December Updates

 Happy Weekend! Only two weeks left. Here is what is happening the rest of the semester in our class and at Marshall:

Math:  This week we will wrap up sums and differences within 100. 

ELA:  Last week we learned about multiple meaning words. We will finish verbs to wrap up the semester. In phonics we are continuing with unpredictable vowels teams (since last update we have done ow and ea, this week we will focus on oo). Next week will will do a story series on comparing and contrasting different gingerbread stories. At some point we will be building our own gingerbread houses. We will have a sign up for supplies needed and volunteers to help, so be on the look out for that!

Science:  We will wrap up our unit on solids and liquids this week. 

Social Studies:  We are going to spend the next two weeks learning about different holidays celebrated at this time of year. We will learn about Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, St. Lucia, and Las Posada's. We will learn who celebrates these holidays, how the holiday began and why,  what are some of the traditions associated with each holiday, etc... With each holiday we will have a craft, or some kind of food to help us understand the holiday better. When we learn about Hanukkah we will make latkes. This will take place the last Friday before break. I will be sending out a list for supplies and volunteers  for this as well.

Spirit Week:  Marshall holiday spirit week the next two weeks. Days are as follows:

Mark Your Calendar:  Few dates to remember coming up"

• Thursday, December 8th - Special Early Release @ 12:25 - please plan for after school care accordingly.
• Thursday, December 15th - PTO Craft Night in Gym 5:30-6:30 PM
• Monday, December 19th - Friday, December 30th - School Closed for Winter Break.

Pictures from Native American Heritage Month- Here are the last of the pictures from our last guest speaker from Native American Heritage Month. Mae Zee taught us all about weaving. Special thanks to Ms. Judith Arnold for organizing all our speakers and events during Native American Heritage Month. 

Thanksgiving Luncheon:  It was great seeing so many of you at our Thanksgiving luncheon. Here are some pictures of our families:

Hope everyone has had a great weekend. See you tomorrow to begin the end of the semester!! -💚Ms. Shaw

Native American Heritage Month Updated

 Happy Native American Heritage Month. Below are some updates about what we have happening in our class and around Marshall in honor of Native American Heritage Month.

Spirit Week:  This week we have Native American Spirit Week. The dates are as follows:

Monday: Rock your Mocs or Socks
Tuesday: Turquoise Day or Wear Blue
Wednesday: Traditional Dress for the culture you represent
Thursday: Native shirt or wear your favorite shirt
Friday: Marshall Pride!  Show your colors 

Navajo Taco Lunch:  Tuesday, November 15th we will be having Navajo Taco's for lunch. So delicious! Parents are welcome to join us ($5). We will be heading into the cafeteria at 11:30. 

Deb Onsae:  Last Wednesday Marshall's very own Deb Onsae came out of retirement to pay us a very special visit and tell us about storytelling. She read us "Turkey's Gift to the People." It was a very special story time, which we all enjoyed. 

Fancy Dancing:  This Tuesday the students will have the opportunity to watch Jonathan Chapman perform Fancy Dancing. There will also be a performance from one of our own students as well. Check him out at the link attached to his name. 

Dates to Remember:  A few other upcoming dates you might not want to forget, make sure to mark your calendars:

Tuesday, November 22 - Thanksgiving lunch with parents ($5)
Wednesday, November 23 - Friday, November 25 - Thanksgiving Break
Thursday, December 8 - Early Release

Crede Reperatory Theater:  Last Thursday we also welcomed back Crede Reperatory Theater for the first time in a few years. It was great to have them back in the gym performing their bilingual performance "Casa Alfonsa." The kids enjoyed the music and acting and were able to connect it to our learning about Dia de Los Muertos. There was even a reference to corn, which (if you didn't know) has somehow become our unofficial theme song this year. 

Have I told you what a pleasure it has been teaching this group of kids this year? If not, let me take the time now! They are truly a breath of fresh air. They make coming in to work easy, and I love their little faces and personalities so much. They are kind to each other, respectful and kind to adults, they are learners and helpers. They are the group that teachers talk about when they say their students make their jobs easy. It has been a pleasure to be with them each and every day. Thank you grown ups for pouring into them and making them the tiny humans they are!! -🧡Ms. Shaw

Veterans Day Week 2022

 Happy Veterans Day Week. Do not forget that it is a four day week, with this Friday off to remember all who have served. Remember to thank a veteran. Here is what we are doing these four days:

Math:  We are wrapping up comparing three digit numbers and headed into finding 1, 10, and 100 more or less than a given number.

ELA:  We will be learning about the unpredictable vowel team ie during phonics. We have also recently covered prefixes and have begun suffixes (right now focusing on -less and -ful). We will also finish verbs this week

Social Studies:  Last week we learned all about Dia de Los Muertos. This week we will learn about Veterans Day.

Science:  We will begin our unit on Solids, Liquids, and Gas this week. 

Marshall is an A School:  Have you heard the AmAzing news yet? Marshall has finally been granted the letter grade A by the state of Arizona. What a time in education for this accomplishment! I am so proud of everyone involved in this. Marshall has such a strong team of teachers who are always giving 100% to student success, parents who support us and their children, and students who are giving their all and take their education serious. This is what went into it, and this is what it will take to maintain it! I am so proud of our team! Go Marshall!!

THINK Assembly:  A few of our students were recognized at this months THINK assembly. This month was for the letter T - trustworthy. Now, to my surprise I had several students nominated by other staff in the building, which is awesome! So great to have a class full of trustworthy students. Honestly, I could have nominated so many more. Here are some pictures of our recipients:

Snacks:  We are in need of snacks for the rest of the semester. Thank you to all have have donated snacks recently. They are the much needed fuel that keeps our kiddos going in the morning between breakfast and lunch. Please remember, it must be individually wrapped. I do have a fridge in my room for any snacks you may want to bring in that need refrigeration. Thank you in advance!!

Hope you all enjoy the rest of your Sunday. Again, don't forget next week is a three day weekend so please plan accordingly. - 🧡Ms. Shaw

Halloween Info and More

 Hello families. Just a quick update on a few thing going on here at Marshall the next couple of weeks:

Red Ribbon Week Spirit Days Next Week: It is time for Red Ribbon Week. That's right, for a whole week before Halloween we get to dress up each and every day, yay!  🤣🤣 Here is a list of the spirit days. 

Monday - Wear RED to show we RESPECT ourselves and others at Marshall. Wear RED for Red Ribbon Week!

Tuesday - We make HEALTHY CHOICES from Head to Toe - It's crazy socks and creative hair day!

Wednesday - We care for one another because we are KIND - dress up like a friend.

Thursday - Dress like a Superhero - superheroes HELP others

Friday - At Marshall we THINK like a Mustang!  Show your school spirit and wear your MARSHALL GEAR.

Halloween: Next Monday, October 31st is Halloween. This is not my favorite holiday to celebrate in school, but something always seems to come up that overrides my desire to ignore it altogether. This year Marshall is turning 70 and Principal Reasor thought it might be fun to have a school wide theme of 70. This means either dressing from the 70's or like you are 70 years old. If neither of these themes pleases your second grader they may wear their costume as long as they follow the following guidelines:

• No costume masks or face paint at all, not even outside of the classroom.

• No weapons of any kind of all may be used as part of the costume. Such items will be confiscated and may result in disciplinary action including but not limited to suspension from school - per policy.

• Make sure costumes are easy for students to remove/unbutton/unzip independently for bathroom purposes.

• Costumes may not impede students ability to move safely and quickly out of the building in event of an alarm.

• Students must still wear weather appropriate footwear and jacket for recess.
• Absolutely NO scary/violent/gory costumes - keep it second grade appropriate or you will be called to bring a change of clothes for your child to change into.

Keeping with the no food from home policy, we will not be doing any snacks or sign up for treats.  If you wish to send in any prepackaged food items for them to enjoy we will be doing a "fall harvest celebration" where we will enjoy any store brought items sent in. 

Weather:  The weather has finally turned a bit colder. We will continue going outside for fresh air and exercise all fall and winter long. We absolutely do not keep kids inside when it is cold outside. If it is ever too cold to go outside the office will make that call and we will keep all students inside. If you feel your child is too sick to go outside, they are probably too sick to be at school and it may be best to keep them home. With that being said, please make sure you dress your child appropriately for the weather. A bigger jacket is needed for outside. A small hoodie or zip up may be needed for the classroom. A hat/beanie, gloves for outside when it is cold. When the snow starts they will need snow boots and snowpants. Please make sure everything is labeled with your child's name. Thank you!

Picture Retakes: If you missed picture day or would simply like to have your child's picture redone retake day is Friday, November 4th. 

As always, if you have any questions about any of the information shared with you, please feel free to reach out via email. -Ms. Shaw

October - Beginning of Second Quarter Updates

 Happy second quarter everyone! We have so much happening this week, and the remainder of this month, so I wanted to reach out via blog to let you all know what we are up to here at Marshall and in room 9:

Math:  We are smack dab in the middle of place value. We have been working with numbers up to 100 and this week we will go up to  1,000. Like we did with smaller numbers we will represent it in different ways (expanded form, place value disks, etc…).

ELA:  In phonics we will be looking at vowel teams ai/ay and oi/oy. We will also learn about verbs in grammar.  We will also focus on sentence structure a bit more through interviews with people in our schools with the goal of writing a proper sentence about the person we interview at the end. The sentences will go with a picture the students take of the person on the iPad, and they will also be able to write their sentences on the iPad if they choose. 

Science: We will begin our science lessons this week. First we will begin talking about what is a scientist before diving into our first official unit on solids, liquids, and gas. 

Field Trip:  Our field trip to Lamar Haines is this Thursday, October 20th. We will be leaving about 9:00 am and returning by 2:00 pm. We have a couple of volunteers joining us already, but anyone who would like to accompany us may. Remember, due to lack of space on the bus, all adults coming with us must follow us in their own vehicle. Please reach out and let me know if you would like to join us!

Fundraiser:  Did you know that Marshall is in the middle of our big annual fundraiser? You may not because I was out and have not had the chance to really tell you about it. lol. It’s fine though, because it is not too late, you still have all this week to sell discount cards!! These are really good ones too! Savings to places like Fratellis, Martannes, Brandy’s, and more (see below). These make excellent stocking stuffers, gifts for family and friends. This is how we make the money to help pay for the supplies at the beginning of the year, so that our families do not have to incur this expense. Every card you sell helps replenish these funds. As always, there are prize incentives. Even one card sold puts your child in the drawing for prizes, and every 5 cards is another entry. The TEACHERS of the grade level who sells the most get a lunch provided by Principal Reasor, and the class with the most sold gets an ice cream party. I know the competition is over this Friday, but I know some kiddos have begun selling. It is not too late to reach out to friends and family! We can do this!! Upset victory can be ours!!

Movie Night:  This Thursday is family movie night in the gym. Grab your pillows and blankets and join us for "Room on the Broom." First 60 families in the door will receive a free copy of the book. See flyer below.

There is so much more headed our way, but I think that is truly enough information for one blog! I will reach out with Halloween information next blog, for those wondering. 4 solid weeks of learning ahead! We got this! -Ms. Shaw

Mid September Updates

 Hello Room 9 Families! So much happening this September. Here is a look at all we still have going on this month:

Math:  We have begun our unit on data and measurement. We are measuring in centimeters and meters using centimeter cubes, rulers, and meter sticks. We are learning to think logically about what tool we would use to measure objects and we are solving word problems with measurements.

ELA:  We are beginning to integrate our NatGeo reading series this week. This series centers our stories into units that last for 4 weeks. The first unit is communities. We will be reading stories about our communities and who are people in our communities. In grammar we are focusing on nouns, last week was just learning about nouns. This week will cover singular and plural nouns and head into irregular nouns. We will also learn about multiple meaning words. 

Social Studies:  We finished our culture cases and they have been sent home to be completed at home. There is no due date on these. These are to be completed at your convenience to give your child an opportunity to learn about their family culture, some fun family history and background and to share with the class where their families are from and some of the traditions they have. We have had a few already come in. We are sharing these during our morning circle time, which had become my favorite time of day. The kids are learning so much about each other, from each other, and making many connections to one another. We are also going to incorporate our ELA unit of communities into our social studies learning and dive into communities a little more, extending from ourselves, families, going into our school community and our neighborhood and city. Looking into people who work in our school and city, what types of jobs they have, etc…. We hope to begin a photo essay of some of the people that work in our school soon.

Information About New State Law:   Several laws impacting public education were passed in the 2022 Arizona Legislative session and signed by Governor Ducey. One of those laws impacts the Moment of Silent Reflection time implemented in our school classrooms. House Bill 2707 amended state statute to require K-12 public schools to set aside at least one (1) minute and no more than two (2) minutes at the beginning of every school day for a moment of silent reflection. Students are prohibited from interfering with other students’ participation in the moment of silence. All school personnel are prohibited from suggesting the content of the reflection, however, teachers are required to encourage parents to discuss with their children how to use the moment of silence. Please take time to discuss with your child how to best use this moment of silent reflection time and the importance of not interfering with other students’ participation. This state law goes into effect on September 24, 2022.  The 1 minute "Marshall Moment" will take place after the pledge of allegiance in our morning announcements.

PTO Meeting:  Looking for a fun way to get involved in your child's education? You could join the PTO. They will be meeting from 5:00-6:30 this Wednesday, September 14th in the library. I'm pretty sure childcare is provided, but feel free to call the front office to make sure. 

Picture Day:  Time for our kiddos to break out their cute little grins. Thursday September 22nd is school picture day. Information went out last week. Please return packets no later than picture day. You can also order packets online. I will send that link to you as soon as I have it. 

Donations:  Huge thanks to every single family that donated snacks to our class. We are set for a while!! The kids appreciate the fuel they need to get them from breakfast to lunch. 

Volunteering: I have had a few parents ask about volunteering in the classroom. If this is you, or wasn't you but you would like to please feel free to reach out. I would like to make it real specific. I know one mom said she would like to come in and read, and then we talked about attaching a fun art project with it. If you have a special skill, hobby,  or occupation that you would like to come in and share with us that would be great. If you would like to tie it to our culture cases, or a celebrated heritage month that would be awesome as well. Feel free to reach out via my email - ashaw@fusd1.org.

Hope everyone had a restful and relaxing weekend. Ready for Monday!! -♡Ms. Shaw

First Blog of

Welcome to our first blog of the 2022-2023 school year.  Here is where I will update you on all things happening in our class and at Marshall. My goal is bi-weekly this year, but if you ever have questions you are always welcome to email me at ashaw@fusd1.org. Here is what we have been up to so far this year our learning:

Math:  We have been working on foundations and mental strategies for adding and subtracting within 20. Relearning how to use strategies like ten frames, number bonds, and quick tens and ones to help us solve problems and using the CUBS method to solve word problems.

ELA:  We are really focusing in on the science of reading and using our new phonics program here at Marshall. I’m telling you, this is going to be revolutionary for our students and their reading success!! We also learned a little of our Daily 5 routines. I will finish teaching those this upcoming week so that we can dive into our small groups the following week. You may have noticed no spelling homework has gone home. This is intentional. Gone is the days of memorizing lists. It is embedded in our phonics, and I will be tweaking our use of it in Daily 5. When (if) I decide how I want spelling in a phonic form to be done at home I will share that with you, but do not look for that for a few more weeks. 

Science/Social Studies:  We have been focusing a little more on social studies. Building our classroom communities. Focusing in on who we are, how we fit together as a classroom. We read “Our Class Is A Family” and incorporated ELA by focusing in on vocabulary and will be writing about how our class is a family, which we will be attaching to a fun guided drawing activity. We will extend this to our broader community to compare and contrast different types of homes. While looking at communities we will also begin our culture unit (which kind of expands throughout the year). We will discuss what is culture and make our culture cases. The kids will take these home to complete so that you can discuss and share with your child some of your families traditions, beliefs, special days, ways of dress, etc… Then when your child brings their culture case back home we will have them share during a community circle.

Community Circle:  When the kids first arrive at school they sit with me in circle. After attendance and lunch count we have a community circle. We basically talk about anything of importance. It can be a celebration circle, a problem solving circles, a discussion, how we feel about something (we just did this for testing and boy did it help!!). One person talks at a time and at the end I do a wrap up then a few students get to talk about who they made a connection with and why. This is probably my favorite part of the whole day! It gives the children to really build connections with peers that they may not have realized they have something in common with and helps us build our classroom community. 

Supplies Needed: If you have not purchased over the ear head phones with the three notches yet you may want to soon. We have given each student a pair of ear buds but they have all complained they hurt their ears. We will be using these almost daily. Also, we need water bottles sent every Monday, which will go home on Friday’s to be washed. We are also in need of snack. We are currently out. Thank you for everyone who sent in snacks for 20 last time! They kiddos loved all of it. Remember, healthy and individually wrapped is what we are asking for. Nothing that needs to be served or cut up by me, I just cannot get to that. Also, I do have a fridge in my room if we need to keep something cold. Thank you.

Birthday’s: I am reposting this from our beginning of the year information. As with most things, we have tweaked our celebrations due to Covid. Treats from home will not be allowed into the classroom. Also, in accordance to Marshall’s no sugar policy we have stepped away from the cupcakes and food the last few years anyway. No worries, I have your child’s big day covered. I will be providing a personal, non edible birthday treats for the birthday child after we sing in celebration! This has also made for more equitable celebrations, and has worked incredibly well. In addition to all this I will be allowing the birthday child to bring in a show and tell on their birthday. Summer birthdays will be celebrated in May and I will assign each child a special show and tell day. 

Open House: This Thursday, September 1st is our first open house in a few years! I am very excited to have the opportunity to meet with parents and guardians inside the classroom. Feel free to show up anytime between 5:-00 – 6:30. See you then!

I have had such a great start to the school year. I have truly enjoyed getting to know this group of kids and I am excited about the new programs we are implementing. We have a great class size and I really am ready to see what great things we are going to do together this year. If you have any questions feel free to email me as I mentioned above, or reach out at the number provided in the sidebar of this blog. -Ms. Shaw