1. Welcome to Kindergarten
An exciting adventure

2. Notebooks that go home  
Be sure to sign the behavior sheet in the front of your child's notebook.  These come home daily and is a great way for parents and teachers to stay in communication.
Homework will be in the back of this notebook in a folder.  It is very important that your child spends just a little time everyday doing this.  It is practice work reviewing what we have done in school.  Grades will be given starting the second 9 weeks, on homework so get them use to doing it now.

3. Grading Policy                        
Sometime during the first nice weeks your child's teacher will schedule a conference with you. These conferences are required, and we will also meet at the end of the 3rd nine weeks. At this time they will discuss with you what we are doing in Kindergarten and how you can better help your child. During the first nine weeks we spend a great deal of time teaching them how to take a test and how to be a better student. Starting the second nine weeks they begin to get grades. The grades are A, B, C or N. You have access to our grade book through the Focus Portal. A letter was sent home with your child's student ID and Pin number. At any time after we start giving grades you can go in and see the grades your child has earned. * Test/Quiz - 80% *Participation – 10% *Homework – 10%

4. Expectations                                             
Kindergarten is not how you remember it.  There is more seat work and time to listen and much less play.
By the end of the year we would like to see your child reading.  They need to know all the letters of the alphabet (capital and lower case) out of order and know all the letter sounds.  They need to be reading the sight words that we introduce and should be sounding out words.  We also want them to be able to count to 100 and do simple addition and subtraction problems.
DON’T WORRY ~ WE WILL GET THEM THERE!!                                                                   

5. MORNING ROUTINE
Your child needs to go to the lunchroom in the morning if they get here before 8:10 am for breakfast or to sit and wait.  A Kindergarten teacher will pick them up in the lunchroom at 8:10 am and bring them to the classroom.  If it is after 8:10 am, they go directly to the classroom.
Please make sure your child is in his/her class before 8:30 am or they will be marked tardy.  If your child is tardy, they miss the morning lessons and disrupt the rest of the class when they come in.
It is very important that your child be at school and on time each and everyday.

6. Important information
It is very important that we have the most recent contact information (home phone, cell phone, address, etc) if it changes throughout the year.  It is important that we always have a way of contacting you.
If your child needs to go home a different way, we need to have this in writing.  We cannot take it by phone or your child telling us.  This must also be on a separate piece of paper so we can get it down to the office.

7. behavior
As Kindergarten teachers we understand that these little bodies need to move and be active, but we also need for them to listen.  We are working with them to train them to listen more and talk less and as the year progresses we will ask more and more of them.
How can you help ~ give them more responsivities at home.  Don't do everything for them (we know, mommies are like that) but they need to learn now to do things for themselves.  It will take some training at home but you are teaching your child so much by giving them this time to make them more independent.
Once again, watch the notebooks for the behavior sheet and follow through with consequences when they get home.

8. Box Tops
We do collect box tops so hang on to them.  Every little one is money for our school.

9. Birthdays
We love celebrating birthdays, but we cannot take away from instruction time to do this.  
If you would like to have a small celebration here at school, you need to notify the teacher prior to the date and it needs to take place on the Friday of their birthday week.
Once again, this will need to take place on a Friday after 2:00 pm.

10. Best for Last ~
Ms. Russell will be joining us on Monday.  We will miss Ms. C very much and are very grateful for all her hard work that she has put into your children already.
This has been a great thing for Kindergarten.  Our class sizes are lower, and it gives us more time to work with each child.
Stop by next week to meet Ms. Russell and let's give her that Wonderful Sabal Palm welcome!

11. We are in this together ~
You are your child's first teacher!  We are here to help you, but we also need your help.
Let's work together to give your child the best this year!