Classroom Policies and Procedures

Although we are pirates in Mrs. Kountapanya's class, we are still required to follow school rules. School rules can be found on the school's homepage.

Class Code
1. Always try your best.

2. Be nice to everyone.

3. Listen to the speaker.


Classroom Management Plans
Group Plan
Mrs. Kountapanya's class is divided into heterogeneous groups. There are five groups, each named after a color. When a group is caught being good, or a member is caught doing something to benefit the group, the group can earn points which are kept track of on the board. On the last day of the week (usually Friday) the points are counted up and the team with the most points gets a mystery treat. Treats can be anything from computer time, a special project (ex. painting), treasure box, or food.

Individual Plan
Each student has their own parrot, and each parrot has five feathers (blue, green, yellow, orange, and red). Every student begins the day with the latter four feathers in their parrot. Throughout the day, each student has the opportunity to earn a blue feather for positive behavior, or lose the other feathers for negative behavior. Positive behavior would be showing great citizenship, helping a friend, or just general wonderful behavior. Negative behavior generally means breaking our established Class Code. Getting a blue feather earns a great note or phone call home. Staying on a green feather shows that the student maintained satisfactory behavior throughout the day and had a good day. Loosing the green feather is a warning, the yellow feather constitutes a time out, the orange feather will mean a call to a parent, and loss of the red feather will be an office referral. The student records his/her feather color for the day on his/her monthly citizenship chart, which goes home with the student every day, and must be signed at the end of the month. The citizenship chart is where Mrs. Kountapanya gets the student's citizenship grade. If a student has any reds, oranges, or more than 5 yellows a month, the student's citizenship grade will be lowered from satisfactory to needs improvement. If a student has more than one month in the grading period with only green and blue days, the student's citizenship grade will be raised from satisfactory to excellent.
*If there are five or more orange or red days in a 30 day period, a daily behavior form will be created, filled out for the child, and signed daily from the parent until the child earns five consecutive days of green or blue.
Remember, your child needs to bring his/her behavior calendar to class everyday! If you need another calendar, you can find one here, and print it out yourself. Right click the picture below and save it to your desktop then open the picture from your desktop and print full page.

Positive reinforcement

I resolved early in my career to implement a positive reinforcement strategy into my class' daily routine, one that is easy for me to remember to use and that positively reinforces the good things the students do daily, aside from by behavior management plans and general things like stickers on A+ papers. I love the idea of rewarding the efforts of students participating in instruction, and I want the entire class to participate in the reward. I put different “reward cards” in my “bag of tricks” to be used whenever a student deserved positive reinforcement. I pull a random card from the bag whenever a student gets a hard answer correctly, is “caught being good”, or just has a “genius moment”. All the students are trained on how to do each of the rewards, and they know which rewards they get to participate in, and which rewards only the student who gets rewarded gets to do. I have also taken to pulling a card whenever the students get a good report from the school specialists. One of our rewards is “the McDonalds”, where we sing the McDonalds’ jingle and the student(s) getting rewarded completed the jingle with “I’m loving it!”. Other rewards I have picked up/created and include; the awesome button, roller coaster, brain wave, the happy dance, Attention! Salute!, kiss your brain, fireworks, shooting stars, pat yourself on the back, superman, and round of applause. Most of these include some participation from the rest of the class, getting all the students into congratulating each other. So far, the students’ favorite reward is Attention! Salute! Where students shoot up and stand at military attention, then give the hand on the brow salute to the student being rewarded. This reward spawned from a unit we did on the military, in which the students were very interested. I have plans to expand my collection of reward cards whenever the students or I see or think of new rewards. I keep the bag of tricks in my pocket, visible, and if I don’t remember to use it, the student’s happily remind me.

Homework

A homework packet is sent home on the first day of the week (usually Monday) and is due the last day of that same week (usually Friday). If there is no homework for a day or a week, a letter will be sent home with the student explaining such. Homework is always practice for lessons that have already been taught and therefore the students should know how to do everything in the packet. A few pages should be worked on a day, it is not my intention for the student to do all the work on one day or in one sitting. Homework is not actually "graded", it is pass or fail, if the student turns in a completed homework packet he/she gets 10 points, however if homework is incomplete or is not turned in it is recorded as a 0. For this reason, late homework will not be accepted.

Class Policies

~ Please make sure your child can do the following as I will NOT do these for your child: a) wipe nose and face, b) wipe self after toileting, c) tie own shoes.

~There is a "Secret Password" next to our classroom door. The "Secret Password" is one of the students' sight words, and it changes weekly. Anytime the class comes into the room, the must look at the word and tell it to Mrs. Kountapanya or the class supervisor to be granted admittance. If the child struggles with the word, the child can ask for help from his/her peers.

~Students are only allowed to use the restroom during centers and recess. If it is a bathroom emergency, the student will be allowed to use the restroom during circle time, however, they will pull a feather for the day. There are two whiteboards on the restroom door, one for the girls and one for the boys. A student who is going into the restroom writes his/her name on the whiteboard and erases his/her name when he/she comes out of the restroom.


~Items are not to brought from home unless solicited by Mrs. Kountapanya. Parents are responsible for lost, broken, or stolen items from home.



~Each student is responsible for their assignments. I will put a folder of work on the student's desk when he/she is absent, however he/she needs to do the work on his/her own time and return to me within a week of absence. Late work without absence loses five points a day.


~ Our "quiet" signal is raising two fingers in the air and Mrs. Kountapanya says "Plug-in!". The students are then expected to be quiet and listen.


~Grading Policy- We do a lot of open-ended things in Mrs. Kountapanya's class (like centers), however grades need to be taken on some things. Grades in Kindergarten are graded as "Meets Standard" which means that a student can correctly do the skill most or all of the time, and "Does Not Meet Standard" which means that a student can not do the skill when tested.


*Mrs. Kountapanya reserves the right to grade and change the grading policy as she sees fit as long as it is in the best interest of every child.