 | Katie Harmon
1st Grade
My name is Katie Harmon and I am the new 1st grade teacher at Cheyenne Mountain Elementary. I feel very blessed to have joined such a passionate and talented family of educators and such a supportive community.
This is my first year teaching, and I am very excited to help your students grow personally and academically. My mission as a teacher is to ignite in all children the belief that they are capable of learning, instill in them the passion to pursue both knowledge and their dreams, and challenge them to constantly grow and achieve to their highest potential.
I am a native of Colorado Springs, but I recently spent four years Spokane, WA, where I attended Whitworth College. While at Whitworth, I majored in Elementary Education and minored in History, Theater, and Reading Instruction. I have so many passions, that I had to get my hands in a little bit of everything. These minors also are extremely relevant as I begin to teach this year.
I hope to use my theater background-- which includes performing, make-up, costuming, and technical theater-- in both my classroom and in extra enrichment activities for the school. Without imagination and creativity, schools such as CME would not be as successful or alive as they are today.
In addition to teaching, I have also worked as a historical interpreter at Rock Ledge Ranch Historic Site for the past ten years. I am the cook in the 1907 country estate house. I love helping visitors understand the vitality and importance of history. Dressing up and cooking on a coal burning stove are not too bad either!
I look forward to this school year with great joy, and feel honored that you have entrusted your children to my care. I promise to take them under my wing and return them with more enthusiasm and knowledge then when you gave them to me.
Contact Information
I can be reached via phone before and after school, and sometimes at lunch. My extension is #30 if you get into the answering system.
I can also be reached via e-mail. In an effort to control spam, staff e-mail addresses are not published on our websites, but it is listed in the school directory you should have received, and is available on request if you don't already have it.
Grading Scale
90%-100% = G
80%-89% = P
0%- 79% = I
Homework
Philosophy: The homework assignments reinforce skills taught in class and inform parents of what we are teaching. Please help your child complete and/or correct any work she or she brings home. This work does not need to be returned to school if it meets your expectations. Spelling homework beginnings the middle of September. We will add diction sentences to the spelling list second semester.
As the time goes on, please practice addition and subtraction facts to eighteen.
Time: 25 minutes, 4 times a week. First graders are also expected to read with or to a parent 15 minutes, 4 times a week.
Missing Assignments
If a student misses school, they will have one day for every day absent, starting the day after their return, to make up the work.
Planners
Students will bring home a green folder where they have written the important events that happened each day. This folder is also where they put all papers that they need to bring home and/or return to school.
Report Cards
A report card is not a judgment of your child's worth as an individual. It does not measure the delight he or she gives, the humor in those young eyes, or the hope for tomorrow. It measures only one aspect of a young life with so much untried potential. After only a few years of life we cannot judge their lives to be successes nor failures at anything. Please look at your child's report card with love and acceptance of how things are right now. Give it only the importance of the moment - notice and point out the good and positive, emphasize what your child is doing right and build on that to improve what needs improving. Young developing egos are fragile - handle with care and nourish all that your child is and can be.
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