Beginning+of+Year+Information

Dear Parent(s),

 Welcome to 2nd grade! I am so excited to have your child in my class, and I am looking forward to a great year! I know that in order for your child to be successful, we all need to work together to communicate. I will be communicating with you in different ways: notes sent home with your child, my wiki (it’s like a web page with classroom information), emails, and telephone calls. This year on my wiki, I will include all of my weekly information for you and your child to use. If you do not have access to a computer, just let me know and I will send home paper copies with your child. Please use these forms of communication to contact me.  Your child will be having snack time in the afternoon. The school will be providing a snack each day and parents have been asked to pay a fee to cover this. Your child will have the option of skim or one percent milk during snack time, which will be charged to your lunch account.  Please make sure that you check your child’s "Take-Home Folder" every night for completed work and important notes. I am making some changes this year for homework. The only homework your child will have this year is to read daily. I am asking each child to read daily for 15-20 minutes. I will send home a reading log each week to record minutes/pages read, and then be handed in each Friday. Please listen to your child read aloud and assist your child only when needed. For math this year, your child will complete side A of the math paper in class after the lesson. I will send the paper home for those that would like to complete the side B practice at home. This also allows the parents to be informed of the skills that are being covered. The papers will need to be returned the next day to allow students to go over the work as a group and have any questions answered. If a student does not complete the work at home, it will be completed with their group the next morning. For spelling, I will send the list home on Mondays. Feel free to practice the words with your child and talk about the spelling rule that goes with the words.We will be doing many activities to practice the phonics skills throughout the week. We will have a test on Fridays to check for understanding of the phonics skills used in the words for the week. If the test score does not reflect an understanding of the rule, I will re-teach and re-test for mastery. Please let me know if you have any questions about the homework this year. My hope is that this extra time at home will be used to foster a love for reading together!  Our classroom will have a character plan to help maintain good character. This plan consists of using a stoplight. Each day all of the students start at green. They will only move up on the stoplight if they are not displaying good character. Each student will receive a warning before his/her stick is moved. Here is what each color means:

 Green- Everything is going great, and you are showing good character!

 Yellow- Slow down and think about your character.

 Red- Stop and accept the consequences.

 Off the stoplight- Write a note home and visit with Mrs. Lynch and Mr. Graeve.

Every day your child will come home with a homework/behavior log. They will have reading homework listed in each box and then fill in a face for how their behavior was that day. I will check their logs and fill in the face for how I feel their behavior was for that day! There is a place for you to sign this nightly!

 I think we have an awesome class that has great character. I don’t anticipate many problems, but I do want you to be aware of our character plan. Thanks for all of your support.

 Thank you!

 Mrs. Lynch