is for. The easiest way to pay for school lunches is to put money in your child’s account for several lunches. Your child will be given notice when their account is getting low.
N
News ~ A weekly newsletter will be sent home every week. The newsletter will inform you of what skills will be covered in class the following week, upcoming events, things to know and important dates, words and letters for the week, and theme information. Please take time to read the newsletter.
Names ~ Your child should be able to write his first name, and know his first and last name. During the year we will work on writing first and last names with capital first letters and the rest lowercase.
O
Open House ~ We will have a kindergarten parent open house scheduled during the first month of school. We will discuss kindergarten expectations and answer parent questions.
P
Phone Number ~ Rymfire telephone number is 206-4600. You may ask to be transferred to the department of choice. My extension is X2104.
Planners ~ Please check and sign your child’s planner every night. Your child’s daily behavior and any notes will be written in the planner. This is also the place to write notes to the teacher.
PTO ~ The RES Parent Teacher Organization is a great group in which to become involved. The PTO helps with various aspects of RES. Many things would not be possible at our school without the PTO.
Playground ~ Kindergarteners will have the opportunity to play on the playground during the school year. On rainy days, we will be inside watching a movie.
Pictures ~ During the school year, I will take pictures of the children participating in class. I will use these pictures for class books and slide shows. Occasionally newspaper photographers or other school staff may also come in for pictures. Please let me know if you would not like your child’s picture to be taken or used.
Positive Reinforcement ~ The students will receive stickers when they are “Caught Being Good”. They will receive these for making good choices, following directions the first time, staying on task, and setting a good example. Once the students have saved 10 stickers, they will be allowed to go shopping in the treasure box. As a class, we have a marble jar. Anytime the entire class is “Caught Being Good” or they are given a compliment, they will receive a handful of marbles to add to the jar. Once the jar is full, we will have an ice cream party and/or a pizza party. However, marbles can be taken away if the entire class is “Caught” not making good choices.
Q
Questions ~ Please feel free to contact me regarding any questions. If I do not know the answer, I will find it out for you. The best ways to contact me are via e-mail or in the planner.
R
Reading ~ It is so important to read everyday! Read to your child, with your child and listen to your child read. It is also important to let your child see you read for pleasure. We will send home readers and your child will bring home library books. While reading, don’t just read the words, talk about the story and help your understand the story. Predict what will happen, summarize what has happened, discuss how you could change the story, and ask reading comprehension questions.
Reading Mastery ~ Curriculum based on letter sounds. The students will be participating in Reading Mastery everyday. A sound chart is included in your purple parent folder for use at home. These sounds may look funny to you, but, the students will learn how to recognize these sounds fluently and put the together for reading and writing success.
Report Cards ~ In kindergarten, official report cards are sent home at the end of the 2nd and 4th nine-weeks. A skills assessment will be discussed with you at conferences at the end of the 1st and 3rd nine-weeks.
Rest Time ~ We will have quiet time for the first few weeks of school until the children are adjusted to the school day. The students are not required to nap but will be asked to quietly rest for 30 minutes.
Rules ~ Our classroom rules are:
1. Treat others as you would like to be treated.
2. Listen when others are talking.
3. Follow directions.
4. Keep hands, feet, and objects to yourself.
5. Work quietly and do not disturb others.
6. Show respect for school and personal property.
7. Work and play in a safe manner.
During the first few weeks, we will be going over the rules and procedures everyday. I am harder on the students in the beginning to ensure that they are clear as to what is expected of them. All students will be help responsible for their own behavior.
S
Supplies ~ A list of school supplies for the year will be given to you during “meet your teacher day”. Depending on the usage of supplies there may be additional supplies required for the second half of the school year.
Snack ~ We will have a designated snack time every morning in the classroom. Please send your child daily with a small snack they can eat neatly during this time. I ask that you pack their snack in separate Ziploc bag (not in their lunch box). Unfortunately, I will not be able to provide a snack for your child if they do not have one of their own. The students may bring an extra juice box or water bottle for snack time.
Spelling ~ During writing, your child will not be expected to spell all words correctly. Your child should spell a word as it sounds. An example may be spelling “army” as “rme”. The only words we will work on spelling correctly will be our high-frequency words. Otherwise, I encourage the children to sound out their own words. I do not spell words for the children.
Sentences ~ Your child will be expected to compose and write sentences on his own. This process begins with stressing that children speak in complete sentences, and then we will get them to put it in writing. We are looking for sentences that begin with a capital letter, have spaces between words and ending punctuation. Generally children begin writing simple sentences during the second nine weeks. At the close of the school year, the students will be able to write at least three sentences that are complete and on topic.
Special Area ~ Your child will be attending a special area class daily. We rotate to and from these classes every three weeks. The special area class will be announced in the newsletter every week for the upcoming week. Special areas include: PE, Music, Art, Spanish, Science, Computer, Math, and Health.
Schedule ~ The class schedule is included in your purple parent folder. If your child must miss part of the school day, please try to avoid missing academic portions of the day.
Show and Tell ~ We will have show and tell every Friday. Your child will have to be a detective to figure our what each classmate brought in to share. Hint: The object begins with the letter of the week. Please refer to the “Mystery Bag” information letter in your purple parent folder.
T
Tardies ~ All students need to be in class by 9:30. Students arriving after 9:30 must report to the office before coming to class.
Tying Shoes ~ If your child is unable to tie shoes, please double knot his shoes. Continue to have your child practice tying their shoes!
Toys ~ Toys, video games or trading cards are not allowed at school. (The exception is show and tell days) Toys brought to school will be confiscated.
U
Units & Themes ~ During the school year we will cover various units and themes. Units include: The Gingerbread Man, Nursery Rhymes, Apples, Fall, Thanksgiving, Holidays Around the World, Seasons, Dr. Seuss, 100th Day, and Earth. If you have valuable information (books, pictures, guest speakers) relating to our themes, we would love for you to share them with our class. I will list the theme of the week in the newsletter each week for the upcoming week. If there is a theme that you do not want your child to participate in due to religious concerns, please let me know so that I can make other arrangements.
V
Volunteers ~ If you would like to volunteer to work in the classroom or go on field trips, please fill out the volunteer paperwork. Once you are approved, you can start volunteering. If you are unable to volunteer in the classroom, but would still like to help, there are several ways to help from home. Please let me know if you have and interest in volunteering so that we can discuss what will work for each of us during the year.
W
Walkers ~ Students who are walking home will be escorted to the South Side of the building. Two staff members will walk the students down the path and to the parents. Kindergarten students will only be released to a parent.
Website ~ The school website www.flaglerschools.com/RES is full of useful information.
Writing vs. Handwriting ~ “Writing” refers to students independently composing and writing words or sentences related to a topic. “Handwriting” refers to forming the letters and words correctly.
Water bottles ~ Students can keep a “half-pint” water bottle with water in their desk to drink and refill during the day.
X
X-tra Special ~ The students in my class are X-tra special to me!
Y
Yearbook ~ The RES Roadrunner yearbook will be pre-sold during the second nine-weeks of school and will be delivered the last few weeks of school.
Z
Zaner Blouser ~ Zaner Blouser, or traditional, is the handwriting style we use in class.
I look forward to a year of fun!
Mrs. Kopach
Kindergarten Teacher
Rymfire Elementary
Room 2104