Please feel free to contact me with any questions or concerns. I typically cannot check emails until 2:00pm due to the Specials schedule. I am always available for phone conversations or in person meetings. I look forward to partnering with you this year.
jmkolb@dcsdk12.org
School Phone number
(please call for last minute pick up changes)
303-387-7000
D
Dismissal
Please share with me at Back To School night how your child will be going home each day after dismissal. If your child's dismissal will change or be different than usual please contact me or the office the let us know is they will be doing parent pick up, bus or base. At dismissal my teammates walk the parent pick up students outside to meet families each day and I walk all bus riders and base students outside.
E
Expeditionary Learning
Fox Creek builds a culture of respect, responsibility, courage and kindness where students and adults are committed to quality work and citizenship. School structures and traditions such as crew, community meetings, celebrations of learning and service learning ensure that every child is known and cared for and celebrated. Students and staff are supported to do better work and be better people than they thought possible.
Email
Each Thursday you will receive a weekly email updating you on what we learning at school, reflection questions ad important dates. Please take the time each week to read through the weekly email for important information about school and upcoming events.
F
Field Trips
We will take multiple field trips in first grade to meet our grandfriends and Lincoln Meadows Senior Living Center and to the outdoors to observe. I will communicate dates and volunteer opportunities in advance. I hope you are able to join us on one of our many adventures.
G
Growth
First grade is a big year of growth academically and socially. I will work to continually share updates about your child's academics and social emotional learning throughout the year. Please see my weekly notes, weekly emails and any other communication to stay updated.
H
Homework
Please see the page on the blog about At Home Practice for specifics. We believe after a full day of learning, students should come home and spend some quality time playing and spending time with their family and enjoying dinner. As first graders are becoming independent readers and thinkers, one of the most important aspects of homework time will be 20 minutes of reading and thinking about the text. Practicing sight words is one way to build fluency and support students in reading grade level texts. Throughout the year there will be individual projects shared about in our weekly emails that may need additional parent support.
I
Independence
Gradually throughout the year I will be sharing ideas of how to provide more opportunities for your child to show independence both at home and at school. At the beginning of the year we will need to work together to guide and model for our students how to be responsible for their own items and what is expected. After students have a clear understanding we can start to provide more opportunities for students to take ownership from being responsible for their Thursday folder, packing their own snack, cleaning up after themselves and even learning to tie their shoes.
Illness
If your child is sick, has a temperature or tummy problems please keep him/her home to help honor the rest of our crew members health. We love sharing in first grade, just not sharing germs. Thank you!
J
Jackets
Every day we will go outside even in cold temperatures. Please send your child with a jacket and appropriate clothing.
K
Kindness
"One act of kindness can change the world. " Our Habits of Character are a driving force in our crew lessons and daily life at school. We will practice showing compassion for others along with the other habits of character, respect, courage, contribution, integrity, perseverance, collaboration.
L
Lunch
You can add money to your child's account via School Bucks or you can send them in with cash your check. There is a snack bar for students to purchase extra snack items (fruit snacks, cookies, cliff bar etc.) which cost an extra $1. If you do not want your child purchasing these extra items you can opt out through their account.
Library
Your child will be visiting the library on a weekly basis. Students are not able to check out new books until all books are returned. If books are not returned within three week, our librarian will send home a request for money to purchase a new book to replace the lost one. We visit the library each Thursday. Please support your child in returning their books each week on this day.
M
Math
As mathematicians we use the thinking process when solving problems (think, draw, talk, revise). We use the enVision curriculum, which aligns with our k-6 programs. Topics covered include : fluently add/subtract with 20, story problems, add three addends, determine if an equation is true/false, analyze and represent data, measurement with time and length, geometry (shapes and attribute(, add two 2 digit numbers without regrouping.
N
No Nuts
We are a peanut free classroom. Please send your child with a peanut free and healthy snack. Your child is welcome to have peanut products in the lunchroom.
O
Open communication
I am looking forward to partnering with you this year. Please know I am always open and available to partner with you on the phone, email or in person. If there is ever anything that is going on either at home or at school that is important for me to know I would greatly appreciate you contacting me so I can best support you and your child.
P
Prepared
Please support your child by helping them be prepared for the school day. Starting the day with a healthy breakfast promotes optimum learning. Research says that children this ages need up to 10 or more hours of sleep per night so please make sure your child gets a good night rest. Your child can begin lining up on the blacktop at 8:15. Please do not drop them off earlier as there is no adult supervision before then. We ask that all students do not play on the play structure before school for the same reason. School starts at 8:30.
Q
Questions or concerns
I am looking forward to partnering with you this year. Please know that you can always reach out to me via email with any questions, concerns or comments. You know your child best and together we can support your child and help them to have a wonderful first grade year.
R
Reading
First grade is a big year of growth for our developing readers! It is important that we are supporting them throughout the year with decoding strategies and thinking strategies. It is important that students are reading for meaning vs. word calling. This means that after reading, they should be able to talk and think about what they read. In school we will be using mentor texts to guide our discussions and passion for reading. We will also be teaching decoding strategies to solve unknown words. You can support your reader by reading with them and to them, practicing sight words and doing iReady.
Decoding Strategies: What to do when you don't know a word
- look at the picture
-say the beginning sound
-slide through the word
-look for known chunks in the word
-reread
-what makes sense
Comprehension Strategies:
-predicting, questioning, inferring, determining importance, synthesis
S
Snacks
Each day we will have a snack time in the afternoon to support or growth and brains when learning. It is helpful if you pack your child's snack separate from their lunch box. Please send in healthy snacks (fruit, vegetables, granola bars-peanut free). Please do no send in sugary items (rice crispy treats, cookies, etc) or any items that require a spoon (unless you provide it). Children will need to bring a pop-top water bottle to drink throughout the day.
Supplies
At Fox Creek we use community supplies. This means all items that you send in (pencils, crayons, glue etc) are shared items and will be placed in a communal table tub. There is no need to label items.
T
Togetherness time
Throughout the week our students will participate in organized games we call "Togetherness Time". During this time the students and I play some fun group games to practice our problem solving skills and have fun together.
Thursday Folders
A folder will be send home on a weekly basis each Thursday which will contain classroom information, specific homework assignments, school wide information and a individual weekly notes. Please be sure to send the folder back the following Monday.
U
Understand
Let's seek to understand each other and our first grade learners throughout the year. If there is something you are worried about, not understanding or want more information on lets works together "to seek to understand" the full situation together. As your child's parent you play an important role in their first grade year and my hopes are that we can work together to support your child.
V
Volunteering
There will be many opportunities to volunteer in our classroom throughout the year from regular reading group, Thursday folders, fieldwork trips and special events at school. Please share your interest in volunteering either at school or at home with clerical projects at Back to School Night.
W
Writing
First grade is a big year for our writers! Our goal is for students to write 5 or more complete sentences on a single topic/story by the end of the year. We use mentor texts as well as first grade exemplars to inspire our writing growth. We will focus on conventions of a complete sentence, spelling strategies, adding details, strong leads and endings and types of writing. Students will write a variety of genres throughout the year: personal narrative, opinion, letters, poems, informational text.
X
Excited
I am so eXcited to be your child's teacher this year!
Y
Year
First grade is a wonderful year of growth, joy, exploration and collaboration. My hopes is this is a wonderful year that your child will remember fondly. Please remember you can always contact me.
Z
ZZZ
We had such a fun 100th Day of First grade. We enjoyed counting to 100 in multiple ways. We played games, used 100 charts and even made a...
Happy Valentine's Day! We had a great day celebrating with some fun math activities, color pages, games and art creations. We hav...
What a fun adventure! The first grade crew loved getting to listen to a presentation at the Gates Planetatrium. We observed the moon and st...
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