Merissa Leonard Portfolio B

Dear Parents and Guardians,

My name is Merissa Leonard and I will be your students third grade teacher this up and
coming school year. Recently, I have graduated from the College of Education at Washington
State University receiving my Bachelors degree in Elementary Education, an endorsement in
English Language Learners, and a teaching certificate. In order for the school year to be
successful I believe that having a good communication pathway with parents and guardians is a
necessity your students learning in the classroom. I am excited to get to know you and your
children throughout the year.
While I do have high expectations for each wonderful student that comes through the door,
I also want to cultivate their learning. With that being said, I plan to create a comfortable and
safe learning environment for students so that they feel capable of communicating with me at all
times. I believe communication between school and home is extremely important for your childs
success in the classroom, so students will be sent home with a newsletter each Monday notifying
you all about upcoming events, projects, notes, graded schoolwork, and more if relevant. If there
is something urgent that you should be made aware of pertaining to your child you will be
notified immediately via email or phone call.
Communication is not only important with you all but is such a vital aspect in the
classroom with your child as well. To create a strong teacher-student relationship students will
partake in an interview with the teacher the first week of school. During free-times students will
meet with me and we will get to know one another. As the year continues, each morning we will
have a daily check-in where 3-4 students will share what has been going on with them, good,
bad, and in between. This creates a safe environment where students are encouraged to share
their thoughts and feelings as well as learn to respect other students feelings as well. My goal is
to create a classroom where students feel welcome to talk with me as well as their peers without
judgement.
In this classroom, my teaching style will have kids doing a lot of hand-on work as well as
whole group discussions. As you may know, your third graders are very curious, so creating a
hands-on learning environment will allow them to seek out that curiosity they have within. I
strongly believe that people learn important things from one another, so students will actively
engage in whole class discussions, think-pair-shares, as well as other activities that they will take
part in throughout the year. For students that enjoy that independent time, we will have multiple
times throughout the day were silent independent reading will take place, individual writing
time, and periods at the end of the day to work on assignments quietly. I understand all students
learn in different ways, and my goal is to tend to each of your childs learning needs in the
classroom, although students will be engaging in multiple types of teaching styles in order to aid
to the diverse learners in the classroom. It is extremely important to me that each student has the
best possible learning experience in my classroom, and that is the purpose behind my teaching
style.
I am so thrilled to have your children in my class this school year and to help them learn. I
do encourage you to communicate with your children at home, and to communicate with me to
reinforce what we are learning in the classroom for your child. If you have any questions
regarding myself, your child, or class, please do not hesitate to ask. It is going to be an amazing
year filled with growing and learning.

Warmly,
Miss Merissa Leonard
Merissa Leonard Portfolio B

Class Communication Plan:

In my goal for classroom communication, is for you as well as your students to feel comfortable
with coming to me to discuss anything. Regarding contacting me, I have an open-door policy
where parents and guardians are welcome in Monday through Friday in the morning from
7:00am to 8:00 am and afterschool from 3:00pm to 4:00pm. My phone number and email are
also provided on the school website, so feel free to contact me as needed. Please allow 48 hours
to contact back, as your third graders will surely keep me busy and sometimes life just gets in the
way. It is important that we communicate with one another for the sake of your students success
in the classroom so take a look at this communication plan that I have provided in order to create
a cohesive classroom environment.

Entire Class Communication: The sole part of communication for this classroom will be
through the weekly newsletter that will be sent home with your child every Monday.
Each week you should be expecting an email from me with the newsletter and your child
will bring a hardcopy home in their folder. With time, you should expect these
newsletters to make an appearance each week and if you are not seeing them, please ask
your child about it. These are so important for you as a parent to see, in order for you to
be kept up to date on everything we are doing in the classroom. Each newsletter will
include the date of the week, my email address, the plan for the week, events,
announcements/notes, projects/assignments, and a list of birthdays for the week. You are
expected to sign the bottom of the newsletter and return it to school with your child by
Friday, so that I know you saw it and have been updated about what we have going on for
the week.
Urgent Matters: If there are any urgent matters regarding your child individually that you
need to be made aware of, you will receive either a note or an email regarding the
situation.
Changes in Schedule: If there are any changes in the schedule or on the newsletter that
could affect you or your student you will be made aware of as soon as possible via email.
Please let me know if there is a better form of contact for you.
Fill me in: Do you have any information that you would like for me to know about your
child? If so, please communicate that with me and let me know by sending a note in,
email me, or call. Throughout the day, I check my email at least 3 times, so this would be
the best form or communication as calls can sometimes be disruptive to class time,
although I will answer if possible.
Instructional Plan: All instructional plans for the week will be laid out in the weekly
newsletters that will be sent home. If there is anything added or removed throughout the
week, you will be notified immediately.

Contact Information:
Email: merissa.leonard@wsu.edu
School Phone: 555-555-5555
Webpage: missleonard.weebly.com

*Please see below for weekly newsletter

Merissa Leonard Portfolio B
Merissa Leonard Portfolio B

This here is a sample of the weekly newsletter that would go out to parents each week. I found
this on Pinterest and I really liked the layout along with the different headings. Before I did not
even think to add birthdays to the newsletter but I think it in a way highlights those students and
usually parents like to be up to date on that information. The main reason I was attracted to this
newsletter is because it has an area for the date as well as how who the teacher is and the website
(which I would probably change to my email/phone number). Then I enjoy that there is a
heading for each of the points that I hit in my newsletter regarding what the week will look like,
events, notes, and assignments/projects. Overall I think that this newsletter would work perfectly
for my future classroom, but I might do a little bit of switching up with the font because it is kind
of busy to look at.
Merissa Leonard Portfolio B

Communication Skills:

The communication skill that I am most comfortable with utilizing in the classroom and with
parents is constructive assertiveness. This skill is something that I have come to use quite often
when working with kindergarteners as it is important to use when reinforcing behavior. In the
book constructive assertiveness, means that the assertive teacher is supportive and helpful, and
does not deride or attack the student involved (Everston & Emmer, 2017, p. 204). When talking
to students this is an extremely useful as well as important communication skill to have because
students are constantly trying to push limits. Being able to be assertive with students without
attacking but instead with being supportive and by reinforcing your expectation is such an
important and useful skill that I feel I am lucky enough to have because I know that it can be a
challenging skill to use.

The communication skill that I feel I need to advance in developing is problem solving although
more in the classroom and less with parents. Students tend to throw me off a lot of the times in
the classroom and decision making is constantly happening on the fly and can affect the class for
so long. The book describes problem solving as, a process to deal with and resolve conflicts
(Everston & Emmer, 2017, p. 211). That definition shows me that I tend to struggle with this in
the classroom sometimes because problem solving calls for quick thinking. In these situations, I
tend to freeze up but usually it is because I have not known the students well enough to be able
to make the right resolution for them. Overall, this is a skill that I could work on further
developing through getting to know students better, and with more experience of dealing with
those problem solving situations.
Merissa Leonard Portfolio B

Reference:

Evertson, C.M. & Emmer, E.T. (2017). Classroom management for elementary teachers (10th
ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson.