Group Blog Project

Friday, October 5, 2012

Specials Calendar

Dear Families,

I have just posted a calendar for Oct. Specials Rotations (under Calendars heading- left column), displaying our specials rotations for your planning and convenience. When you open the document you will realize that there is a letter (A-H) posted for each day of school during the month. For clarification, this is what each letter represents in the rotations for our class:

A- Technology
B- P.E.
C- Library/Media
D- Counselor
E- Technology
F- P.E.
G- Library/Media
H- Music

I will try to continue posting these calendars for future months, so that you are better able to anticipate our daily specials schedule. I hope this helps.

-Brian Pfaff

Tuesday, October 2, 2012

Behavior Contract

Dear Families,

Today you will find a behavior contract in your child's backpack to review, sign, and send back to school. To give you a little bit of background and clarity, it has been a challenging first month of school. On one hand, I have enjoyed getting to know the class (thank you for the great letters about your children), and feel like we have so many strengths and unique talents to celebrate. Unfortunately, I have also had to address the class repeatedly for behavior that damages the learning environment for all. Thus far I have noticed: inattentiveness during lessons, lack of respect/interrupting lessons, off-task behavior during independent work time, and for inappropriate touching/ voices during transitions. We have practiced several times appropriate expectations, as well as listing them on poster boards for review and clarification. The same issues seem to keep coming up. I would like to request your help and support in this area, and ask you to read through the contract with your child, discussing the importance of following each criteria. In the future you may hear me refer to one or a few of the criteria should the concerns become more pervasive. I look forward to clarifying any questions or concerns you may have about the contract during conferences, but ask that you sign and return it with your child at your earliest convenience. Hopefully these issues don't overshadow a lot of daily successes that we are having this year. I really enjoy this group, but felt it necessary to ask for your help early on so that together we can create a positive classroom environment for all.

Thank you,
Brian Pfaff