General Class Information
Birthdays: Birthdays are a special for young children and I want to make sure we celebrate that in class. However, due to some life threatening allergies, I cannot accept any food treats into the classroom for birthdays. If you would like to send something in, any non-food item is fine, but certainly not required. Small things like erasers, pencils, stickers, etc. is fine to send in and we will have the birthday child pass those out at the end of the day. We do sing, play a birthday GoNoodle video and make each child a birthday book as a class. For birthday invitations, if the whole class is invited, I will put those invitations in Friday folders. However, if only some of the class is invited (all of the boys, or all of the girls) I would ask you to send those another way. We cannot release addresses or phone numbers to the class, but I am fine with fowarding an address request to another parent.
Snacks: We have two snack times during the day (morning and afternoon). Due to life threatening allergies I do NOT allow the children to share snacks. I also do not keep snacks in the room for children.
Grading and returned work: I follow our district grading scale of E=Exceeds expectations M=Meets Expectations A=Approaching expectations DNM=Does not meet expectations. You might see these letters on graded literacy worksheets or other daily work sent home. For math, I average out the scores of the weekly pages from our math workbook and the weekly quizzes. When you see a percentage on returned math work, please don't associate a traditional letter grade to that percent (i.e. 70% = C). The percentage I use shows how much of that particular lesson your child has understood, or has worked towards mastery. This means that if you see a 60%, they have understood 60% of the material, OR is currently at 60% of mastery of that particular math topic. If at anytime you have questions or concerns about your child's "grade" in a subject, please don't hesitate to ask. Artful Learning work is returned at the end of each unit and will have the E/M/A/DNM notations.
