Classroom Handbook

Mrs. Morse’s

Kindergarten Class

Handbook

Marion Cross Elementary

“Where great minds grow!”

2019-2020

Dear Parents,

This year your child will complete one of the most important

milestones in his/her life – the first day of school! I understand

that you and your child may meet this day with excitement

or apprehension (or a little of both).

I want to take this opportunity to welcome you and your child to

Marion Cross Elementary and to my classroom. Each new school

year is exciting and challenging for me and I am looking forward

to getting to know you and your child.

The beginning of a school year is an exciting time in the lives of

children, especially Kindergarten students. I have prepared this

booklet of information to answer many questions you may have

concerning procedures in our classroom and in our school. Please

keep this booklet and refer to it when appropriate. Let me

know if you have any questions.

Kindergarten will be a time when we work together to build your

child’s educational foundation. I am very happy to partner with

you on this journey. Don’t blink – this year will go by fast!!!

Sincerely,

Mrs. Morse

A Message for Kindergarten Parents

Kindle excitement about Kindergarten. Visit your school and meet

your child’s teacher.

Invite new school friends home to play and help your child build

strong friendships.

Never forget safety. Teach your child safety rules-whether

walking or taking the bus.

Discuss what your child will be learning in school – colors, shapes,

numbers, letters, etc.

Explore your neighborhood together. Talk about the natural world you live

in.

Review the good behavior expected of your child, such as

following rules and taking turns.

Get involved at your child’s school. Join the PTO. Volunteer

in the classroom.

Answer your child’s questions about school. Reassure your child

that school is fun.

Read to your child daily. Visit the library together.

Turn every day into a learning experience. Let your child help you

with everyday chores.

Encourage your child to eat well, get enough sleep, bathe daily

and brush teeth 2X a day.

Notice the new things your child is learning to do. Reinforce your

child’s progress with praise, notice the details.

Kindergarten Supply List

- towel or small blanket for rest time (sent home each Fri. for washing)

- sneakers to keep at school for PE

Parent/Teacher Relationship

A good parent-teacher relationship is necessary for maximum

school success. Throughout the school year, I will communicate with you

through notes, telephone calls, weekly newsletters, report cards, and parent-teacher conferences. I encourage you to contact me if you have any questions or concerns. You can call me at school :

802-649-1703 ext 238, send me a note, or e-mail me at: ashley.morse@marioncross.org

Money

On occasion, it will be necessary for your child to bring money to school.

Always send money in a sealed envelope in their home/school pouch with the following information

written on the outside:

~1. Your child’s first and last name

~2. The amount of money

~3. The purpose for the money (milk, field trip, etc).

~4. My name – Mrs. Morse

Milk

Milk is available for morning snack and lunch. The cost of milk is 15 cents a carton. (*Please follow the money procedures outlined above. You can prepay for your child’s milk for the year. The total for the year for two milks a day is $52.50, one milk a day is $26.25).

Snacks

Please send in two snacks and a lunch each day for your child. We have snack in the morning at 10:00 am and in the afternoon at 2:00 pm. It is a good idea to label each snack and lunch. This will help your child know what is to be eaten for snack and to be saved for later in the day. Due to possible allergies, food is not to be shared at school **(except on birthdays)** Snack items can be: fruit, veggies, graham crackers, animal crackers, fruit roll ups, yogurt, cereal, goldfish, and snack bars. No candy or soda, please!

Transportation

Please remember to NOTIFY ME IN WRITING if there are changes in the way your child will be going home from school. Without written instruction from you, I will send your child home his or her usual manner (I cannot accept verbal changes from your child or a sibling). PLEASE DO NOT EMAIL SAME DAY TRANSPORTATION CHANGES!!! I cannot guarantee that I will have an opportunity to check my email prior to dismissal. Additionally, substitutes do not have access to my email account. Only in an emergency, transportation changes will be accepted over the phone. The best way to make a transportation change is by sending a note to school in your child’s Home/school pouch **I have found that it makes everything go smoother is your child uses the same transportation on the first day of school as (s)he will be using the rest of the school year.

Arrival

Independence is an important skill learned and practiced each day in Kindergarten, please help your child foster this with a quick and positive goodbye. The earlier you establish this routine for them, the more successful they will be at the beginning of their day! The bell will ring at 8:10am and I will be outside to meet kids on the front playground. I ask that parents not accompany kids in the classroom. **** Please remember if you arrive late (after 8:15 am) you must enter the building through the front doors and sign in in the front office. ****

Attendance

If your child is sick or is not going to attend school for another reason, please call the office and let them know as soon as possible. If your child is not feeling well, has had a fever during the last 24 hours, or is in any way contagious, PLEASE keep him/her to stay home from school as we want your child and the rest of the class and teachers to stay healthy. If your child will be out for an extended time please go to the office and fill out and absence form. If you have specific questions, call the school 802-649-1703 and speak to our front office secretary, Mrs. Smollin and/or our school nurse, Pam Hausler.

Volunteers

The students and I enjoy having our parents come to school to help us learn!

If you are interested, please fill out the volunteer form on line. Volunteer forms are available on line through our school website. I will not be asking for volunteers until we have about 6 weeks to create our classroom community. It will give us time to come together as a group and for me to determine where a volunteer will be best utilized. I have had wonderful parent support in years past and I look forward to your support! Your help is GREATLY appreciated!

Field Trips

Throughout the year, we will schedule trips into the community to enhance our curriculum. Some of these trips will be local and we will walk. I will mention these in our Friday News. For trips that are out of town, I will send home a permission slips and cost information will be sent home prior to each trip. Transportation will be provided by the district’s school buses.

For some trips I will ask for parent chaperones.Due to space requirements, the number of chaperones will be limited for each trip. When the field trip permission slip is distributed, if you are interested in chaperoning, please let me know as soon as possible. Chaperones will be assigned on a first come, first serve basis. If we have more volunteers than spaces, I will choose parents who have not chaperoned a trip recently.

Please understand that I will make every attempt to give all parents the opportunity to go on a field trip.

Birthdays

I know how special birthdays are for you and your child. We will recognize birthdays at school in an appropriate manner. Please let me know ahead of

time if you wish to send in a special snack for the class on your child’s birthday. We will have the treat/snack during our regular snack time, which will be after 2:00p.m.

If your child is having a birthday party and you would like to invite children from the class, you must send in enough invitations for every child in the class. If, for some reason, there are not enough for everyone, then I will send them all back home.

Clothing

Kindergartners are involved in activities that require jumping, running, climbing etc. Sneakers with laces or Velcro closures are required

for PE days (crocs, flip flops or sandals are not allowed for PE). Please keep in mind that your child will participate in outdoor activities daily and flip-flops, clogs, and similar style shoes often restrict activity. Please leave a pair of sneakers at school to keep on hand. Please label them with your child’s name. You may also want to leave an extra pair of clothes, particularly socks, for changing after a spill, wet playground day, etc.

Rest Time

Kindergartners are busy people during the school day! They use their brains and bodies to learn and play. As a result, they need time to rest and re-energize. Your child will have a short 20-25 minute rest period each day. Please provide a towel or a small blanket for your child to rest on. They will have a rest bag in their cubbies to store their towels/blankets. Big mats or large blankets will not fit well and cannot be stored in their rest bag. The lights are turned off and soft music or a story fills the room so we can be ready for fun afternoon activities. Blankets and/or towels will come home each Friday to be washed. Please wash them over the weekend and send them back to school on Monday in your child’s backpack. Please label them with your child’s name.

Library

You will learn that I am a firm believer in children being surrounded by books. Each week your child will visit the school library. He/She will be

permitted to check out two books during each visit. Please help your child find a place to keep his/her library books at home. My suggestion would be to keep the books in their backpack unless they are reading them. Then they won’t forget to bring them to school when they are due. Your child must return their current books in order to get new ones. If your child does not take care of the library books then she/he will lose his or her privilege to check out books.

Home/School Pouch

Please check this pouch each day. We will be sending home lots of important information and your child's work. This pouch will go home and needs to be returned to school each day, even if there is nothing in it. Children will be responsible for placing it in the bucket here at school each morning and packing it in their backpack each afternoon. It's a terrific lesson in independence and responsibility.

"Friday News"- Weekly Newsletter

Each Friday, I will send home a newsletter in their home/school pouch that will highlight some things that have happened in class that week. There will also be a lot of announcements and dates to keep you informed. Please read the newsletter each week. This will also be posted on our class website which you can find the link to on our school website.

Discipline - Classroom Rules

In the first few days of school, our class will put together a set of rules for our classroom. The focus will be on safety, responsibility and respect for self and others. Often when asked what rules are, children will respond with the negative, for example, "don't run." I am going to challenge them and ask them to think in the positive, "If you can't run, what can you do?" All the rules will be phrased in a way that the children will always know what they are "supposed" to be doing. For students that struggle with internalizing the rules, we will develop individualized behavior plans, checklists about daily behavior sent home, etc. to help them be more successful at school.

Forest Fridays

Exploring the natural world using your five senses provides a rich and wondering setting for learning. Nature provides a range of purposeful contexts that the children can really become involved in. We are grateful to live in such a beautiful part of the world with amazing natural resources right behind our school! The Milton Frye Nature Preserve has so much to offer including, natural streams to explore the properties of water, trails with a wide variety of trees that change with the seasons, and wildlife that depend upon both. These resources all give children tangible ways of working with and in nature to increase their connection to it.

With that in mind, our goal for the MCS kindergarten program is to spend 80% of our Fridays outside. We will explore the natural world and make connections with stories, counting, and recording observations. Some investigations might take the whole school year as we explore the changes that occur in nature over time. We ask that each child be dressed appropriately for the weather, each Friday. Rubber boots when it is raining, rain coats, extra layers etc. If you want to use bug spray, please put it on before school. Ticks, as always, are out and about in the grass (even on our back playground) and in the woods, please make sure you check your child for ticks each day, but especially on Fridays before bedtime.

You will have the opportunity to join us for a Curriculum Night, in early September. This will be for parents only and each grade level has their own times so that families with more than one child in school will be able to attend all of them. Bring your child with you and let them give you a tour of their classroom at our Open House in the evening, in October and see some of their work and favorite activities. Please remember this will NOT be a time to conference about your child. The dates for both events will be posted soon!

Finally

Encourage your child to discuss school activities and events with you. Talk positively about school. The way your child perceives your feelings about his/her school and teachers will have a direct effect on how they feel about them. Simply asking kids about how school was, will usually only get the answer, "fine." I can assure you each day is busy, fun and full of activity. A great way to initiate a conversation will be to ask about specific events in their day. You can find out about these in our Friday Newsletter or on our class website (which you can find the link to from our MCS Homepage under Teacher Websites). Questions like, "How many days have you been in school?" or "What letters are you studying this week?" or having your child tell you about our Daily News (also on our website) will encourage rich and animated discussions. I am delighted to have your child in my class and I look forward to working with you to make sure your child experiences lots of successes in their first year at Marion Cross!