Letter of Introduction to Parents

Hello Parents!

It is that time of year again when you spend way too much time at Target shopping for Back-to-School supplies, beg your child to at least start their summer reading book, and start planning how you are going to fit in all of your child's extracurricular activities. I know this time of year can be stressful, so I simply wanted to introduce myself, give you a clear checklist of what your child will need to have with them when they attend my class, and update you on what my class will look like this year.

First, my name is Ms. Gorman, and I will be teaching your child's English class. I graduated from Hope College last spring, and I am so excited to get to know your kiddos! I love running, music, hiking, going to the beach, and of course, reading and writing. I plan on being very organized this year, so you can expect a Weekly Newsletter from me every Sunday night updating you on classroom announcements and the date of your student's presentation of his/her/their project at the end of each unit. I will be implementing Project Based Learning (PBL) this year, which encourages teachers to give their students an authentic audience to present in front of. What better authentic audience than you! If you cannot make it, that is okay, I will try to record all of the presentations and send them out within a week or so of the date they were presented. I will talk more about PBL at the end of this email.

Next, I made a checklist of the different materials your student should bring to class and what reading they should have finished.

• No. 2 pencils (3-5)

• Blue or black ink pens (3-5)

• Composition Notebook (1)

• Chromebook (1-provided by the school)

• Binder (1)

• Dividers (5)

• Planner (1)

• Summer Reading book: Students should have at least chosen their book before class. If they would like less homework, they should start reading it.

Finally, I would like to introduce you to the concept of PBLs. Some of you may have heard this term before, but for those of you who have not, PBLs are units that circle around a project; instead of teaching the information first and then assigning a project, PBLs allow the students to learn with the project. While it does give students more freedom in their learning, it has been proven by multiple studies to help engage students and draw out their best work. Like I said before, I would love for any of you to be able to attend their presentations, so I will give you plenty of notice as to the dates of their presentations.

Thank you for reading this far! I wish you the best of luck with the end of the summer, and I cannot wait to get to know your kids. :)

-Ms. Libby Gorman