Class Information Packet 2017-2018 Mrs. Laura Seufert Second Grade Horizon Elementary
Dear Parents, Welcome back to another fun and exciting school year! I am thrilled to have your child in my second grade class. We will learn many things this year, have fun, and your child will be working hard. This packet will explain how our class will be functioning this year and contains a lot of important information. A Little About Me This will be my tenth year teaching 2 nd grade here at Horizon. I grew up in neighboring Fairfax County and attended Longwood University for undergrad. I also graduated from George Mason University with my Master s in education. I love to spend time at the Jersey shore during the summer and ski in the winter with my husband. I enjoy traveling during vacations and hope to do more in the upcoming years. On the weekends, you can most likely find me spending time with my friends and family, decorating my home, exploring the DC area, shopping, or playing with my golden lab, Maddie. Transportation If your child has a temporary change in transportation (i.e. play date with a friend), please send in a note with them for that day. It will be sent to and recorded by the office. If your child has a permanent change in transportation (i.e. not taking the bus on Mondays any longer), please inform the office or myself and we will send home a new Horizon transportation sheet for you to fill out and return. Please understand that I must have a written note (not through email) to send your child home another route. If there is no note, they will be sent home their usual way. If something arises and you need to change your child s transportation mid-day, please call the school and speak to the front office. There are some days where I am unable to check email until the end of the school day. Parent pick up for early check out (before 2:35pm) does not require a note. You can simply check out your child in the front office and they will be called down after they pack up. If you drop off your children at Kiss n Go in the morning, students must be in their classrooms by 7:50 in order to not be marked tardy. The side doors at Kiss n Go will be closed at 7:50 and students must be walked in to the office to pick up a tardy slip. Supplies A school supply list is available on Horizon s website. If you ordered a supply box through the school last year, it will be here on the first day of school. Two things that the second grade teachers specifically ask their students to have are zippered pencil pouches and plastic folders. Purchasing these items at the beginning of the year will allow you to avoid the headache of replacing them throughout the school year. Some supplies will be used communally- pencils, pink erasers, Expo board markers, and glue sticks. We will label all supplies the first day of school. Occasionally, if we happen to run out, I may ask for additional supplies during the year such as glue sticks, tissues, or baby wipes. 2
Communication Every night your child will bring home their red take-home and homework folder to help bridge the communication between school and home. Inside their folders there will be flyers, notes, and a weekly class newsletter- The Seufert Scoop. The newsletter will have a message to parents that will include learning topics and important upcoming dates of events. Please make sure you take a look at the papers that come home nightly and send both folders back to school every day with your child. I also find that it is convenient for me to communicate via email. I will be using the email that is on file with the school, which is listed on the Student Profile paperwork you were given to sign. Please ensure I have an accurate email address. Our class webpage will also have class information on it. At any time during the school year you may contact me through email, phone, or by sending in a note with your child. Lunch Our lunch is at 10:30 each day. You are welcome at any time to join your child for lunch. Once you have checked in at the office, you may meet us in the cafeteria at our lunchtime. If you know that you are coming and would like a school lunch, please send a note with your child so that I can order a lunch for you in the morning when we send our lunch count down. You may pay for lunches online or by sending a check made payable to County of Loudoun. Your child will get a reminder from the cafeteria when their account is running low. Breakfast is available before school each morning. If your child is eating breakfast at school, he/she will directly go to class upon finishing. Snack We will have a working snack each afternoon. Juice boxes and messy snacks should not be brought in order to avoid major messes. Please avoid sending in snacks with your children that include peanuts due to allergy concerns. In the lunchroom there is an allergy table, so students are permitted to bring in food with peanuts. Students may keep water bottles from home by the sink. Sports water bottles that have an easy pop top work best in the classroom since they spill minimally when accidentally knocked over. Birthdays Loudoun County Public Schools has enforced that all schools are treat free. With the number of severe allergies children have, it is safest to avoid treats from being brought in. Please do not send in anything, including non-edible items, with your child on their birthday. We will be sure to highlight that it is the birthday boy or girl s big day in class. Don t worry- we won t forget those summer birthdays, either! Thank you for understanding and obeying the county policy. It is Horizon s school policy that birthday invitations are not to be handed out in class unless all students in the class are invited. Our class directory that will be sent out in upcoming weeks is a helpful tool you can use to send them outside of school. 3
Class Parties We will have three parties throughout the school year. We will have a fall party, a winter party, and an end of the year party. Parents will be invited to the fall and end of the year parties. Room parents will help coordinate these fun celebrations! Homework Students are required to complete approximately 30 minutes of homework each Monday-Thursday night. All of their homework will be kept in their red homework folder. In order to promote responsibility, I ask that parents do not drop off forgotten student folders/homework at school during the day. Thank you for understanding this request! If your child is struggling to complete the homework in a reasonable amount of time, please let me know. We can discuss modifying it to fit the needs of your child. Reading Log: Students are required to read for 15 minutes Monday-Thursday and should record it on their monthly reading log. Their reading log will be checked only on Fridays, so your child may keep it either at home or in their homework folder until they need to turn it in. Every month has a certain goal of minutes read. If the goal is met, your child will earn class money to use at our treasure box. Math: Your child will receive a homework packet on Monday that is to be brought in each day so that homework can be checked. There will be a cover sheet that shows the week s topic and each night s homework assignment. Your child will be assigned a mixture of workpages and math program websites to reinforce skills taught in class. Websites used for math homework can be accessed through LCPS Go. Second grade students will be flexibly grouped for math within the classroom this year. At the beginning of each quarter, the class will take a pre-test on skills to be taught during the quarter. Students will be post-tested with the same test at the end of the quarter. Scores on the pre-test, performance on timed math fact quizzes, and classroom performance will be the factors used for group placement. Each group will be taught the same concepts throughout the quarter, but the approach will vary. Grouping allows students to be taught at a pace and developmental level they are ready for. It also allows me to have more time to focus on the needs of each student. No student will have any academic advantage over another based upon his or her math group placement. This placement system has been created to better meet the needs of each of my students. Homework is a review of skills taught during the week and your child should be able to complete math homework fairly independently. Math homework should take no longer than 15 minutes each night. Word Study: Along with reading and math each night, your second grader will have word study homework. In their red homework folder, they will have an envelope with their words and a weekly word study packet. Students will complete a sort with my assistance that will be written on the Teacher Sort page. If you are ever questioning the placement of a word, please refer to the Teacher Sort as it reflects a correct sort. Word study packets should be brought in daily to be checked. Why is Word Study important? Word study is our differentiated spelling instruction at school. Word study is a student-centered approach to phonics, spelling, and vocabulary instruction. In the 4
beginning of the year, students take a diagnostic test that demonstrates what word features they already know and what they need to work on. Students are involved in grouping words that have similar features, and they then use what they know about words to make connections and discoveries about new words. Each week, a particular feature will be studied, and the children will be involved in sorting their words by feature, making connections to similar words, hunting for other words with that feature, and using the words in their writing. Your child will receive words on Monday with a common feature. They will be involved in different activities at home and at school throughout the week to work on this feature. By doing word study, your child will focus on skills that they need to work on, and they will be able to build their knowledge of what they already know and make connections to new words. You ll see how meaningful this is to their learning as opposed to receiving a random word list. We ll work together to build their knowledge of words and the features they contain. Homework and Absences: If your child is absent from school, they will have assignments to make up that they missed upon returning. Please have your child check with me to be sure they have all the make-up work they need. If they are out of school for an extended time due to sickness, we will make arrangements to complete missed work. If your child is absent due to a vacation during the school year, please note that it is not school policy to send home the work that the child misses before they leave. Any work missed will be made up upon their return. Grades Second grade students will receive letter grades of E, M, P, and B. Below lists what each letter represents. ParentVue is the website that will be used again this year to monitor your child s grades. 4 = E Exceeding Learning Target- demonstrating knowledge independently by going above the learning target (standard). 3 = M Meets Learning Target- demonstrating knowledge of the learning target (standard) consistently and independently. 2 = P Progress Towards Learning Target- demonstrating knowledge of the learning target (standard) independently, but not consistently. 1 = B Below Learning Target - demonstrating knowledge of the learning target (standard) with assistance. School and Class Behavior Plans In The School As an entire school, Horizon Elementary has adopted the 3 C s- Comets who are Caring, Cooperative, and Courteous. Within the school, faculty and staff will be looking to see which students are displaying the 3 C s. In the Classroom In order for a functional and safe environment for all students, rules must be followed at all times while at school. Our class rules will be following the Comet Conduct 3 C s. We will discuss what caring, cooperating, and being courteous look like in the classroom. 5
The online website/app, Class Dojo, will be used in our class this year. Students will be given points for positives and needs work behaviors. You will be able to see how your child is doing each day by logging into the website/app. At the end of each week, I will meet with your child to discuss their behavior during Fun Friday. I will also pay them with class money the difference between their positive and negative points earned for the week. This money can be used for our treasure box. Log-in information for Class Dojo was sent home the first week of school. * Any student who chooses severely inappropriate or unsafe behavior will immediately be taken to the administration. Fun Friday On Fridays, a block of time is set for a fun activity or science/social studies video for those students who have completed their homework during the week. Students who have three or more incomplete homework assignments during the week will take Fun Friday time to finish it. Students will also be paid class money related to their Dojo points for the week during Fun Friday. Class Stuffed Animal We have a fuzzy addition to our class! Coconut, the stuffed monkey, will be passed around the class throughout the school year. Every day, Coconut will be found sleeping in a student s clean desk. The student will then be able to carry him around for the day. On Friday, if your child receives Coconut, they will be able to take him home for the weekend! It will be your child s responsibility to write a short journal entry telling the class all about our fuzzy friend s adventure. A special binder will be sent home on that Friday that will keep all the students entries. By the end of the school year we will be able to read all the fun places Coconut has been! Volunteers After we have been in school for a few weeks and are into our routine, I plan on having scheduled volunteers in the class. I am as eager to have you, as you are to be in here. I will send out an interest flyer within the next few weeks once we have our schedule set in stone for those parents who want to volunteer. Our Class Specials Schedule Students need to wear or bring a change of tennis shoes on PE days. They should also bring their library books on Fridays to either renew or return. Monday- PE Tuesday- SEARCH or Guidance*, Art Wednesday- Music Thursday- PE Friday- Library and Computer Lab * Alternating weeks 6
Book Orders This year we are participating in the Scholastic book club. This optional book club will allow you to easily order books for your 2 nd grader. You can either fill out the order form from the paper flyer and send it back to school or you can use the secure Scholastic Book Club online ordering system. It s easy to order from home AND for every online book order, our class receives points towards books to add to our class library! J Here s how to order online: 1. Sign up at www.scholastic.com/bookclubs. On the parent page, click the "First Time Here? Parents link, and then register for your own username and password that you can use from that point forward. 2. When prompted, enter the one-time class activation code. This code ensures that your order is sent to Mrs. Seufert. Our class code is GLTPM. 3. Send your order in by the due date. Books will be delivered directly to the school and will be sent home with your child when they arrive. Star of the Week! In order to help build classroom community, your child will complete an all about me poster that they will informally present to the class. Students will be selected at random and be given a week to complete their poster (provided by me) that they will share with the class. This ungraded, fun presentation allows students share their interests with their peers! I hope that you find the information in here useful. Please feel free to check our class webpage for important information throughout the year (www.lcps.org/horizon àgradeàsecondàmrs. Seufert). If you need to reach me during the year, you can send a note with your child, call the school and leave a message, or email me at laura.seufert@lcps.org. I m looking forward to a great year working with you and your son or daughter! Sincerely, Laura Seufert 7