Freitas Friends Blog

Hello families,

I understand that a new substitute teacher took over my class on Monday. I went to the classroom this morning and took the turtle, snake, pets, etc. home to take care of them so it wasn’t a bother to the sub. I appologize for not being able to come back to the classroom this year. I am sure many of you are confused about my absence and I felt it was appropriate at this point to address this issue. I am currently in a partial hospitalization/day treatment facility for eating disorders. At first I thought it was a few week commitment, but I was completely not aware of the commitment time. The program takes a minimum of 4-6 months, so I made Mrs. Aoun aware of this a weeks ago, so she looked into a long term sub to finish out the year. I miss teh children dearly, but I must take care of myself and my family right now. I hope you understand.

Kelley

Dear families,

Thank you for your support during this time. At my doctors recommendation, I will be taking the next 4 weeks off and will return after spring break. I have left sub plans and necessary information with Mrs. Aoun and if you have further questions, please feel free to email me.

Kelley

Dear Families,

Parent/Teacher conferences and Shortened days begin tomorrow Friday (Feb. 27th- March 6th). I
schedule conferences with parents on a case-by-case basis for the 2nd
trimester reporting period. I will e-mail you directly if I plan
to schedule a conference with you and your child. Otherwise, consider your
child academically and behaviorally on track, doing excellent in class
(meaning I do not require a conference with you at this time :-)). I’ll send
your childs Math and ELA Benchmark 2 Assessment Booklets and scores home
next week. Report cards will be sent out March 20th. Any questions, please
let me know!

Thank you,

Kelley

Dear Families,

We are rescheduling our zoo fieldtrip to a later date. I will let you know asap when the new date is scheduled. I am hoping to be able to schedule a date and time that the weather will cooperate and we can attend a show about camouflage. Thank you for being flexible.

Friday and Monday we will have a guest teacher in our classroom. It’s very exciting because one of the mom’s of a student I had last year will be with in our room on Friday and Monday.

Homework packets are due tomorrow, but the new packet will go home on Tuesday.

Thank you,

Kelley Freitas

Dear families,

As the holidays are approaching, the class and I have been working on our community fundraiser for Homeward Bound Golden Retriever Rescue and talking about what we are thankful for. If you would like to help our class make some projects, we could use some donations. Keara’s mom is planning some projects for our class, but I told her I would ask the class if they could help donate the supplies or help out on Dec. 16th to make the projects. Below is a list of items needed to complete the projects. Also, if you have any ideas you would like to share for the holidays, please let me know.

Items Needed:

Betty Crocker Easy Flow Decorating Icing

Small pretzels

Gum Drops

Red Vines- Mixed Bites

Holly Wreaths- gummies

Starlight Mints

Mini Candy Canes

M & M’s

Dear families,

Thank you very much for participating in our family potluck on Tuesday. Thank you for bringing food, serving, cleaning up, and attending. It was wonderful to hear so many students recite what they were thankful for. The students had just written the rough draft and were willing to read infront of so many parents and grandparents. I am going to take their rough drafts, have the kids edit, revise, and publish them after the break and put them together as a small book for each child to save.

Thank you also for taking the time to attend your child’s conference last week. I am in the process of writing the Individual Learning Plans and report cards. Both will be sent home by December 12th.

Mr. Cann, our poet-in-residence will be coming to our class next week to write poetry with the students. A few children from each class will recite their poems at our school wide assembly and Family Poetry Night on December 10th.

Winter Concert is going to be on Tuesday, December 16th. Mr.Cooper’s Sing-A-Long, Kinder singers, and the orchestra will perform.

Winter break begins December 22nd and resumes on January 5th.

Hello families,

As I hope you are aware, it is conference time for your child. I sent home paper work (parent’s homework) with your child last week and received most of them back. Thank you for taking the time to tell me more about your child. If you have not yet signed up for a time, please let me know asap.

At parent conferences, we will together create your child’s Individual Learning Plan. The learning plan will include an academic, social, and personal goal for your child. I will not be handing out report cards at the conferences because I believe in spending the time talking to you about the goals your child has in all areas. I do have assessment information that I will share with you at this time. Please come prepared to talk about your child’s strengths, weaknesses, and goals for this year and beyond.

This Wednesday and Thursday I will be attending an off-site writing training. I will be attending with Ms. Leonard, our 2nd grade GATE teacher, and we look forward to spending quality time together discussing writing in our classrooms and become “experts” together, so we can come back to school and share with the staff and of course implement it in our classrooms. I did not want to be away from the students again this week, but I feel like it is a very valuable learning experience that will help me help your child in the classroom. Thank you families who had to change their conference time to meet these needs. I will be there on Friday.

As for homework, I sent home the new homework Packet for the students that stay with me all day (the math program that I teach, as well as reading). I hope to discuss homework at conferences as well. I picked up another wonderful book at Harvard when my husband and I were there last week. It again, addresses the homework dilema that all teachers face. I am on the side of quality vs. quantity, but I know many parents expect alot of homework. Every year I face this problem and still haven’t figured out how to meet all childrens and parents needs. As I am sure you are aware, I currently have a 2nd grade daughter myself and a 4 year old in preschool. I want to see my children excited about school and anxious to learn. The times that I see this most are when they can be creative and are doing work that they find valuable. With this in mind, I would like to my students excited to go home and learn more:) As I read the book written by an MIT and Harvard professor, my ideas are supported and I find very valuable. I agree that students should have a “study time”, but what if everyday after school your child was so excited about homework that it wan’t called “study time” and they wanted to research and be creative and expand their own learning. Just keep this in mind when we have our conferences because every year about this time I re-evaluate homework and my classes’ needs.

Speaking of projects, our class is beginning a new unit on Kindness for our Open Court Reading Program. Each year I have the class come up with a project that we do as a class to promote kindness. My family is currently in the process of adopting a puppy from a rescue shelter and the kids are very aware of the program now. The students chose to use this organization as our project this year. It is called Homeward Bound and is located just outside of Sacramento. The students are going to break into teams to create posters for each classroom at school to do a presentation and ask for their assistance. Students will also be delivering boxes for students to donate money and supplies. I talked to the owners and they agreed to do a fieldtrip at the conclusion of the project to deliver the money and supplies (date to be decided). I also talked to my aunt (the one who has cancer) and she is on the board of a non-profit organization called Jacob’s Heart. It is an organization that raises money to help out families in the Montery, Santa Cruz area and I would like the class to adopt a family to help. I will send home more information about how we can help next week after I talk to the family. The students are excited to do projects and I encouraged them to think of their “own” project that their family could do as well and share with the class.

Thank you for taking the time to read to the end,

Kelley Freitas

Hello families,

I am happy to be back in the classroom and with the kids. Thank you for your understanding of my absence. I met with Mrs. Mitchell this morning and it sounds like things went well.

We are quickly jumping into assessments, elections, etc. All students had the opportunity to run for an office for the 1st term (2 months) and those who chose to run for an office will read their speeches tomorrow (Tuesday) and then the students will vote for a class President, Vice-President, Secretary, and Treasurer. We will have our next election (terms are for 2 months, as decided my the majority of the class) in January. We have been talking about the election process and I wanted to give the students a “real life” experience of voting, ballot counting, and also “living” with their choices for offices. Students registered to vote today and will (if they would like to) vote tomorrow for each office.

I am sending home parent/Teacher conference forms today in your childs homework folder, so please complete the paperwork (I know it is a lot, but it is for your child’s behalf) and send it back as soon as possible. Also, put a 1, 2, and a 3 by your choices of times for conferences. I will assign times by a first come, first served basis, but if none of the times are possible, please contact me.

Thank you,

Kelley Freitas

Hello families,

I hope all is well and you are having a great week. I am currently in New York City trying to keep warm in the snow showers. I heard it is much warmer in Sac. I helped out family in Florida and now I am playing tourist while my husband is meeting with clients in NYC. I have visited a few places and collected items for the classroom. We are headed to Boston tomorrow and then will be home on Sunday.

Parent teacher conferences will begin the week after I get back. I will send home information on Monday, but think about dates and times that would be most convenient for you. If you have a specific date in mind, just email me and let me know.

I miss the kids and look forward to seeing everyone on Monday,

Kelley Freitas

Dear families,

I am off on a plane to Florida this morning with my “Flat Ella”! I spent the night writing lesson plans, so I hope I remembered to packed everything:) I talked to all the 2nd grade teachers and they will be available to help Mrs. Mitchell anytime, but I am sure the kids will do great. I will be back on Monday, Nov. 3rd. My husband planned a return flight on Sunday evening so I will have just enough time to get home, pick up my girls and go to work.

Thank you families for donating so much candy. The PTA and I appreciate your generosity and you help to make Sutterville a wonderful place to be. I decorated the door with the kids “spider glyphs”, so I hope you stop by our room and try to figure out which one belongs to your child. I have decorations inside my classroom if anyone is eager to stuff a scarecrow or decorate more for the Fall Festival. They are located in the 2nd closet in the back of the room next to the backpacks.

The students will have an art lesson with Ms. Baker on Monday, music with Mr. Cooper on Tuesday, music with Mr. Doolittle on Wednesday, P.E. first thing on Thursday morning, and “Fun Friday” on Friday. My daughter cleaned out her closet last night (instead of packing) and donated all her build-a-bears to our classroom for the students to play with on Fun Friday. And of course, the Lego Agents will be building lots of interesting things. Your child is welcome to bring in items to play with on Friday afternoon, but no video games please:) Otherwise, please encourage your child to leave “toys” at home until Friday.

As mentioned earlier, Keara’s mom is doing arts and crafts on the afternoon of October 30th and needs a few parent volunteers to help out. If you are available, let her know so she knows how many craft projects to plan.

Have a great time at the Fall Festival and I will see you in November,

Mrs. Freitas