Picture Day 2019

Happy September families. We survived a full week back after our weird two day cyber week, and we survived Friday the 13th with a full moon!  We have one more new routine to add this week, RTI. Please read on to learn more about that below, as well as what is happening in our class this week.

Math:  This week we will finish working on our strategies for counting on. After this we will move onto understanding the equal sign and constructing true number sentences (ex: 2+3 = 4+1). More challenging, students will identify false number sentences and learn how to fix them by changing an addend. 

ELA:  We are moving into unit 2 from our NatGeo series, which means that the theme of our NatGeo series will be plants for the next 4 weeks. We will be tying these stories into our science the next several weeks as well. In grammar we will be looking at present progressive verb tense (ing with am, is, and are).

Social Studies:  We will be wrapping up Ancient Mesopotamia this week. We will have an Ancient Mesopotamia taste testing to try some of the foods from the region. We will need the following food donations to make this happen. If you can bring in any of the following supplies by this Friday (September 20th) we would greatly appreciate your contributions:

• Apples (sliced)
• Honeydew (sliced)
• Cantaloupe (sliced)
• Pita Bread
• Figs
• Dates
• Goat Cheese
• Grapes

Science:  Now that we have learned all about what it means to be a scientist we will begin our science units. As mentioned above, our first unit will be plants to coincide with our ELA unit. We will begin by planting alfalfa and ryegrass seeds and focus on the question, "What happens to seeds in moist soil."  This also begins our learning of the scientific process, which we will follow and record in our notebooks every time we conduct an experiment.

Picture Day:  Picture Day is this Wednesday. If you are ordering pictures please make sure you have your packets returned to me by Wednesday morning at the latest. You may also order pictures online at mylifetouch.com using your ID SR259110Q0. If you order pictures online, make sure you let me know via a note in the agenda. We are scheduled to take our pictures at 10:15 Wednesday morning, so please be on time.

RTI:  RTI begins this week. RTI is our whole school reading intervention. First grade goes to RTI after lunch. We break into small groups based on individual reading needs of our students.  Then during these 25 minutes we work on meeting those needs/skills in smaller and more intensive group settings. 

Mustang Gallop:  The Marshall Gallop is our annual jog-a-thon fundraiser where 100% of the proceeds comes back to Marshall school in the way of school supplies for students and other classroom items needed by teachers at the beginning of the year.  Your child should have gone home with a packet on Friday. This is so that they may begin collecting pledges from family and friends. Pledges can be made per lap or as a flat rate. We will run our Jog-a-thon on Friday, September 27th. First grade running time is at 9:30. This day is to determine how many laps your child has run so they can go back and collect from those who choose to donate per lap. Money envelopes are due back on October 4th. Check are accepted, made payable to Marshall PTO. We would love to have 100% of the students participate in this event! This is our 12th annual Gallop and our theme is Lunar Launch. I think the class has agreed that we will be Shaw's Shooting Stars. If you would like to come join us for the Gallop, we would love to see you here!

Snacks Needed:  We are out of snacks! If you could provide us with one or two healthy snacks to carry us through for a while we would greatly appreciate it. Our first graders get very hungry between breakfast and lunch and a snack is needed to help fuel their brains and bodies until they can make it to lunch. 

The students are noticeably becoming more familiar with routines and expectations, and I see it in their behaviors and attentiveness during class and instructional time. We are growing, and I am proud of the gains we are making! - Ms. Shaw