Mrs. Dieterich’s First Grade Information

Arrival & Drop Off: Parents will no longer be allowed to walk children to their classrooms. School begins at 8:00 a.m. The building opens at 7:15 a.m. If you come to school earlier than 7:30, your child should be dropped off at the main entrance or the cafeteria entrance. Your child will stay in the cafeteria until 7:30, when they will be dismissed to the classroom. Children who are not in the building by 8:00 a.m. will need to be walked by the adult dropping them off to the office. Students will be counted tardy at 8:05. (Announcements begin at 8:05.)

Pick Up / Dismissal:

Car riders will be walked out the front doors in the 1st grade hall to wait on the sidewalk to be picked up. Your child’s safety is our main concern. To help us with this, please have your child’s name in the front windshield (not on the dashboard) so that it can be seen. There will be a line with four to five cars being loaded at a time. There should be no passing of cars still loading students, please stay in the line until all cars in front of you are loaded. Please do not get out of your car. Your child will be helped into the car on the rear passenger’s side. If your child rides in a car seat, please have it in the backseat on the passenger’s side. This keeps the traffic flowing. When all cars have exited the drive-through, children who have not been picked up will be taken to the office to wait. Please remember that dismissal is not an appropriate time for a conference with your child’s teacher. Please use your P.A.W.S. Folders, email ([email protected]), or a phone call (761-5755 ext. 6641) to visit with me.

Walkers will be dismissed to the back of the building with other car riders.

Bus riders and children who are picked up by day cares will be escorted out the side of the school where they will be picked up at 3:20.

***If your child will be going home a different way than usual, please phone the office before 2:00 p.m. or send me a note in the P.A.W.S. Folder.

Early Check-Out: Go to the office and sign your child out. The secretary will call down to our classroom for me to release your child. It is helpful if you send me a note that morning in your child’s PAWS folder to let me know what time he/she is leaving.

P.A.W.S. Folders: Your child will bring home his/her P.A.W.S. Folder every day (purple three- brad folder). Please check it each evening and help your child keep it clean and in good condition as we will be using it all year. These folders need to be returned to school every day in your child’s backpack.

Behavior Report: A behavior calendar is in your child’s P.A.W.S. folder. These will be marked daily to let you know if your child struggled during the day. A blank square indicates your child had a good day at school. Please check this and initial it every day. You may also leave comments or questions on the right side. Notes, progress reports, and calls home will also let you know how your child is doing in class. Lunches: Our lunchtime is 11:10-11:40 each day. Student lunches are $2.10. Ice cream will be sold on Fridays for an additional $1.00 fee. As the cafeteria is “cashless,” I encourage you to put money in your child’s lunch account by the month or week. We would love to have parents or grandparents come for lunch! Be sure you stop at the office to sign in before joining us in the hall by the cafeteria. Also, if you will need a cafeteria lunch for yourself that day please send me a letter that morning to let me know. This keeps our lunch counts accurate.

Money: For your protection, money sent to school with your child should be in an envelope labeled with his/her first and last name, my name (Dieterich), and what it is to be used for (lunch, book order, etc.). Place the envelope in the P.A.W.S. Folder Money Pocket..

Snacks: We will be having our snack in the afternoon during recess (12:40) this year. Please send only healthy snacks that are not “wet” and do not require a utensil. Children not having a snack for the day will be allowed to play as others eat.

Clothing: Sometimes we will use paints and other “messy materials,” so please dress your child accordingly. Additionally, please have a complete extra change of clothes in your child’s backpack in case of spills or accidents. To foster independence, please select clothing and shoes that your child can handle on his/her own. Please label coats and sweaters with your child’s first and last name. Tennis shoes are to be worn on the days we go to P.E. Girls should wear shorts under their dresses. For more information please see the student dress code in the student handbook on the Midway website.

Newsletters: I will send a monthly newsletter home at the beginning of each month in the P.A.W.S. Folder. It will list the current units of study and concepts as well as upcoming events and news. Please read over these and keep them to reference throughout the month.

Homework: Your child will bring home a weekly list of homework. He/she should read at least 75 minutes / week in addition to his/her math and word study homework. If there is other homework, the directions will be in the P.A.W.S. folder with the assignment. Occasionally, I will assign extra practice to students as needed to master various skills that are covered in school. Please make sure that you make this a priority. Please complete written work in pencil. All finished homework is to be put back in the front pocket of the P.A.W.S. folder. Missing or incomplete homework will be made up during recess time. *Individualized word study tests start this week. Tests will be given in small groups, and words will not be called in the order your child wrote them.

Testing: Students will take the TPRI (Texas Primary Reading Inventory) and the TEMI (Texas Early Mathematics Inventory) three times a year (beginning, middle, and end) to monitor student growth. We will also use Fountas & Pinnell leveled books three times a year to track each student’s reading level. The expectation for a student leaving first grade is to be “developed” on the TPRI, “average” or above on the TEMI, and to be reading at level I or higher while maintaining a fluency of 60+ words per minute. Homework and daily skill practice will help students achieve these things. Birthdays: On your child’s birthday he/she will be recognized in class and given a special surprise. Summer birthdays will be celebrated in June. We are not allowed to have birthday parties at school. Policy states only store bought, unopened treats may be passed out at school. Please send individual cookies, brownies, or rice krispies to celebrate. Cake, cookie cake, and cupcakes are extremely messy and time consuming. Please make sure cookies do not contain nuts and are not cooked in oils made from nuts. Birthday invitations may be passed out at school if there is an invitation for each child. The only exception to this would be if you were inviting only all the girls or all the boys.

Medications: All medication should be taken to the school nurse and must be in its original container. It should be accompanied by a written request (signed and dated by a parent or legal guardian) with the student’s name, the name of medication, the amount to be given, the frequency of administration, and the reason the medication is being given. *Cough drops are considered a medication. The school nurse will administer all medications.

Book Orders: I will soon send more information home covering the procedures for this. Look for opportunities to earn books for our class by ordering online.

Library: Students in our class will be going to the library on Friday afternoon this year. Children will checkout one book at a time this fall. In the spring first graders are allowed to check out two books. Please help your child remember to bring his/her library book back to school every day so that he/she may use it on a daily basis.

Toys: No toys from home are allowed at school.

Conferences: My conference period is 8:45-9:45 every day. However, I have meetings during this time every Tuesday and Thursday. You may phone, email, or write a note any time to schedule a conference. We will schedule parent conferences before the end of October.

Graded Papers: Daily work will be checked to make sure students understand and are mastering skills. Please look for the total number missed, smiley faces, short notes, checkmarks, or checkmarks with a plus sign written in ink to indicate that I have reviewed work coming home. If you do not see these things, I have not seen your child’s work. Please return it to school. Work graded and recorded for the report card will have a capital R circled at the top next to the grade. Once papers are graded and have been reviewed (when necessary), they will be sent home in the back pocket of the P.A.W.S. folder. These should be kept at home. ***A “Sub.” label at the top of your child’s paper indicates that the work was done while I was not in the room. This year you may also see work come home from art and CASE classes. These papers may be incomplete and/or not have grades on them. Please ask your child if they completed the work with Mrs. Dieterich or during CAMP if you are unsure if it needs to be returned to school.

Report Cards: Report cards are sent home every 6 weeks. We will be using a standardized report card again this year. Please do not let the lack of number grades detract from the importance of the information these documents will communicate. Starting the second 6 weeks, progress reports will be sent home every three weeks. Please visit the district website at http://www.midwayisd.org/Page/15154 for more information on report cards. You can also find more information about our grading policy at http://www.midwayisd.org/Page/15918 .

Field Trips: The number of field trips and the dates for these trips have not yet been decided. As I receive more information, I will send the details home in your child’s P.A.W.S. Folder.

1:1 Technology: All students having a signed iPad agreement will all be receiving an iPad the week of 09/14/15 to use here at school. These devices will not be sent home. If you have not yet purchased your child’s earbuds / headphones please do so a.s.a.p.

“ What I Need” (WIN): As soon as BOY testing in completed, students will be placed in groups based on their reading learning needs. Groups will be assigned an adult instructor (1st grade teacher, instructional specialist, assistants, etc.) to help them reach their full potential. WIN time is 30 minutes / day on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. Math WIN is organized much the same way, but often most students will stay in their classrooms with a few students pulled by our instructional specialist and his assistants.

Bridge Class: Many of you have already contacted me and/or the office about the unique structuring of our classroom this year. This is the inaugural year for the Bridge Class at CCE. This class is considered to be an acceleration class. As I have shared with most of you already, we will use pre-assessments and lots of small group instruction to provide intervention and extensions as needed through the year. I have an intern this fall and will have a part-time assistant all year to help us with this. Though students in our room were ability grouped using end-of-year test results from last year, they will all still learn through very different methods and at very different paces. Just as in any classroom on our campus, differentiated instruction will be provided to ensure all students the opportunity to obtain at least a full year’s growth this year. With the student-to-teacher ratio being what it is in this class, I am excited to see all that we will accomplish this year. I have already shared with my students that they should not expect it to be easy or even pretty this year. I intend to push them to make a mistake every day. Then, I will challenge them to learn from those mistakes and become better than they were. I used race cars to illustrate for them that although we may “crash and burn” at times as we struggle through some of our new concepts, I would not give up on them and I expected them to “stretch their Fantastic Elastic Brain” as we read about in Your Fantastic Elastic Brain Stretch it, Shape It by JoAnn Deak, PH.D.

Fair Not Equal: I strive to give each child exactly what he/she needs from me here at school. Each child’s needs are different; my interactions (academically and otherwise) will be just as differentiated. If you ever have questions concerning your child, please do not hesitate to contact me.

*I am human and therefore fallible. Please know I am open to suggestions and like to keep an open dialogue with my students’ parents. I believe we should all be life-long learners. Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns throughout the year. I’m looking forward to a wonderful year!

~Laura Dieterich