Parent Letters

Something that goes a long with a teachers responsibility, are keeping in touch with the parents of the students.  In many of my classes I have had to write many "parent letters" to let the parents know what I will be teaching and what their students will be learning.  Here are just some examples of parent letters that I have worked on to help keep parents informed about what their students will be learning:

 

This is a letter that can be addressed to an elementary aged setting:

Dear Parent,                                                                                                      

            Hello, my name is Miss Raymond and I am your child’s Physical Education teacher.  I just wanted to introduce myself to you and let you know what is going to be coming up in class.  I will be working with your child on his/her basic motor and locomotor skills.  Such as running, jumping, skipping, hopping, and galloping etc.  I will also be playing all sorts of fun games and activities with your child that will help to work on all of these skills in addition to further developing their learning outside of the gymnasium.  An example of this would be a game that will be working on their ability to stay in a set boundary while I call out a locomotor pattern that they are able to perform.  On top of everything that I just mentioned, I am here to teach your child how to live a healthy lifestyle in new, fun and exciting ways.  We will be starting class soon so your child needs to bring in a pair of sneakers to play in, along with shorts or sweatpants, a play tee shirt, and their smiles!

I look forward to working closely with you and your child!

Thank you,

Miss Amber Raymond

 This is also another way to keep the parents involved, a newsletter that I plan on handing out every new unit when I begin teaching:

Welcome to Physical Education!

       Hello parents!  My name is Miss Amber Raymond, I am a SUNY Cortland graduate, also your child’s new elementary physical education teacher.  My motto is to I will be sending out monthly newsletters to keep you informed about what your child is learning in class, then also what will be coming up in class.

            This month we will be working on locomotor patterns, like jumping, running, leaping, hopping, etc.  I will be playing a lot of games with your children that will help develop their locomotor skills.  Our theme this month is friendship.  Your child will be learning about what a friend is and how to become a friend.

            So I look forward to working with you as well as your child.  Just send them in with something to play in, shorts, a tee shirt, sneakers, and of course their smiles!

Fun Fact

~ Did you know that parents are the best motivators for their child’s physical fitness?  It is true; parents are role models to a child.  Therefore, it is never too late to get your child involved with physical fitness.  Like riding bikes when it is nice out, going for walks, or play on playgrounds.

Friendship

·       What is a friend?

·       What makes a good friend?

·       What to do if someone does not have a friend.

Miss Amber Raymond

This is a parent letter than I did for my Self-Defense class:

Hello parents!

I just wanted to let you know what will be coming up in your child’s physical education class.  We will be introducing a new self defense unit!  This unit will be very beneficial to your child’s body and mind.  Self defense will work your children physically and even mentally.

By the end of the unit your children will have learned ways to protect themselves, how to work on their body control, and how to stay fit.  They will learn ways to stretch and work their muscles without lifting weights.  Your children will also be learning about where self defense originated from and why it is so go to know.  They will be learned about the history and the different types of martial arts.  Even though self defense is not martial arts, but they will be learning about the history of it.  They will also be learning about how to relax their mind and to relieve stress in a healthy way.

In class we will not be sparring, or fighting, other students in class. What I will be teaching does not deal with sparing and I do not want to see it in my class.  Like I have mentioned they will be learning how to defend themselves but that does not mean fighting with another student.  Self defense is about defending oneself if the situation were to ever happen.  The students are expected to respect themselves and others while in class, this is a very strong aspect of self defense.  And this is what I will be following is respect for oneself and others.  Some safety concerns are that it is just like any other unit, injuries are possible.  But, if your child listens to what I have to say and follow correctly then injuries are prevented. 

You are more than welcome to come to some class to observe, or even join!  Thank you very much and I cannot wait to be working with you and your child.

 Respectfully,

Miss Amber Raymond

This letter I have sent out to an actual student that I worked with over the past semester in the Adapted program at Cortland.  (To protect the students identity, I have placed "student" in place of her name.)

Dear Parent/Guardian of Student,

            Hello, my name is Amber Raymond, I am a senior Physical Education major at SUNY Cortland and I have been working with student for the past four months in the Adapted Physical Education program offered at Cortland every Friday during the month.  She has been a joy to work with these past couple of months and I am writing this letter to explain what we have been doing these past couple of months.

In the past four months, student and I have been working on the skills and concepts related to basketball.  Since the September her basketball skills have improved, especially her shooting.  She struggled shooting the ball into the hoop but now she has been getting better with each class.  She can shoot the ball into the hoop without using the modification hoop I made. Student did not know any rules of basketball in the beginning of the year, but she now knows what she does wrong when I ask her.  In the beginning of the semester, Dakota had an issue with listening to me and following the rules.  Since then, we have been working on her listening skills with a sticker chart that reinforces listening and if she does not, then student does not get a sticker for the day.

            To help work with her basketball skills, I found a majority of activities that were fun and interesting.  She has played basketball tic-tac-toe where she had to shoot the basketball into a tic-tac-toe board on the floor.  One game that student enjoys is, Disney Princess around the World.  I learned that she really likes Disney princesses so I colored pictures of her favorite characters and then I place them on spots on the floor.  We then play around the world from those spots.  Student has also played with hula hoops a lot. She really enjoys playing with them, pretending that it is a dog and then having to walk the dog.  There have been many other activities that we have played but these are the ones she has really seemed to enjoy playing.

            To help create success for student, I have made many modifications for her.  With dribbling, I started her out with using a bigger more bouncy ball.  But dribbling came a lot easier to her.  Shooting is where modifications have mostly been made because the basketball hoop is a little high for a beginner to really be work with I feel.  I put a jump rope on the basketball hoop so it hung down then tied a hula hoop to it so the hula hoop was like a basket.  With around the world, I changed the rules around so she had more chances at each spot instead of just two. 

If you have any questions or concerns feel free to email me at ...

Thank you for your time!

Sincerely,

Amber Raymond