Welcome To First Grade
HI!! My name is Aliza Friedenberg Rowe and I am thrilled to introduce myself as your child’s first grade teacher! This will be a very special year in your child’s education, and I am proud to share it with your family! It will be a year of great academic and social growth. I hope you are as excited as I!!
Arrival/Dismissal
Please make sure your child is at school before 7:51am. This will give him/her plenty of time to get situated, go to the bathroom and get drinks before the bell rings. If your child arrives at school after 7:51am three times in one month a warning note will be sent home. The fourth tardy will result in lunch duty for each additional tardy that month. Class is dismissed at 2:11pm daily except Tuesday when we usually dismiss at 1:09. If for any reason you need to pick up your child before these times please make sure to get a note from the office permitting me to release him/her early. PLEASE schedule appointments after school hours whenever possible.
Absences
On the first day back after an absence please send a note explaining the reason. For absences five days or longer a doctor’s note is required by the school nurse.
Classroom Rules
To provide a safe and optimum learning environment we have four main rules in our class.
1. FOLLOW DIRECTIONS THE FIRST TIME THEY ARE GIVEN.
2. RESPECT YOURSELF, YOUR CLASSMATES, THE TEACHER AND THE MATERIALS.
3. ALWAYS DO YOUR BEST BECAUSE YOU ARE AT SCHOOL TO LEARN.
4. HELP YOUR CLASSMATES DO THEIR BEST.
Behavior
Each child will be given a face chart first thing every morning. Faces will be circled three times daily, before recess, before lunch and before going home according to how well students followed the class rules listed above. A rubber stamp or decorative hole punch will be put on the chart of each child who receives all Great faces. Great and Good happy faces often result in rewards and privileges, including but not limited to watching part of a video or being given treats. OK and Sad faces often result in not receiving rewards and privileges. If a child receives an OK or Sad face the chart must be signed and returned to school the next day or consequences might occur until the parent signed chart has been returned
First Grade Educational Standards
The following is a brief overview of the lessons we will be covering this year:
WRITTEN AND ORAL LANGUAGE: Match oral words to printed words; identify letters, words and sentences; long and short vowel sounds; rhyming words; consonant blends; blend two to four phonemes (sounds) to make a word; read common and irregular sight words (ex: the, have, said, of); compound words and contractions; read with fluency; respond to who, what, when, where and how questions; print legibly and space letters, words and sentences appropriately as well as basic punctuation.
MATHEMATICS: Count, read and write whole numbers up to 100; learn the meaning of and how to use more than, less than and equality symbols; Represent equivalent forms of the same number (ex: 8= 4+4 and 5+3); count and group objects in ones and tens, as well as to similar attributes; addition facts up to 20; inverse relationship between addition and subtraction; count by 2’s, 5’s and 10’s to 100; tell time to the nearest half hour; understand the meaning of +, -, and =.
SCIENCE: Weather, Matter (liquids and solids), and Life Science.
SOCIAL STUDIES: Community, Cultures, Holidays, and Geography.
Art, Music, Nutrition, and Physical Education (PE) will also be involved in the year’s curriculum.
Classwork Rubric
GRADES ENTERED IN GRADE BOOK
4 Fantastic work! All directions were followed and it was nice and neat.
3 Good work! All/most directions were followed; Could have been neater.
2 Nice try; Not all directions were followed.
1 Little to no work completed; few if any directions followed.
NOT ENTERED IN GRADE BOOK
J Tried hard and did a very nice job following directions.
Corrected; Please review circled answers which were fixed by teacher after a mistake
had been made or after it had been left blank.
Work not completed in class might be sent home for homework.
Test Rubric
4= 90-100% of work is correct.
3=89-70% of work is correct.
2=69-60% of work is correct.
1= Below 50% of work is correct.
Homework Policy
Homework will normally be sent home in a special folder every Monday. It will be due the following Friday morning unless noted otherwise. All homework is a review or an extension of activities that have been covered in class. I may also be sending home work that your child missed in an absence.
Reading will be assigned as a family project. Whether s/he reads to you or you read to him/her will be your choice. The reading assignment must last for at least 15 minutes each night, Monday through Thursday. The 15 minute reading time may be in any language. There is often a sense of cultural pride for speakers of languages other than English to hear and share stories in their native tongue. Each night after the reading period, an adult must sign the provided chart (if one is not provided for please create your own providing the information on the regular chart). Your cooperation in this matter is vital in the process of your child learning to read.
A paper book at your child’s reading level may be sent home for practice as part of the homework assignment. It is to be returned with the homework folder and will be read one on one with me hopefully that same day. This should not be where the 15 minutes of homework reading are spent. I want to encourage reading for enjoyment and not just as studying.
Homework will be graded on a 1-4 system (just like the report cards) where 4 means it was all completed and 1 means it was mostly incomplete or not turned in at all. A grade of 2 or 1 will require a parent signature and must be returned to me promptly. Unless prior arrangements have been made, late homework automatically earns a score of 2 or lower depending on the amount of work completed. Once in a while there will be an opportunity for extra credit.
Grades will be issued as to the amount of work completed, not the number of errors as long as directions were attempted to have been followed. For example, a completed homework writing assignments will not be graded down for spelling or grammatical errors.
As long as you speak/write to me BEFORE Friday morning I will be happy to help and answer questions about your child’s homework. This includes questions about how to do a particular assignment or if you believe something to be missing.
Homework is a VERY important part of the educational experience. Please make sure it gets the time and energy necessary to be completed to the best of your child’s ability. Please try your best to provide assistance s/he needs (whether by you, an older sibling, a babysitter, etc.). There is often a great and obvious difference in academic performance between students who complete their homework on a regular basis and students who do not. Lastly, please make sure to review your child’s corrected homework to understand the corrections! If the work was turned in on time, it is usually returned the same day.Homework Rubric
- All four parts of homework were complete and it was on time.
-Three parts of homework were complete. It was on time.
-Two parts of the homework were complete and /or it was
late. Parent signature required and return to school.
-Only one part of the homework was complete or no
homework was turned in. Parent signature required
and return to school.
Holidays
Birthdays are a special time for children and will be celebrated by the entire class. Each child will receive a card, a little gift, and be sung to on his/her special day. If you would like to celebrate with us, please notify me at least a week ahead of time. Single serve treats (like cupcakes or cookies) are strongly recommended and must be store bought. Please let me know if your child has any allergies!
I believe strongly in multi-cultural education and therefore will discuss celebrations from different cultures throughout the year. If you have something special from your culture that you would like to share with the class please let me know!
Please also let me know ahead of time if you do not want your child to participate in birthday or holiday celebrations.
Volunteers
Of course I always welcome an extra pair of hands in the classroom. Your time would be most appreciated in assisting me to assemble homework, staple paper books, cut out laminating, and of course working with the students.
If you have access to a copy machine I would GREATLY appreciate assistance in copying class sets of assignments and projects!
As your child’s first teacher, your continued involvement in his/her academic and social development is essential. By working together we can make this a wonderful learning experience. I look forward to seeing you at Back to School Night.
Sincerely,
Mrs. Aliza Friedenberg Rowe
Room 38
