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WELCOME TO 2 ND GRADE WITH SR. AMNA 2013-2014 PARENT HANDBOOK MDQ ACADEMY
WELCOME TO
2ND GRADE WITH SR.
AMNA
2013-2014 PARENT HANDBOOK MDQ ACADEMY
Dear Parents,
Assalamualaikum! My name is Sr. Amna Baig and Insha'Allah I will be your child's second grade teacher for the 2013-2014 school year. I am in my 7th year of teaching 2nd grade. I have a Bachelor’s degree in Elementary Education and a Master’s degree in Reading Instruction and Curriculum. I look forward to having your son or daughter in my class and I am excited to get to know him or her.
I feel as though an open line of communication between the parent, student, and teacher is the key to promoting an educational climate that is conducive to learning. I am looking forward to working with you and your child. Many of you already know me, and I hope to develop a solid relationship based on trust and reliability as the school year begins. You can help by sending me well-rested children with full tummies and a hug and a kiss still fresh on their minds. :) This sets the stage for a positive day! I also encourage and expect parents to check homework and folders that go home on a daily basis so that there is an understanding of what is being expected.
The beginning of second grade starts off with a review of many of the concepts learned in first grade. If students have a solid grasp of what they already learned, they will be able to understand the new material at a much quicker rate. Second grade is filled with many basic things they learned the year before, but students will learn harder concepts, develop deeper understandings and connections, and become more independent in the completion of their work. They will be taking notes, writing with more depth and length, reading with increased speed and fluency, and participating in more cooperative group work and projects.
Please feel free to contact me at any time if there is a question or situation you would like to discus. You will receive additional communication through out the year through the weekly newsletters and our class website. PLEASE read through this handbook very carefully, as many routine and procedural guidelines are stated that you will need to know. Jazak Allah Khair!
Sr. Amna
Communication You can contact me at [email protected]. You can also call the school and leave a message. I will call you back as soon as I can. I have created a class website where you can find information and up to date happenings in our classroom. The address is teachtworeach.weebly.com I will also be using a free text messaging service called REMIND101. I’ll be able to send you texts with any important reminders or information I’d like to convey. In order to sign up, you just need to send a text that only says @8cb1c To this phone number -‐ 6316992603. You will not be charged to receive these texts and I will never see your phone number. Also, you will not be able to text me back at this number, as it is a one way service.
SUPPLY LIST- names on books and supplies please!
- Markers - crayons - colored pencils - sharpener - scissors
- pencil/supply box - 4 packs of presharpened pencils - 3 blue pens
- 3 red pens - 2 packs of pencil top erasers - 1 pack of big eraser
- 10 marble notebooks - 5 folders - 1 pack of colored copier paper
- 2 packs of construction paper - 10 glue sticks - glue bottle
- Tissue box - zip lock sandwich bags
- Please donate either a pack of cardstock paper or long construction paper.
General Information
-Every day a homework folder will come home. Please check it daily for important notices and information. Please also keep the weekly reading log in there. Empty out any papers
which are not needed.
-On Friday, I will send home the Friday folder. It will contain the projects and graded work/tests. Please empty the folder out and sign the check in sheet which is attached to the inside of the folder. The only items which need to be returned are corrected spelling tests (if the child received 100, it does not
need to be returned), and unit/chapter tests with a parent signature. All the other worksheets and projects should be kept at home. The folder will also
contain my weekly newsletter. Read this to see what we did for the week, as well as important requests, reminders, and information for the upcoming
week(s).
-Please make sure to send in healthy snacks with your child for snack time. If the food requires a spoon or fork, send that in! I cannot heat any food in the microwave. L NO FOOD CONTAINING NUTS allowed – this
includes NUTELLA!
-‐A water bo2le is a MUST.
-Absolutely NO toys (including trading cards and electronics), allowed in school. The item will be taken away for a certain period of time. Sorry!
-Frequent absences (when the child is not sick), and tardies, will impact your child’s
performance in school. Our first period is Language Arts. If they are tardy to school, they will miss very important lessons on concepts and will struggle to catch up on the
follow up activities. Please ensure that the children go to sleep on time so they feel their best in the morning. It is also the student’s responsibility to complete any missed work
that I send home and return it the next day, (unless otherwise stated).
-Make sure everything that gets turned in has the student’s name on it. It is very difficult and time consuming to try to figure out which paper belongs to which child. I have a “no name,”
board, where I will hang the papers without a name and it is the student’s responsibility to see if anything belongs to him/her.
-‐Progress Reports will generally be sent home once at the end of each month.
They must be signed and returned the following day. These reports keep parents up-‐to-‐date on their student’s work and will address any concerns the teachers or
parents might have.
Classroom Management
I have a few management systems running in the classroom. They may change as the year and the needs of the students progress.
One system is CLASS DOJO. You will receive more information on this, but it is an internet app based program where students will earn
or lose points on certain behaviors such as teamwork, on task behavior, Salah time, etc. They will try to reach certain milestones in points for various rewards. Parents will also be able to see the points and reasons for why they were given or taken away when they sign
up for Class Dojo. (Individual codes will be sent home).
I also have a behavior clip chart. They start each day in the middle spot that says, “Making intentions for a great day,” and they can move up or down depending on behavior. Moving up to “Showing good Islamic character,” will result in 1 punch in their good deeds
reward card. Moving to the highest spot of, “Muslim role model,” will result in two hole punches. When they fill up their card, they can
choose a prize. Moving down the chart first lands on a verbal warning, another move down results in privileges taken away, and the
last spot is parent contact.
I will have a whole group reward system in place, as well as a small group reward system. My goal is for students to be kind and
respectful towards others. We will be doing something called, “Classroom Compliments,” Students will write down a kind thing
about their classmates (different ones), on a weekly basis. We are all brothers and sisters in Islam, and students must learn to be fair and
compassionate towards everyone.
If certain negative behaviors persist, and I have already contacted the parents to try to resolve the issue, the next step may be for
administration to get involved. But Inshallah I will try my best to work with the parents in order to help the child succeed and do well!
Homework
Comple=ng homework on =me and with effort will count towards your child’s overall grade. Most of the rou=ne homework is not graded on ques=ons correct, etc., but is graded on comple=on
and effort. Reading and Comprehension
Students will have a weekly reading log. In the beginning, students should read at least 50 minutes a week, divided in an appropriate manner. This means that they shouldn’t only read
once a week. Reading daily is one of the biggest factors in fluency and accuracy in children. But of course some days are very busy, thus allowing you to skip a day of reading here and there, but at least trying to complete the designated minutes during the week. The log is given on Monday and is collected the following Monday. A small reflec=on or summary, (one or two sentences), about the story or chapter is required on the log. An example would be, "I didn’t like the part when Bob
yelled at his sister because it was a rude ac=on.” A parent signature is REQUIRED on the log. Please also leave the log in the homework folder every day so that I can check to make sure the
students are doing it correctly. On Monday, they will also get a graphic organizer that they need to fill out with one story they read in the week. Or some=mes I will give them a worksheet with a story that they have to read
and answer the ques=ons in COMPLETE SENTENCES. The graphic organizer will assess their understanding of a story on a certain skill such as summarizing, cause and effect, sequencing, etc. If your child does not understand how to fill in the sheet, they should ask me right away and not
tell me on Friday when it is due, that they didn’t know how to do it. Spelling:
Students will be given a pretest on the weekly spelling words in their spelling notebooks on Monday. We will go over the correct spellings together. The students who get 3 or fewer
mistakes will receive a challenge list that will be stapled into their notebooks. They will be tested on those words on Friday instead of the original pretest words. For homework in their notebooks, students will choose spelling ac=vi=es from a spelling menu. The goal is to reach 20 points. Each ac=vity is worth different amounts. There are some 5 point, 10 point, and 15 point ac=vi=es. They can mix and match any ac=vi=es, as long as they end up with at least 20 points worth. They can do more if they wish. I will only check through the spelling notebooks on Friday. The notebook can be leb at home un=l then. Effort, neatness, and comple=on will determine the homework
grade. Math
Students will have almost nightly math homework in their math workbooks. We will go over the answers together as a class the following day. Thus, you should help them but not tell them the answers, otherwise I will not know who did not understand a concept. They should try their best,
but at least try, not leave something blank. Other:
Occasionally, they will get other homework such as science, s.s, grammar, and projects.
Homework…continued AGENDAS/HOMEWORK PLANNER
It is EXTREMELY important that you and your child look through the homework planner each night to see what is due
and when it is due. Sometimes I assign two math pages instead of one, but children only do one because they are
used to that and they do not check their planner. That will count as a no homework grade. Parents should initial the
planner. Anytime a child does not do the homework or does not do it with effort, they will not receive the points for homework.
At the end of the quarter, I will deduct the number of homework assignments they did not complete from the total number, and this will count towards their overall grade in
each subject. In the past, students’ grades have dropped just because of incomplete homework. READING LOGS count!!
To encourage students to complete homework, every month if students do not miss any homework assignments, they will be
eligible to participate in a classroom celebration of some sort when the month ends.
Grading policy Please refer to the MDQ parent handbook for the grading policy.
Homework, classwork, tests, quizzes, behavior, and attendance all count toward the overall grade.
