MidSeptember 2023 Updates

 A few updates/reminders for your three day weekend.

Mustang Gallop:  Please make sure your child spends some time soliciting donations this three day weekend for our Mustang Gallop. They can either solicit flat donations or a per lap pledge.  This is our annual fundraiser, and 100% of the proceeds comes directly back to your students. In the past the monies have been used for things like new playground equipment, and more recently we have used the funds to help purchase every back to school supply your child needs - at no cost to you! This is such an amazing support we can offer to our families and teachers every year, but we need your help by asking friends, family, and neighbors for pledges!! There is a raffle for a chance for your student to win individual prizes, with the top prize being an electric scooter. The top earning class and class with the most participation will also win either an ice cream party or Fratelli's pizza party field trip. Let's take it all!! Make those phone calls, knock on those doors and get those pledges!!

Culture Cases: We have been learning about culture in class. We discovered that culture is everything that makes us and our families us!! Our language, the food we eat, the clothes we eat, etc...On Friday your student made their culture computer in class. They have five sections to complete at home over the three day weekend: Language, Food, Clothing, Music, and Special Days. Please work with your child to have discussions about how your family incorporates these things into your culture.  Your child may draw pictures, cut out and glue pictures from magazines, or paste photos (you may want to make photocopies of these) in each section. Then have them write (with your help if needed) a little bit explaining each section to help give us some background. Each part should tell a story to help us get to know everything about your child and their family's cultural background. Special days are not limited to holidays, they can include traditional days and events that you celebrate as a family or in your culture. Please have them bring them back on Tuesday completed and ready to be shared with their peers during our morning community circle. If your child was absent on Friday they will be making their case during the week. If you have any questions please feel free to reach out.

Snacks:  We are officially out of snacks and in need of more. If you are able to purchase snacks for the class we would greatly appreciate it. Thank you in advance. 

Picture Day:  Thursday is Picture Day. I have not received the packets yet, but hopefully will soon so I can get them to you. I do know you can order online through Lifetouch, but I have not been given that link/our school ID# at this time either . It may have been on the picture day is coming flyer that went home. As soon as I have either one of these things I will share them with you immediately. 

Dates to Remember:

• Sept. 29 - Mustang Gallop

• Oct. 2 - National Custodian's Day

• Oct. 6 - Gallop $$ due

• Oct. 9-11 Parent/Teacher Conferences

• Oct. 12-13 Fall Break

I hope you all have a restful three day weekend. I look forward to seeing everyone on Tuesday morning.

- Ms. Shaw

September Updates

 Happy September. We have so much happening this month, both in the classroom and at Marshall. Please read on for all the Mustang madness...

 Math: We are moving on to measurement this week, learning about measuring with non standard units as well as measuring with rulers and meter sticks. We will be using our information to solve addition and subtraction problems as well as word problems.

ELA:  We continue to teach using stories from both our NatGeo series and picture books. This week we will look at the story "Be My Neighbor" to discuss similarities and differences in communities as well as talk about main idea and details. We will also be reading portions of "A Life Like Mine" to compare and contrast global communities. In Phonics we worked on initial and final blends and this week we will be working on phonograms (ing, ink, ang, ank, ong, onk). This sounds like a lot but it is still review from first grade.  We will also begin RTI groups this week. RTI is when the students go to smaller groups for targeted reading skills 30 minutes a day. Most students go outside the classroom, some will stay with me in a group. Each child will be going where they need for 30 minutes of reading intervention in the skill area that best suits their current need. We will also be completing our photo essays this week. Each child has chosen a member of our Marshall school community to interview. They will be conducting their interviews this week and turning them into a writing assignment from there. We are all very excited about this.

Social Studies:  Staying with our learning about communities around the world, we will begin our culture cases this week. In ELA we will spend a day reading about what is culture and work on build our cases. These will go home on Friday for over the weekend fun homework to be completed and returned on Monday morning. We will be sharing our cases during the morning community circles next week. These are a great way to learn more about each other and help us connect with each other. I will send out more information regarding what needs to happen in these culture cases towards the end of the week. 

Mustang Gallop:  Our Mustang Gallop is back!! This used to be our annual fundraiser back before Covid. For those who have never experienced the Gallop, it is one of my favorite traditions. Your student went home with an envelope on Friday. This is so they can start soliciting pledges. They can hit up family, friends, and neighbors for a flat dollar amount or people may pledge a per lap amount. On the 29th of this month students will be galloping around our field to see how many laps they end up running total. So if someone pledges $1 per lap and your student runs 50 laps in 15 minutes (it isn't a very big field - you might want to let your per lap pledges know) your child will need to collect a $50 donation. Of course there are prizes. The child who collects the most money in donations wins a motorized scooter with helmet!! The class with the most participation gets an ice cream party. That means we just need every child to collect a minimum of one $5 dollar donation each and we will have a 100% participation rate!! That would also earn us a minimum of $95 towards this fundraiser!! We can do that!! We can do more than that, because the class that raises the most money earns a field trip to Fratelli's where we will be treated to some of Flagstaff's best pizza!! Let's go room 9 - we got this!!

Snacks:  We are just starting to run low on snacks. We have enough to get through about midweek, but will need more by Wednesday for sure. If you can donate some healthy choices by then we would greatly appreciate it. We are learning that with a 12:00 lunch the second graders are really hungry by recess. Remember, if you wish to bring in string cheese or fruit (nothing that needs cutting) I have a refrigerator to store cold items in. Please try to make snacks individually packed. Also, I am banning cheese balls from the list of allowed snack items. There just is no nutritional value to them and they make too much of a mess. Thank you for your understanding, and thank you in advance for your donations.

Suzuki:  Here at Marshall every K-2 student receives twice a week Suzuki violin lessons. We will begin violin this week. 

Dates to Remember:  

• Monday, September 18th - School Closed for Students - Staff PD Day
• Thursday, September 21st - Picture Day
• Friday, September 29 - Mustang Gallop

With the beginning of RTI and Suzuki students should really start settling into our routines and schedules. We are working hard on being respectful learners. Please talk to your child about what it means to be a respectful learner in circle and during instructional time. These are some of our September classroom goals. Thank you for your support of our second graders.

 -Ms. Shaw