Notes to Parents

How do you communicate with parents when a student has had a not so terrific day? One of the most popular ways is to send home a note. Notes are an awesome and efficient for letting a parent know about their child's misbehavior, but you must be cautious of your phrasing and word choices when sending home that note. You do not want the parent to think that their child is the worse behaved student in the classroom. Also, make sure to 'sandwich' the note, meaning start off with a good comment, the misbehavior in the middle of the note, and another good comment to finish the note.

Here is an example of poorly phrased and worded note to the parent of a chatty student:

Dear Mrs. Jones,
Katie is constantly talking while the class is completing their work. I moved her desk beside mine so that she could stop being so much of a distraction to the other students. Please speak to her about talking all the time. Tomorrow she will not have recess time if she continues to talk.

Mrs. Smith


There is a much better way to phrase the note. Here's how using the sandwich technique!

Dear Mrs. Jones,
Katie is always so excited to share with her friends about her weekends, and she does a great job at the writing center creating storybooks about her weekends too! While I encourage students to share ideas and events with one another, I discourage them from discussing it during work time. Katie was talkative today during worktime and I asked her to sit with me so that she could complete her work. I reminded Katie that work time is quiet time. I am sure that she will have a much better day tomorrow.
Please contact via email or phone if you have any further questions.

Mrs. Smith

Reasonable Consequences

Often times I've had colleagues share with me a consequence that they had given to a student for misbehaving. Some of these consequences shared were a bit harsh and not appropriate for the misbehavior. It is important that teachers think of reasonable consequences for students at the beginning of the school year, this will help to avoid coming up with outlandish consequences when a student is misbehaving.

Here are some examples of unreasonable consequences:

A. The teacher explains to her students that they will be doing a cut and paste craft and tells the class if anyone starts before she says so that they will be sent to the office.

B. A teacher is having trouble lining up the students. She tells the class anyone who is out of line is going to spend the entire recess time in timeout.



These are reasonable consequences for those misbehaviors:

A.  A more realistic consequence would be, if you start before I begin you will have to take a 5 minute timeout before you can start making your craft.

B. A reasonable consequence would be, to remind students to quickly get in line and tell students that everyone who is line up will receive a good behavior sticker or the class will receive a point toward their popcorn party when everyone is in line. (This is if the class has an incentive like this already in place.)