Dear Parents,
Welcome to a wonderful school year! I am so excited to be your child’s First Grade teacher. We have a jungle theme in our classroom, so you’ll probably see a lot of jungle-related things coming home!! You will find our classroom rules and how I handle discipline in this letter. Please feel free to contact me with comments, questions or concerns.
There are four expectations/rules in our classroom. They are:
1. Be Safe
2. Work Hard
3. Be Respectful
4. Love Yourself
While I have very high expectations that all students will do the right thing at all times, I do have a management system for our room. This technique is from Rick Morris’ New Management. **Please see attached website for more information.
Every day student’s name tags are on “Ready to Learn.” As students begin to do what is expected of them, I praise those students and move their name clips up to “Good Day,” “Great Day,” “Outstanding Day.” (Example: “Thank you ____ for following the directions and turning to page 20” or “I really appreciate how ___ is waiting patiently with his/her hand raised.” etc.)This type of positive reinforcement allows other students to once again hear the desired expectation as well as look around and look at what other classmates are doing-practicing self discipline and responsibility.
Students can have their name tag moved down. The first step is a verbal warning. Usually this is all that is needed to redirect someone that might have lost their focus. If a verbal warning isn’t helpful for the student, they will have to move their clip down to “Think about It.” If the behavior continues, your child will move their clip into “Teacher’s Choice.” And lastly, your child will contact you to inform you of their choices made. This usually is followed by a parent-teacher conference led by your child.
**Please note depending on any situation alternative actions will lead to your child being sent to Mr. Craven’s office for further action.
At the end of the day, all name tags are placed back on “Ready to Learn” and we start over the next day as a brand new day.
I believe more in working towards positive things rather than focusing on negative things. The students work together to earn extra minutes towards a structured educational task such as extra: physical activity, Preferred Activity Time (PAT Time), Read-Ins, Science experiment, math games, etc.
We also have weekly “Cheetah Chats” which is our classroom meeting. Each week we will address any KELSO matters (without stating names) and talk about/ dramatize possible solutions on how to handle a problem. I believe in building a classroom bond between students and guide them into becoming successful problem solvers, independent, well-rounded individuals.
If you ever have any questions, comments, or concerns please feel free to contact me!
Again, I look forward to working with you to ensure that this is the best year possible for your child. We are a team and together we are going to make sure that this is the best year ever!!
Thank you!
Miss Beardsley