End of February Updates 2020

Wow, can you believe it is the end of February already? Where January seemed to last forever, February seems like it flew by. Here is what is happening in as we wrap up this month...

Math:  We will be concluding our Measurement and Data unit this week. We finished our unit on comparing and ordering lengths of objects with centimeters, and now we will wrap up the unit with collecting and interpreting data. Creating graphs, reading and writing tally marks, answering questions about the graphs, etc...

ELA:  We will finish our NatGeo unit on weather this week. The spelling sounds are oo (as in took) and ea (as in bread). Please make sure your child is studying the sounds when they do their homework. 

Science:  To coincide with our ELA unit we have been learning about air and weather. We have investigated air, made parachutes, and will be exploring balloon rockets this week. Next we will be concentrating on the weather side of the unit, learning about weather tools, meteorologists, etc....

Family Science Night:  This Tuesday is Family Science Night. This event is open to anyone who is interested in coming to check out the awesome science fair projects done by the older students here at Marshall, which is required in 3rd-5th grade. We are not required to do science fair projects in 1st grade. However, if you would like to bring your first grader to check out the science fair, you may Tuesday night from 5:00-6:30 in the gym.

Parent/Teacher Conferences:  Conferences are just around the corner. I will be sending home a sign-up sheet this week. If you would like a conference, please fill it out indicating your top 2 times that work for you and return. After I collect all forms I will compile a final list of those interested in having a spring conference and send a finalized form out about the beginning of next week. Conferences will be held Wednesday, March 11th - Friday, March 13th.

Spring Break: Spring Break will be the week after conferences, Monday, March 16th-Friday, March 20th.

Hope everyone had a relaxing and warm snowy weekend! -Ms. Shaw 

Valentines 2020

Hello families. Due to a lack of a post last week, this week you are in for a double scoop of the scoop. Here is what has been happening and what is coming up this week in room 9...

Math: Last week we moved into our unit on Measurement and Data. Last week we learned how to line up endpoints and put objects in order according to length. We also began measuring items in centimeters cubes, which we will continue to do this week as well. This will get into solving story problems with comparing lengths of objects and writing the answers in statements.

ELA: Last week we began our new NatGeo unit on weather, which we will continue for the next 3 weeks. We will also be focusing on our Reading Literature standard and reading the story "3 Snowbears" sequencing the story and comparing and contrasting it to the Jan Brett version of "Goldilocks and the Three Bears." Jan Brett is the one who wrote "The Hat" and "The Mitten" stories we just finished, and based our animal reports off of. Also, we are finally finished with our animal reports (minus a few absent students). They are hanging in the hall for all to see. Feel free to stop by and check them out. 

Science/Social Studies:  Last week was our unit on American Symbols. We focused on learning about the Statue of Liberty, The American Flag, The Liberty Bell, and the Bald Eagle. We are going to begin our science unit on air and weather this week. 

Valentine's Day:  Valentines Day is this Friday. We will be exchanging valentines. I sent home a class list on Friday so that if your child wishes to write names on their valentines they may. Just a tip, it is so much easier on you if they write just their name on their valentine though. I will make sure they get one valentine in each friends holder, as I will be helping them pass out their valentines that morning. Our celebration will take place Friday afternoon, after lunch. If you child chooses to bring in valentines they must bring in one for EVERYONE in the class!!  If they would like to bring in a healthy treat to share they may (no sign up, we'll take what we get). Please note, no junk food will be allowed! They will get plenty in their valentine holders (I already purchased the candy conversation hearts for some math activities and this will be the only candy they will be allowed to eat during class). If you need another class list please let me know.

Dates to Remember:

• Monday, February 17th - School Closed - President's Day

• Tuesday, February 25th - Family Science Night 5-6:30 (More information to come)

• March 11th-13th Parent/Teacher Conferences (More information to come)

• March 16th - 20th - Spring Break

THINK Assembly:  Friday was our THINK assembly awarding children who exemplify the N in THINK, which stands for NOBLE. This time our award went to Elsie and Addisyn. This ceremony was extra special, as our guest speaker was none other than Mr. Billy, one of the most noble members of our Mustang community! Here are a few pictures from our day.

There might be some weather on the way this week. Please dress your child appropriately for the cold and snow! Also, tune into Facebook and the radio for delays, should there be any (I'm thinking Tuesday might happen, emphasis on might. Other than that, business as usual). Thank you! - Ms. Shaw

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

Hanukkah 2019

Happy Hanukkah! Welcome to our last 5 days of the semester. Here is what we have going on for our last week of school for 2019...

Math:  We will be looking at using the commutative property to make a 10, and making a 10 when one addend is an eight. I also want to spend a day on making a 10 to add 3 addends, this seems to be a difficult concept for our group and I want to revisit this before we go to break.

ELA:  We will be continuing our Daily 5 routines and finishing our sight word testing as well.  Also focusing on long u words, with our spelling test taking place on Thursday this week. Please have your child double up on writing their words one night this week.  

Social Studies:  Hanukkah is our third and final holiday study.  Again, we will be focusing on who celebrates, how, when, and why. On Friday we will celebrate what we learned about this Jewish holiday by playing the dreidel game and making latkes.  I still need a couple of parent volunteers for Friday, as well as a few other items, otherwise we are basically set. If you can help us out pleas sign up on the updated SignUp Genius https://www.signupgenius.com/go/60b0e4fa4a72ca0ff2-cultural1. Thank you!

This Week at Marshall:  We have many school wide events happening this week at Marshall. Please mark your calendars for the following....

• Wednesday, December 18th - 5:00-6:30 - PTO Craft Night. Join us for a night of FREE family fun! Lots of fun crafts, cocoa, pictures, and more!

• Marshall's Family Holiday Lunch - Come and enjoy a lunch with your child. 1st grade eats at 11:35, but feel free to come a few minutes early to find parking and grab your kiddo to beat the lines. Hope to see everyone there.

• Hanukkah Celebration - Room 9 - 9:00-10:30 - you may drop off your supplies anytime during the week for this.

• Lost and Found will be laid out in the science lab Wednesday-Friday.  Looking for that jacket or jackets your child did not bring home? That beanie  or mittens grandma gave them and they lost? Please feel free to stop by and peruse our large pile of lost items. I'm sure your missing winter gear is in there somewhere. Anything that goes unclaimed after Friday will be donated to Big Brothers/Big Sisters. 

Christamas Craft Morning and Canned Food Drive :  This is always one of my favorite days of the year. Thank you to all of my parent volunteers. As you can tell, this day would not happen without your help. Thank you to everyone who donated supplies as well. Making a day like Christmas Craft Morning happen is such a group effort, and I appreciate everyone who contributed to make this morning happen. The children loved making their gingerbread houses and parent gifts. Part way through we stepped into the hall for our canned food drive. The students put our food into baskets and we even had a surprise visit from Santa! Here are some pictures of our memorable morning.

What a bunch of Christmas Cuties! -Ms. Shaw

Kwanzaa and Christmas 2019

Happy Holidays! We are entering week 2 of our 3 week holiday unit. Last week we finished up Kwanzaa and this week we are learning about Christmas. Please read on for all the details and more information about what is happening in room 9.

Math:  We are trudging on with adding 1 to 9 to make a 10. A big concept, today there was breakthroughs! More practice tomorrow and then we will test what we know. After that we will move on from counting on from 10 or taking from a 10 to solve subtraction problems.

ELA:  Our spelling is long i and long o this week. We will be doing our quarterly sight word testing and AIMS testing this week as well. We will also be reading a story about flamingos and concentrating on the -ed and -ing endings. 

Social Studies:  Habari Gani? Ask your students what this Kwanzaa greeting means, they learned all about it last week. I love starting our holiday unit with Kwanzaa because every year the students know almost nothing about this holiday, and by the end of the week they can tell us who celebrates Kwanzaa, the reason for the holiday, how it is celebrated, and the traditions and beliefs associated with the Kwanzaa holiday. This week we enter more familiar territory, Christmas. Although the students know so much in regards to many of the traditions that occur at this time of year, we are about to learn about a lot of the who celebrates and why. Next week - Hanukkah. 

Holiday Celebrations:  Thank you to everyone who helped make our Kwanzaa feast a huge success! The children had so much fruits and veggies and more! I was so busy serving up our "harvest" I did not have time to snap a picture. I promise I will be able to get some the next two weeks however.  I will be updating our online sign-up to match our paper sign-up by tomorrow morning. You can check that here   https://www.signupgenius.com/go/60B0E4FA4A72CA0FF2-cultural1.  Although it appears we need items for this Friday, we do not! We are all set, and have everything we need! Thank you families! Please remember, all girls need to bring in a box of graham crackers and all boys need to bring in a can of vanilla frosting by Friday morning so we can make our gingerbread houses. Thank you to those who have already brought in their supplies! 

America's Favorite Crossing Guard:  We have 3 more days to vote Mr. Billy for Americas Favorite Crossing Guard. He is currently in third place, we would love to get him to first place (only 191 votes away from 2nd place as of now). Please take the time to vote here daily http://wshe.es/HlWecmiG. You can help spread the word by sharing the link on your social media and asking your family and friends to vote daily until December 12th. He is truly so deserving, let's make this happen! 

Canned Food Drive:  We are currently collecting cans and boxes of nonperishable food items to help restock our food pantry here at Marshall, and to donate to St. Mary's Food Bank as well. The class who brings in the most cans will win a pizza party from PTO. We currently have 0, so we have a ways to go. There will be a parade to collect the cans on Friday, and usually there is a special appearance by a special someone during our parade. Let's can hunger and show our kids the importance of giving back this year. Thank you for your donations. 

Fratelli Fundraiser: The good folks at Fratelli Pizza are once again hosting a 10% back to Marshall night Tuesday, December 10th. If you order pizza from the Ft. Valley location just mention Marshall and 10% of your sales will come back to our school. Thank you Fratelli Pizza for your continuous support of Marshall! Best pie in town! 

Special Early Release:  Don't forget, this Thursday (December 12th) is a special early release day. We will be releasing at our 12:25 time. Please plan for child care accordingly. Friday will still be our regularly scheduled 12:25 release time as well. 

Wow! We are packing it in this week. Thanks for making all our happenings happen! -Ms. Shaw