Welcome to Kindergarden

The following information is to help you and your child transition into Kindergarten easily.  I have included basic information about procedures and need to know information about starting school at Dutchtown! 

Curriculum:

We will be using The Henry County Learning Standards this year.  These standards are in detail of the skills your child will be learning this year.  Some of these skills include:

• Letter recognition and their sounds (upper & lowercase letters)
• Beginning & ending sounds
• Handwriting
• Rhyming words
• Sight words
• Number recognition & skip counting
• Positional words
• Measurement
• Addition and Subtraction
• MANY, MANY, MORE!!!!!!! 

Attendance:

School begins at 7:35 a.m. and ends at 2:15 p.m.  It is VERY important for your child to be at school every day and arrive on time!  Students are not allowed to be dropped off earlier than 7:10 for safety reasons.  After 7:35 a.m. your child will be considered tardy.  

Absences: 

If your child is absent, please send a hand-written note or doctor’s excuse with your child upon returning to school.  It is important that you send in an excuse note for EVERY absence.  If your child is going to be absent for more than one-two days, let me know and I will prepare work for them.  

Breakfast & Lunch:

The school serves breakfast in the morning starting at 7:15 a.m.  If your child is planning to eat breakfast at school, please make sure they arrive with enough time to get a breakfast before the bell rings at 7:35. 

Our lunch time is from 12:42-1:15 every day. You may send your child with a sack lunch from home or they may get lunch from school.  There are typically at least two choices to choose from each day. Due to school population size, visitors are not allowed for lunch. 

This year's breakfast and lunch will be of charge. You may also pay for school breakfast and lunch through myschoolbucks.com. The prices can be found below: 

Breakfast Prices: $1.25

Lunch Prices: $2.50 

Ice-cream:

Kindergarten students will be allowed to purchase ice cream on Friday’s.  Ice cream is sold in the cafeteria for $1.00. This will not start the first couple weeks of school.  We will send a letter when ice cream can be purchased. Please keep in mind that having ice cream is a privilege and if a student is misbehaving, the ice cream money will be returned. 

Snack:

We will allow snack time each day. Each child is responsible to bring their own snack from home each day.  Also, please send healthy, no-mess snacks or snacks that involve a spoon or fork.  Some examples of these include: 

• Pretzels
• Carrots
• Granola bars
• Animal Crackers

Birthdays:

In Kindergarten, we love to celebrate students’ birthdays. We please ask, if you plan to send in treats for birthdays, send in individually wrapped treats or goodie bags. We will pass out the treats and goodie bags in class. Please no cupcakes nor sheet cakes.

Money: 

Please send all money in your child’s  Red Daily Communication Folder.  You must LABEL the money so that I know where to properly send it. 

Medications: 

If your child requires any sort of medicine during the day, it must be administered by the school clinic aide.  You must fill out a medication form and send in the medicine to the office.  Your child will be sent to the clinic aide at the appropriate time to take the medication.  Please do not send any medication to school with your child.  You must bring this to the front office, this includes cough drops.

Communication Folder & Graded Papers: 

Your child will have a Red Daily Communication Folder that will go home with them each night and come back each day!  It is important to keep up with this folder.   Your child’s daily behavior report will be found here.  You will need to sign each night and return.  Graded papers will go home on Friday. Please empty these over the weekend! 

Homework

More information about homework  is coming soon.

Transportation:

It is VERY important that we know how your child is getting home each day!  If your child has a change in transportation, you MUST submit this request in WRITING!! Your child will NOT be permitted to go home a different way without a request in writing.  Teachers cannot accept emails, phone calls or texts.  If you have an emergency change that was not sent ahead of time, please contact the front office.  Thank you for your help ahead of time with this very important matter! 

Rules and Behavior:

I have five very important rules in my classroom so that our day runs as smoothly as possible! 

#1- Follow directions quickly and quietly.

#2- Raise your hand to speak 

#3- Raise your hand to leave your seat

#4- Make smart choices.

#5- Always do your BEST and Keep your teachers happy!

There will be consequences for not following these directions and rewards for doing an outstanding job!    

We are going to have a great school year!  In order for this to happen, you and I will be working together!  I need your help in making this year a successful year for your child!  

Behavior is very important in the classroom.  A classroom can easily become chaotic without a good behavior system in place.  I want to take this time to inform you about the behavior system we will be using this year.  

This year our class will be using a Positive Behavior Management Plan.  Students will earn tickets for good behavior, great choices, positive attitude, kind words, participation etc.  These tickets will be used towards Fun Friday centers every week.  The student with the most tickets chooses their center first, followed by the next, and so on.  

Students learn very quickly that earning tickets has its rewards.  Students are motivated to earn as many as they can.   I have found it becomes less about Fun Friday and more about becoming the best classroom citizen that they can be.  Students strive to earn more than they did the previous week.  Each student will start the day off with 3 tickets in their pencil box.  Throughout the day they have the opportunity to earn more to put in their “bank.”  If they are not following the school rules they will lose a ticket.  

Parents might ask how many tickets their child should be earning daily/ weekly.  The number is actually not that important.  I believe in always looking for the positive.   Your child will have a lot of opportunities to earn them.  

To know how your child is behaving in class, you will get a daily report of how many tickets they lost.  We will list any specific behaviors that he/she can work on the following day.  This will help you have a discussion with your child to encourage them to earn more tickets the following day.  This will need to be signed and returned each day in the red folder.  

Conferences:

Conferences will be held throughout the year to inform you of your child’s progress.  I will work with you to find a date/time that works for you to come in and meet with me. When it is time for our conference, I will send a sign up sheet. Please let me know if you would like to meet before then!  I am happy to meet whenever!  We will have these periodically throughout the year.  

Chromebooks:

We are excited to announce that our 1:1 technology rolled out a few years ago. This means each student in our building has their own (school issued) piece of technology.  K-5 has chromebooks. It will be a few weeks before these are issued to Kindergarten students.