Quick Updates Last Week of January 2019

Happy School Choice Week! Thank you for picking Marshall as your school of choice. We truly believe in our one of a kind magnet programs and the benefits they have on our students. Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to teach your child! Together we rise.

Growth Mindset Parent Night Presentation:  Do you want your child to be happier, more successful, and less stressed out? Marshall is providing an amazing opportunity for you to come and learn some powerful strategies to help your child thrive in and out of school. Dr. Blake Brandes (TEDx speaker and America's Got Talent performer) will be here to present and share with parents in the gym on Thursday, January 30 from 5:30-6:30. This is for parents only, Marshall will NOT be providing childcare. We encourage everyone to find a babysitter and attend this very important assembly. Then our students will have their own assembly on Friday during school hours. We really hope to see everyone there!

Growth mindset is a message I have been incorporating into my room the last couple of years. Teaching students that it is ok to make and learn from our mistakes. That we learn through perseverance, and the power of yet. I am excited to learn more from Dr. Brandes myself. Again, together we rise! - Ms. Shaw 

MLK 2019

Happy Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day. I hope that everyone took time to reflect and remember the importance of Dr. King and his legacy as well as to rest and prepare for our month of learning ahead. We are in for a long stretch without a break, and I for one am ready! Here's the scoop on what lies ahead...

Math:  We are going to wrap up our unit on solving addition and subtraction word problems with RDW (read, draw, and write) as well as revisiting the meaning of the equal sign and true and false number sentences. This means we will be fixing false number sentences with teen numbers. A very challenging concept and not one I expect mastery of.  This will also conclude our unit on Operations and Algebraic thinking, for now. We have also begun Rocket Math. Rocket Math is a partner activity designed to increase fluency in basic math facts. The students seem to be enjoying rocket math and are doing quite well. We hope to do Rocket Math at least 3 times a week.

ELA:  We will continue our NatGeo unit on Animal Movements. We will wrap up our Hat and Mitten tie in this week and begin our animal research with animals from these two stories this week as well. 

Social Studies:  Last week we began learning about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, his life, and his contributions to our society. I have to say our first lesson is always one of my favorite lessons of the year. We will conclude our learnings on MLK this week. Hopefully your children were able to communicate to you a little bit about who Dr. King is and why we have a day off to celebrate and remember his important work. 

Science:  I told you I would update you if anything changed, and I am. Next week we will begin our unit on Air and Weather not Balance and Motion. We will save Balance and Motion for the end of the year. Air and Weather will begin now to coincide with our next NatGeo unit. See what we did there? Love when our curriculum overlaps! Such a great way to learn. Both are amazing units. So Air and Weather is first. Thanks for understanding our need to be flexible.

We Need Snacks:  Can you help? We are out of snacks! Our little ones need a little something to refuel in the mornings between breakfast and lunch, otherwise this gets to be a very long stretch on empty stomachs. Crackers of any kind (graham, ritz, animal, etc), pretzels, fresh fruit of any kind, cheese sticks, goldfish, bars (nutri grain type), applesauce are some examples of snacks that we could use. Please, NO FRUIT SNACKS or sweets. We have a family who has been so kind to bring in fresh fruit and cheese sticks once a week, every week this year. The students have absolutely loved this. We do have a refrigerator to put these types of foods in. If you can help with snacks please bring enough for 23 kiddos. we have no allergies in our room! Thank you from our hungry little tummies! The midday fuel really helps our minds!

100th Day of School: Thursday is the 100th day of school. As we do, we will have some fun 100 days activities planned to celebrate 100 days smarter! Why is the 100th day so important? To be quite honest, funding for next year is based off our enrollment count on day 100. Therefore, your child's attendance matters. Not only on this day, but everyday! Did you know....

Wowza! How many days has your child missed this year? Has it all been for illness? It is so important that they be here each and every day! Think about how much they are truly missing over a lifetime when they are not here! This really puts it into perspective! Let's show up! Every day is so important!

Illness: So when should we stay home? If your child is ill. Here is yet another visual to help you determine when your child should stay home due to illness, and when they should return. 

Please pay extra attention to the I am ready to go back to in accordance to your child's illness. We follow these guidelines and appreciate it if you do as well, in the best interest of keeping everyone well! Thank you!

THINK Like a Mustang Innovative Assembly: On Friday we had a chance to honor 2 of our students as part of our PBIS initiative. Friday we held our assembly on Innovative, and gave our Innovative awards to Chiara and Raymond. These two are always problem solving in unique and creative ways, thinking outside the box, and cracking me up and catching me off guard with seeing and saying things from a perspective I did not see. Congratulations Chiara and Raymond on being Innovative!

This second semester is always a semester of growth in the first grade, and I have already seen so much of this growth since we have returned from break. Can't wait for us to show up everyday, and accomplish tons! -Ms. Shaw 

Welcome Back 2020!

Welcome back, and happy 2020. We hit the ground running last week for sure, and it felt great. Allow me to update you on what we have going on in our room...

Math:  This week we will focus on modeling subtraction of 9, 8, and 7 from teen numbers.

ELA:  Since we had a couple of weeks off, last week we had a Daily 5 Boot Camp. We spent the week reviewing and practicing one of the Daily 5 concepts- Read to Self, Work on Writing, Read to Someone, Word Work, and Listen to Reading.  This was just an opportunity to remember and practice the procedures we have set in place to become better readers and writers.  We will also began reading the story "The Mitten" by Jan Brett.  Next week we will read her story "The Hat" and do a little story comparison and focusing on character, problem and solution, and sequencing. Next week students will also choose an animal from one the stories to research and write a report about. This will coincide with our NatGeo stories for the next 4 weeks, which focus on animal movements.

Science and Social Studies:  This week we will learn all about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and what important role he played in American History. After that we will begin our science unit on balance and motion, or that is at least the plan for now. I will update you if the plan changes for science.

Meet Miss Llamas:  Miss Llamas will be joining us this semester in room 9 as our student teacher.  We are very excited to have her with us. I will let her introduce herself...

Hello everyone,  my name is Alyssa Llamas! Your kiddos call me Miss Llamas in the classroom. I’m studying to be an elementary school teacher at NAU. I am currently in the process of completing my student teaching, which is why I’m in Ms. Shaw’s room! I am super excited to be able to learn and grow along side your students for the next few months. I’ll be in the classroom everyday, helping and teaching until early May. It’s only been a week and your kids have already made such a huge impact on me!

Snacks Needed:  We are running very low on snacks and could use some snack donations. Please make sure to supply enough for 23 students if you are able to help. Thank you so much!

Dates to Remember:  A few days to mark on your calendar for this month:

• Tuesday, January 14th - Chipotle fundraiser - 30% back to Marshall from 4-8pm. 
• Monday, January 20th - School Closed for MLK day.

Hanukkah Celebration: Before we left for break we had our final holiday celebration. Hanukkah! The kids played dreidel and enjoyed latkes (most of them anyway). Again, thank you all who donated supplies and who came in and helped with this amazing day. Here are some pictures from our Hanukkah celebration.

I cannot begin to tell you how much I appreciate my families and all the kindness you showed to me before break. Thank you for everything, I love my families, these crazy kiddos, and my job. Anything else is extra icing, and I appreciate it. Can't wait to rock semester 2! - Ms. Shaw