Start of 2nd Quarter 2020

 Welcome to the second quarter of 2020 Flexible Remote Learning. I cannot believe how quickly the first quarter really did fly. Believe it or not we only have 40 school days in quarter two. That sounds like no time at all. We will be trying to squeeze so much in, so there will be some schedule changes every now and then (like the next two weeks). I will notify you when those happen, and they will also be in the calendar. Here is what is coming up next week...

Math:  We will be relating addition to subtraction and solving problems using the number line. This will conclude with an assessment on Friday.

ELA:  We will begin one of my favorite units of all time, learning about Ancient Egypt through our Lit Study "Mummies in the Morning." Everyday for the next 10 days we will review vocabulary,  read a chapter and answer some comprehension questions with writing. We will learn about mummies, pyramids, sarcophagi, and more. We will also continue with our spelling sounds from NatGeo (L blends are this week: fl, bl, pl, gl, and cl words) and read stories from NatGeo. Although there is just 4 days this week, please have your kiddo double up on writing spelling one of the days, the extra practice will only help.

Science:  We are going to be wrapping up our unit on plants this week. We will collect some data on what our lawns look like with pictures and labels on Wednesday and Friday we will collect data before and after we "mow" our lawns. All seeds should be planted by this point. Also, please make sure your child is checking their plants and watering as needed. If your child is at a safe learning center or somewhere else during the day, please make sure they have their plants with them on Wednesday and Friday.

Materials:  Please make sure your child has all their school materials with them daily, especially if they are not at home. This is because there is not telling when I might need them to pull out something we have not needed previously, or that we have not used in a while. The loosing or misplacing of supplies is not new to distance learning, it happened daily in the classroom. The only difference is that I am not in a position to help them find anything now. I have talked to a few of them one on one about finding a place at home for storing their supplies. A bin or a bag/backpack for keeping everything in one spot is a good idea. Let me know if you need a backpack and I will see what I can do about getting one for your child. Also, before the next round of materials goes out I will check and see what basic supplies your child may need at this point and I will try and get those to you (wipe off board, wipe off marker, pencil - bigger things like crayons will not be able to be replaced).

Schedule Next Two Weeks:  This upcoming week and next I will be having the kiddos come to me after lunch for our live math, from 12:15-12:45. They will be able to do independent math practice after this. It will be a requirement for all students attend class during this after lunch time. This is because we will be doing our lit study in the morning during our regularly scheduled math time. Trying to fit it all in :).  I will also be updating the 1:1 sight word testing time and the group reading times this week, both of which will not resume until next week. I will send those updated lists ASAP. 

Report Card Access: First, thank you to everyone who took the time to attend your child's conference last week. Working together has never been as important for a child's educational success as it is right now. If you missed the conferences you can still access your child's report card through Parent Vue. You may view the tutorial on how to do so at this link here Accessing standard report. If you have any follow up questions after viewing please feel free to send me an email.

Thank you to everyone who is participating in our fundraiser this year. Students are selling discount cards to all kinds of amazing restaurants for $10 to friends and family. You can use this ordering form when selling cards. You can also use this flyer, which had a link to the form as well. Just send the flyer out to anyone who you think might be interested in buying a card. This Thursday, October 22nd will be the last day to drop off cash and checks collected from cards sold, and to pick up the cards you need to distribute. This will happen from 3:30-5:30. You may also swing by the front office Monday or Wednesday from 3-4. Sales must be received by 10:30am on Friday, October 23rd for students to qualify for the raffle drawing. Students who sell 5 or more cards will be entered into the raffle for prizes. The student who sells the most cards will win an electric scooter, and I just found out that the class that sells the most cards will win a pizza party. You can check out all the info and prizes by clicking on the link here →  fundraiser.

Show and Tell: We will be doing show and tell this week. Everyone's turn will just be pushed back a day. The theme is something Orange (uh-oh...sorry Riley 😂). Here is the schedule:

• Tuesday - Aria, Cohen, Cypress, Dakota, Damiana
• Wednesday - Elizabeth, Guner, Isaac, Jake, Jocelyn
• Thursday - Juniper, Marcus, Nino, Paloma, Rayland
• Friday - Reese, Riley, Sofia, Vaerick, Victoria, Violet

I hope everyone had an amazingly restful 5 days off. Here's to the next 40 strong! -Ms. Shaw

Conferences 2020

Welcome to our 9th week of school. This officially marks the end of the first quarter. This is also the end of a very historic quarter, our first ever in Flexible Remote Learning. It feels like we just got started and this quarter has just flown by, but we did it! I cannot wait to share with you during conferences how your children made growth, even in this unconventional setting. More on that below. First, I will share what we are learning over the next 3 days.

ELA:  There will be no ELA this week. This means no spelling and no reading groups or 1:1's. There is also no RTI this week. When we return from break we will begin learning about Ancient Egypt through our Magic Treehouse Book "Mummies in the Morning." Please feel free to purchase a copy of this book from Amazon or Barnes and Noble if you would like for your child to follow along at home as we read a chapter a day during class.

Math:  This week we will concentrate on using Doubles (ex: 3 + 3 = 6) and Doubles Plus 1 (ex: 3 + 4 = 7) to solve addition problems. Doubles is a relatively fun and easy lesson. Doubles plus one in extremely hard, and I do not expect mastery. Our curriculum gives one day to teach this, I am breaking it into 2 and depending on how doubles plus one goes I may extend it to all 3 days. There will be no practice set on Monday.

Science:  The kids loved planting their ryegrass and alfalfa seeds on Friday. That's right, we are growing our own little grassy lawns. Please remember to have your child check their lawns and see if they need water daily. The soil only needs to be moist, not soaked. If it is not watered properly their lawns will not grow. I am hoping they will have very tall lawns by Wednesday so that we can record our observations before and after we mow our lawns (that's right, our grass will be getting a "haircut" when it gets long enough). If this does not happen before break please make sure your child continues to water properly over the 5 day break so that this may happen when we return.

Parent/Teacher Conferences and Early Release:  Do not forget that all week we are on a special schedule for both learning and release. Monday and Tuesday we will release at 12:25 and Wednesday is extra early at 11:10. If you have not signed up for a conference yet please do so at this link Conference Sign Up. Please use your child's classroom link to access your online conference with me as this is the link we are using for online conferences. Zoom Conference Link. I think it is imperative that I touch base with every family during this round of conferences, and highly encourage you to sign up so that we can discuss your child's progress during remote learning. If you do not sign up, I might be reaching out to you for a conversation anyway. 

Schedule:  Please be aware of the schedule changes in our Google Classroom for this week. Lessons will be happening at different times, as well as lunch (M/T @ 10:30 Wednesday no lunch, just a half hour break from 9:30-10:00), and end of day meeting times. There will also be no Show and Tell next week, instead I will be doing Heggerty live for the closing meetings. 

Quarter 2 School Board Decision: As promised, the update on the Boards decision. I will try not to make it complicated. When we return from break we will begin in FRL. We will stay in FRL until we hit the benchmark requirements to begin a phased reopening. The Requirements are as follows:

FUSD must be within the Moderate (Yellow) community spread level, with all three benchmarks in the yellow and green categories for two consecutive weeks of data to initiate the phased return to in-person learning at schools.  

The highest risk color (i.e. Red is highest, then Yellow, then Green) shown in any benchmark on the chart below over the two-week period determines the overall risk level.  For example, if the health benchmarks show 2 Greens and 1 Yellow, the risk level will be Moderate because Yellow is the higher risk value.  If any one of the benchmarks is the Substantial (Red) community spread level, FUSD will continue with full remote learning as it has for the 1st quarter of the 2020-2021 school year.

Health Indicators for Initiating Return to In-Person Learning

The phased reopening plan looks like this:

Week 1:  Teachers and Staff return to district sites and schools

Week 2:  Initial students return to in-person learning (5 dayIs per week)                        Grade Bands:  PK, K, 1, 2, 6, 9, 12, *Special Education Specialized Programs

Week 3:  Additional students return to in-person learning (5 days per week) 
Grade Bands:  3, 8, 10, 11

Week 4:  Final students return to in-person learning (5 days per week) 
Grade Bands:  4, 5, 7

If you have any questions please feel free to contact the front office or the district.

I truly am impressed with what has transpired over this quarter and look forward to sharing your child's progress with your over these next three days. I will see you all at some point this week! -Ms. Shaw

October 2020

 Welcome to October. I love teaching this time of year. This is where we dive into our plant unit, learn about Ancient Egypt, mummify an apple, and so much more! As always, I will let you know what we are doing and when right here in the blog. Here is what we have coming up this week....

Math:  We will continue on where we left off last week, learning how to make equivalent expressions, learning the commutative property of addition, and using the commutative property to count on from the larger addend. Once we get past Monday's lesson of turning a false number sentence into a true number sentence, the rest of the week should go rather smoothly in math. 

ELA:   Our ELA runs in 4 week units, alternating between social studies and science. We began our year with our social studies unit on families. We are now entering week 2 of our Plant unit. This means (now that we have distributed materials) we can begin incorporating our reading with our science, and do some planting by the end of the week! The spelling sound of the week is ck and ng.

Science:  As mentioned above we will begin planting our seeds at the end of this week. This, along with learning about how seeds travel last week, will kick off our plant unit. Before we plant we will talk about what is a scientist and begin recording about being a scientist in our science notebooks. Warning - we will be using our scissors and glue sticks this week, please make sure your child has these materials that were sent home at the beginning of the year.

Material Distribution: If you were unable to make it on Friday to pick up your child's materials please make sure you do so as soon as possible this week, Monday would be ideal. Your child's bag of October supplies are in the office. Please make sure you pick up the bag with your child's name on the science notebook. Also, there is dirt and seeds in the science bags. You may want to make sure that these are placed somewhere safe until the day we plant (I'm aiming for Thursday but depending on what happens this week it may happen Friday). On a personal note, thank you to all of those who had just the kindest things to say on Friday. Your words of encouragement and acknowledgement were uplifting and did my teacher heart good. I even received a couple of little handmade gifts which was totally unexpected and so thoughtful. I also just loved seeing the kids. Each time I feel like we know each other better and it is so cool to see their cute little faces in person and spend a minute talking to each other. I just wish I could hug them all!

Pink Out:  On Friday all Marshall students and staff will be wearing pink to support and raise awareness of breast cancer. In honor of a very amazing and sweet friend of mine who passed on Thursday from breast cancer I would love my class all to be wearing pink on Friday. 

Parent/Teacher Conferences:  Conferences will be held Monday, October 12th - Wednesday, October 14th. These will be early release days (12:25 on Monday and Tuesday, 11:10 on Wednesday). I will send out an online sign-up about midweek so keep an eye out. Also, conferences will be 20 minutes, and they will be held online as well. I will not be holding any in person conferences at all. You will be able to access your meeting time via our regular classroom Zoom link. I will resend that out to you as the time draws closer. Thursday, Friday, and the following Monday will all be days off for a fall holiday. Yep, 5 days off. Enjoy. 

School Board Meeting:  This Tuesday night is another board meeting, where we are hoping for some more finalized direction for quarter to learning. As always, I will email you with any information or direction that comes out of Friday's meeting. 

I hope everyone had a restful and peaceful weekend. Ready for a fun and exciting week 8! -Ms. Shaw