Welcome To Team ZavTop
Parent Information
Be The Change You Wish To See In The World
We are SO excited to start the year!
Please get signed up for REMIND ASAP! ;-)
Reminders
- Please update your Info Snap and pay all school fees. Students will not be allowed to take their iPads home if fees are not paid. This email was sent out to parents via Forest Glen this summer.
- iPads will distributed Wednesday and will go home sometime that week if the TIS fee has been paid.
- If you and your student have not yet completed their intro letter introducing themselves to us and telling us about their summer please turn it in this week for 5 bonus tokens! Bring 2-3 pictures for our picture board for an additional 5 bonus tokens!
Homework....
It is extremely important that as parents you stay connected with your child's work by checking the DAILY DUTIES course in Schoology each night to ensure your 4th grader is following expectations.
It's important to us that you spend your evening time doing things that directly correlate to student success such as eating dinner together as a family, reading together, playing outside and most importantly getting your child to bed early. We think your student should enjoy this extra time together in the evening to turn their brains off for a bit, we know that they are working them hard during the school day!
My child forgot something at home, what should I do?
Madison!
Our 4th grade class field trip to Madison is set for Thursday, October 5th. We will be taking coach busses down there and the students will need to be to school by 6:45 am and picked up later in the day after the busses leave (approximately 4:30 pm). If you are interested in chaperoning and riding the bus you MUST be on the approved chaperone list. If you are not sure if you are on this, or are new and need to do the paperwork to be approved please click here to follow the steps on how to fill out the paperwork BY MONDAY SEPTEMBER 11TH.
The district needs about 3 weeks to process this so please do this ASAP!
Classroom Expectations
As teachers, we have gone through Tribes, Advanced Tribes and Conscious Discipline training. All of these ideas embrace our K-4 Discipline plan. Basically the two plans consist of creating a sense of community and “family” in the classroom so everyone feels cared for and safe. It also deals with teaching the students to problem solve and think for themselves. It teaches them to know how to solve certain situations that they are presented with on their own, or with a friend, instead of always relying on an adult. It also focuses on the importance that all students learn differently and allowing many different options for students to learn. Through going through the training ourselves, we came away feeling really loved and cared about by our “teachers” and this is what we want for our students to feel from us also!
Here are the 4 tribe rules that we will follow in class:
- Attentive Listening
- This means that all of the students will listen to me, and I will show them the same respect when listening to them.
- Appreciations-No Put-Downs
- We are going to try to more often tell people what we appreciate about them. We do not make fun of others because it makes us feel bad and this doesn’t show how much we appreciate them.
- The Right To Pass
- We all become better students by participating in the classroom activities but sometimes students just don’t feel comfortable sharing certain things. With this Tribes classroom, you then have the right to pass and not use your voice to participate, but you still must be participating with your ears, eyes and heart.
- Mutual Respect
PBIS
PBIS stands for Positive Behavior Intervention Support. Through the use of Positive Behavior Intervention and Supports (PBIS), Forest Glen is committed to providing all students with the opportunity to succeed in a safe and positive school environment. All staff and students follow the behavior expectations to be safe, be respectful, and be responsible.
Students are taught the expectations through lesson plans called “Cool Tools.” When students demonstrate positive behavior they are recognized with “Timbertail Tokens” which they can exchange for activities each month. When students struggle with following the expectations they have opportunities for continued practice and intervention through a referral process.
Specials Schedule
KENTOP
Monday: Phy.Ed
Tuesday: Library & Music
Wednesday: Phy.Ed & Lifeskills (Occasionally)
Thursday: Art
Friday: Music & Phy.Ed
Lunch: 11:20-11:40
Recess 12:30-1:00
ZAVERNIK
Monday: Library
Tuesday: Music & Phy.Ed
Wednesday: Music & Phy.Ed
Thursday: Phy.Ed & Lifeskills (Occasionally)
Friday: Art
Snacks and Water
Please send a healthy snack to school with your student everyday!
Also, water bottles are allowed in class as long as they have a secure cover, and only water is in them. Water helps the brain think and research has been proven that drinking water during learning, aides in the learning process.
Incentives
We really want to focus on rewarding positive behavior and not pointing out negative behavior, therefore we have a couple of incentive programs that we will be putting to use.
Ticket Trader: In our classroom we do an incentive that we call "Ticket Trader". At the beginning of the week, we will attach 15 tickets to every student’s desk (3 tickets for each day). According to our PBIS school policy, a student is to be taught expected behavior 2 more times in a day after they are off task. If they need a 3rd reminder in that day, it becomes a minor.
These tickets can be used on Friday for special incentives. An example of how this program works is this: During the week, if we see a student talking out of turn, or turning in late work, or not being prepared for class, we go and rip a ticket off their desk without having to stop class to verbally warn them.
We feel that this is a great way to keep classroom structure without having to single out a child in front of their peers. They can also earn tickets back during the week for doing what they should be doing. With this program, we do not expect them to be perfect therefore please do not be too hard on your child if they lose a ticket or two at times!
Along with these tickets comes DET or “drop everything time”. If they have 13, 14 or 15 tickets left at the end of the week, they will get 20 minutes of free time. If they have 9, 10, 11 or 12 tickets left, they will get 15 minutes, 6, 7 or 8 tickets earns them 10 minutes, 1, 2 or 3 tickets earns them 5 minutes and if they have zero tickets left they will get no free time and spend time reflecting on their choices and create a SMART Goal to help them be more successful in the following week.
We will also be doing other challenges as a class such a spelling out words like "transitions" or earning a certain amount of classroom tokens to earn classroom incentives. Some examples of classroom incentives are popcorn parties, tailgate parties, no desk day and extra recess time.
Contact us!
Thanks again for taking the time to read this newsletter! If you have any questions, feel free to call us. Erica can be reached at 662-7904 and Megan can be reached at 662-7905. WE can both we reached via email at zavtop4@gmail.com.
Thanks again, this is going to be a great year!!
Megan Zavernik and Erica Kentop
Email: zavtop4@gmail.com
Location: 1935 Cardinal Lane, Suamico, WI, United States
Twitter: @ZavTop4