Mrs. Pattee Folkman
My name is Pattee Folkman and I am excited to be your child's teacher this year! I started my teaching career in California where I taught 1st grade. My family and I moved to Anthem 16 years ago. In that time I have taught Kindergarten and ran my own Reading Enrichment Program. I hold a Bachelors Degree in Early Childhood Education and I am working towards my Reading Specialist Endorsement. When I am not teaching, I enjoy spending time with my husband and 2 wonderful sons.
I am excited to be part of the Diamond Canyon family and look forward to an inspiring, educational year!
Sincerely,
Pattee Folkman
pattee.folkman@dvusd.org
(623)445-8000
Tabs
Class Schedule
8:45 - 9:00 Capit Phonics/Morning Work
9:00- 9:30 Calendar
9:30 - 10:15 Specials (Day 1 & 3-Mandarin, Day 2 & 4- P.E. Day 5-Art)
10:15 - 10:30 Phonics
10:30 - 11:15 Small Group Literacy Centers
11:15 - 11:45 Lunch/Recess
11:45- 12:30 Writing
12:35- 1:05 Math
1:05 - 2:05 Math Centers
2:05 - 2:25 Snack/Recess
2:25- 3:00 Science/Social Studies
3:00 - 3:15 Pack up/Dismissal
Note** Most Fridays are 1:45 p.m. dismissal**
Procedures
Daily Folders
Each day I will be sending home a 2-pocket folder with your
child. It will contain items such as a newsletter, monthly behavior
chart, reading log, notes from myself, forms, and important school documents.
Please check your child's folder
daily and send it back to school with them the following
day.
Snacks
Students should bring one healthy
snack and a labeled water bottle to school with them each day.
NO PRODUCTS CONTAINING NUTS
PLEASE!!!
Birthdays
Parents may send in special (store
bought) treats for their child's birthday. Please email me ahead of time if
you plan to send something in.
Lunch
Students may purchase a hot lunch &
milk/juice from the cafeteria. I will also have a bin in the room for
students to place their cold lunches from home. If you would like to add
lunch money to your child's account from home/work you can do so by going to
http://www.ezschoolpay.com/ You can also stop by the cafeteria before
school.
Parent Volunteers
I always appreciate parents
that want to be involved in their child's education and offer up
their time to help teachers by volunteering in the classroom. Note:
Parents must take a Volunteer Training class through the
school district prior to helping out. Please see the office for dates and
details.
Curriculum
Language Arts
In my classroom I will be using a variety of programs to meet all of the ELA Common Core Standards. Here are a few: Capit Phonics, Action Reading, The Daily Five, Into Reading and Words Their Way.
The Daily Five Literacy Centers - Read to Self, Read to Someone, Listen to Reading, Word Work, and Work on Writing
Read to Self
Students will have the opportunity to read books that are at their individual DRA (Developmental Reading Assessment) level, books that relate to the theme of the week, or one that they checked out from the school library. This helps students gain confidence and enhances their reading ability.
Read to Someone
Students will read Reading Street leveled books aloud with a partner to build fluency. Afterwards, the students will discuss the book and complete a readers response page to enhance their reading comprehension skills.
Listen to Reading
Students will either listen to a book on the iPad, CD player or computer. I have subscribed to Raz- Kids, a classroom website that lets me assign books to students based on their DRA level. Students can either listen to stories and take a quiz or use the headphones and mic to record themselves reading. Students who listen to fluent readers helps them gain an understanding of how books should be read, with flow and excitement.
Word Work
Our district has adopted the Words Their Way program as our spelling/word study program.
Students will be tested in the beginning of the school year to see what spelling group they fall into. Students will then be grouped by need and given a list of words to work on each week. During center time the students will use their words to do a variety of activities such as sorting by spelling pattern, word hunts, and reflections. Students will also work with letter tiles, magnets or stamps to create words, practice the phonics skills of the week and high-frequency words that correlate with Reading Street.
For more information on Words Their Way view this parent brochure: http://www.coppellisd.com/cms/lib011/TX01000550/Centricity/domain/975/shared/wordstheirway.pdf
Work on Writing
Students will practice writing a variety of pieces such as personal narratives, expository, persuasive, poetry and research papers. Each week we will also focus on one of the six traits of writing which includes voice, ideas, organization, word choice, sentence fluency and conventions.
Small Groups
While the students are at their literacy centers for 75 minutes I will be running a small reading group. I will meet with up to four students at a time to work on the 5 areas of reading: Vocabulary, Phonemic Awareness, Phonics, Comprehension and Fluency. I believe in meeting with every child every day, and these reading groups will help me provide a more individualized instruction to help meet the needs of all of my students. On Mondays we will practice our new Words Their Way spelling pattern sort (phonics). On Tuesdays we will meet to develop our reading comprehension skills. On Wednesdays we will review the week's sight words and read the leveled readers. On Thursdays I will meet with students to have them read their leveled Reading A-Z book and discuss their CAFE goal progress. On Fridays I will assess students.
RTI
RTI stands for Response To Intervention. Every afternoon I will set aside time to meet with students who are not making the grade level benchmark in Language Arts or Math. I will use student data to determine what area(s) to focus on and set a goal with each child. Then, I will plan lessons/activities to help them reach their goal and meet individually or a small group of students who need to practice the same skill.
INTO Reading - District adopted Language Arts curriculum
My goal is to move children toward higher-order thinking and college/career readiness. This Common Core program will assist me in teaching your child weekly vocabulary words, high-frequency words, phonics, comprehension and writing. Check your child's newsletter for information on the weekly skills.
Math
Engage N.Y. - District adopted Math curriculum
Since the Common Core expectations for math have become much more rigorous, I will be using the district-adopted Engage N.Y.math program.
Science
FOSS - District adopted Science curriculum
In my classroom students will learn science through hands-on activities, learning centers, and exploration. Some of the topics students will be learning about this year include Weather, magnets, five senses, animals and their needs and plants. For more information visit: http://www.fossweb.com/
Social Studies
Harcourt SS - District adopted Social Studies curriculum
The students will be diving into the following Units this year:
Rules and Laws
Where People Live
We Love Our Country
Our Changing World
Meeting People
The Marketplace
*Our Reading program focuses on a science or social studies topic each week, so those subjects will also be incorporated into our daily reading/writing.
Assessment
DIBELS
(Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills)
Your child will be tested several times
throughout the school year to determine their literacy skills and monitor
progress.
The areas tested are:
PSF - Phoneme Segmentation Fluency (saying the sounds they hear in a
word)
NWF - Nonsense Word Fluency (reading nonsense words)
ORF - Oral Reading Fluency (counts the number of words read
accurately in one minute and how well the student does as retelling as many
details about the story as he/she can)
DVQMA
(Deer Valley Quarterly Math Assessment)
Your child will be tested every quarter to check their progression in math.
Write From The Beginning ... and Beyond
Your child's writing will be graded on 5 things:
Punctuation and Spacing
Capital Letters where needed
Using Descriptive Words
Varied Sentences
Whether it Makes Sense
Helpful links
Starfall: Teaches children to read with phonics
http://www.starfall.com/n/level-a/learn-to-read/load.htm?f
PBS Kids: Reading games that cover everything from phonemic awareness to
vocabulary
http://pbskids.org/games/literacy.html
ABC Mouse
Ipad app.