Conferences, Return to School, and More

Happy March. I have a lot of information to share with you in this blog so please take the time to read through it all. Let's begin with next weeks learning before we get into all the big stuff.

Math:  We will wrap up our unit on money next week. If you have not cut out the paper money in the bag that went home with the supplies, please do so by Monday. I ask that you do NOT have your child cut out the coins so that they may remain the size they are now. Thank you for your help.

ELA:  We will continue working out of our NatGeo curriculum. We are in the middle of unit 6, which focuses on weather. This weeks sounds are oo, ou, and ew. 

Science: We will continue our weather unit learning all about weather tools and how we use them. 

Next Weeks Schedule/Thursday's Asynchronous Learning Day:  Next weeks schedule is very different. Monday and Tuesday will be the only 2 regular dismissal days. The rest of the week will be early release days for conferences. Wednesday and Thursday will be 12:10 dismissal days and Friday we will dismiss at 11:10.  

Although we release at 12:10 on Thursday we will not actually be meeting on Zoom because the district has designated Thursday as an asynchronous learning day. This means that I will have a day's worth of planning in the Google Classroom calendar but you will not have to log onto Zoom to access that day's learning. You will just click the links and/or follow the list of assignments for the day. We do not need to log on for Zoom for attendance, all students will be considered present for the day unless called off by parents for any reason. Here are my thoughts on the schedule and work assigned for Thursday. I have linked the end of unit math test for Thursday. This is a must do. I do not care what time it is done on Thursday, just that it is done. I am thinking there will also be a Nearpod weather assignment. The same goes for this. Make Thursday's schedule work for your family. I am doing what I am required to do, which is to assign a day's worth of work for your student. If it works for you to have your child work the day like they are in school, please do so. If it works for you to work it differently, all I need are those two assignments completed by the end of the day. I will go over Thursday's work with the kiddos at Wednesday's closing circle. When the calendar is posted you will see that I have the days work following closely to a normal day, including the morning work and announcements. If there are any questions about this, feel free to reach out. 

Report Cards:  

I will tell you, I never really liked this meme but this is exactly how I felt this whole week. Like my brain has waaayyy to many tabs open. I have literally been trying to work on a thousand things at one time since the district announced the return to school. When added to trying to get report cards done today that turned out to be a lofty goal. I apologize for that not happening. They will be done before Wednesday for sure but I am hoping to have them completed before that. I will not give you a date this time, I'm scared to do that again and it not come to fruition. As I said in my email, thank you for your patience, understanding, and continued grace. I will email you just as soon as they are done and ready for viewing.  

Parent/Teacher Conferences:  Some of your have reached out to ask about conferences. Spring Conferences have traditionally always been optional. This year will be no different  If you are choosing to remain in remote learning and wish to have a conference please reach out to me via email and we will set up a conference for the week of March 8th-12th. If you are going to be returning to the classroom and would like a conference you can reach out and we will set up a conference for the first week of April. I believe we will probably have a bit more to talk about if we wait until the week after we return than if we do so before. If your prefer to still have a conference next week, let me know and we can make that happen. If you do not feel we need a conference, that is fine as well. As I mentioned, spring conferences have always been optional.  We will do what works for you.  Because I am offering so many choices I will not be sending home a traditional sign up sheet, just shoot me an email and we will make it happen.

Return to School Supplies:  For those returning to school you will NOT need to go out and buy "back to school" supplies. I am ordering all materials your child will need to carry them through the 4th quarter. We will not be sharing supplies at all, and we are not wanting them to bring items from home. I will be giving them all new glue sticks, pencils, erasers, crayons, pencil, sharpeners, you name it. If you have purchased anything for them already, please keep it at home. All items will be placed in their own pencil boxes, which will be provided by the school. Pencil boxes, individual bags of math manipulatives, Daily 5 supplies, and anything else your child needs for learning will be placed in their own 2 gallon bags which will be labeled and kept in their cubbies.  

Here is what your kiddos will need. Their own water bottle, labeled with their name on it. We will not be allowed to drink from water fountains. We will have water filling stations where the students can fill up their water bottles. Therefore water bottles from home are a must! Especially on PE days. Our rooms do get warm, and towards may they are downright hot some days. With no water fountains available they absolutely need a water bottle from home. 

If you would like to help purchase anything we will need Kleenex, Paper Towels,  and hand sanitizer. Hand sanitizer will not be taking the place of handwashing. We will be required to hand wash before and after recess and before we go to lunch. We will also be washing our hands after we use the bathroom, as usual. We do not need any kind of disinfectant wipes because we have a cleaner that we are using in our classrooms that has been provided by the district. 

iPad Storage:  We need your help. The kiddos (at all grade levels) have had way too much fun taking pictures and screen shots of anything and everything, mainly to use as backgrounds that the district said they could not have. This is resulting in iPad storage issues, and apparently causing iPads to freeze and crash. Unfortunately when they get to this point they are requiring a replacement! Which is not something that FUSD is set up to do easily and at such a large scale as we are staring down at.  We need parents and guardians to delete all photos and videos off of your child's iPads immediately. Once you have done this we need you to go into the "recently deleted" and delete what you just trashed in order to save your iPad from imminent doom. Yep, a two step process in order for it to work. I have never asked the kiddos to take a picture or video of anything, so please clear out everything they may have in their photos and videos. Thank you for your time and attention to this very important matter.

Show and Tell:  There will be no show and tell next week. We will need closing circle for other things next week, and we will not even have a closing circle on Thursday. 

Spring Break:  Spring Break will be from Monday March 15th - Friday March 19th. Enjoy your very well deserved break! 

I know there will be so much more to cover in the upcoming days (weeks). I am attaching Marshall's Return To In-Person Plan for your perusing.  One thing of interest in the arrival/dismissal section is that parents are not allowed in the building at these times. I have informed the kiddos of this and Mrs. Burton helped us do a little tour of the school last Thursday. She took her computer and showed us how to get from the front door to our classroom, and from the classroom to the bathrooms. We discussed bathroom procedures and then we learned how to get from the bathroom to the classroom. We also learned how to go from our classroom to the playground, and vice versa. These are thing will we work on when we are in the building as well. I just wanted the kiddos prepared with the knowledge that they will be walking in by themselves, and to have some idea of where to go. I know I have yet to cover everything you may be wondering about when it comes to back to school. Please feel free to reach out and ask me anything you need to know. I will probably include your questions in the blog for others as well. If you are wondering how something will work I'm sure someone else will be as well.  In the meantime, have a great weekend. -Ms. Shaw