December 2020

 Happy December. This week is the beginning of our last 3 weeks of school for the year 2020. Here is what is in store:

Math:  We are finally moving into our second module in math. We will start off by learning how to add three addends, make a ten to add 3 addends, and make a ten when one addend is 9. 

ELA:  We will be working on our sh and wh spelling sounds this week. We will also start a new December writing journal, which will go home on Tuesday (see below for information on distribution). 

Social Studies:  We will begin our social studies unit on holidays this week. We will take a look at the three holiday often celebrated at this time - Kwanzaa, Christmas, and Hanukkah. We will explore the origins of each holiday, learning who celebrates each holiday, how they celebrate, when and the importance behind each holiday. We will kick off each this unit by studying Kwanzaa this week, which is always fun because usually the kids know so little about this holiday and by the end of the week they know so much. 

Material Distribution:  Tuesday I will have your material bags out in front of the school for you to swing by and pick up. These materials will include what your child will need for morning work, spelling, and math for the rest of December and January. It will also include December and January journals, and other December and January learning and activities. I wanted to just do a distribution for the next two months for several reasons. One, because December is so short and it would be silly to do a pick-up for just a few items. Two, I did not want anyone to have to pick-up over their break. I will put the bags out in front of the school about 7 am this Tuesday and I will swing by about 6 pm to put them away. You have between 7am and 6pm on Tuesday to drop by and pick up your child's bag. We are not allowed to have anyone go inside the school for pick up, that is why they will be outside. I will not be hand delivering bags this time around, as I will be home teaching your kiddos. Any bags not picked up after 6 pm will be left in the office and you will have to call to make arrangements for pick up from there. I am hoping this window is big enough that all bags are picked up however. Oh yeah, we would be doing this tomorrow but I am waiting on a delivery from Oriental Trading so I can add something fun to these bags for next Friday. Should be here tomorrow night. Please make sure that your child does not do anything in the bags ahead of time!

Organization: Many of the kiddos still need help with organizational skills. Please make sure to put their materials and supplies somewhere your child or other children cannot get into them before they are needed (but at the same time somewhere your child can access them when the time comes).  If your child goes outside the house for their learning day, please make sure they have all materials and supplies I give to them with them. It may be a good idea to leave everything in the plastic bag they are in and tell the kiddos not to take anything out of there until I tell them to do so. They should not be working ahead on anything and they know this. Supplies they need include the scissors I supplied them at the beginning of the year as well as glue sticks, and wipeoff boards with dry erase markers. We use these materials quite a bit if not randomly throughout the weeks. They need them to be successful.

Show and Tell:  There will be no show and tell for the next three weeks. Instead we will be discussing Random Acts of Kindness for the next 15 days. Every morning we will talk about that days Random Act of Kindness and at closing circle the students will share how they accomplished their act of kindness at home that day. 

I hope everyone had a restful and rejuvenating break. Cannot wait to see the little faces tomorrow! -Ms. Shaw

Thanksgiving Week 2020

 Happy Thanksgiving Week. I hope everyone has plans for a safe and restful holiday. We only have two days of school this week put we will still pack it with learning. Here is what we have on the agenda:

Math:  No math this short week. On Monday the class will come back to me at 2:00  for more turkey learning. On Monday and  Tuesday they will do Dreambox and Lexia during independent math time.

ELA:  There will be no spelling for these two days. We will instead be learning about turkeys. What do we know, what do we want to learn. We will focus on three questions we want to learn about turkeys and read a short story to answer these questions. 

Social Studies:  We will wrap up our unit we began last week on Wants and Needs and Goods and Services.

Show and Tell:  There will be no show and tell these two days. Instead I will read a Thanksgiving book at the end of each day.

Fun Friday:  Last Friday was our first attempt at Fun Friday. Of course, there was technical difficulties. It wouldn't be FRL and 2020 without technical difficulties, right? Zoom decided I wasn't allowed to admit anyone without an FUSD email into my zoom room anymore. This is, of course, for safety reasons. However, I wish I had known before I tried having parents enter the classroom at 9:00. The kids were patient and ten minutes later we switched to plan B. This meant only half the parents were able to join us for whole group fun, but the kiddos had fun singing with Mr. Byers and drawing snowglobes with Ms. Valdivia. This class always just enjoys the good parts of any situation. Huge thank you to all the parents who volunteered to help with our first attempt at Fun Friday. Your willingness is still appreciated. I now know how to resolve this issue if/when we try it again. At the end of the day the students enjoyed themselves and that is all that matters.

Backgrounds:  Please remember that your child may NOT use any background than the three already installed on Zoom. They may not take screenshots and they may not use pictures of other students. This violates privacy rules, and they do not have permission from other families to use their child's image as their background. Also, students do not have permission to be using the camera or to be taking screenshots of anything. Please help me to clear up some storage space by going through and deleting all images that your child has taken on their iPads. Remember, these are not personal devices and the students should not be taking personal pictures on them. Thank you for your help in this matter. 

Fall Break:  School will be closed this Wednesday, November 25th - Friday, November 27th. We will return on Monday, November 30th. Please have a happy and healthy holiday.

Every year I write down what I am thankful about my class. This year has been so different, but I am still amazed at how we have been able to get to know each other over Zoom. I am thankful how online teaching has given me a chance to really focus on their little faces and I have really enjoyed watching their facial expressions when we do things. I am thankful that this group has found ways to connect with each other, they are so kind to one another and show each other love even through the screen. I am thankful when the students show up for their one on one times. These times have given us time to not only do some more learning but to talk a little about anything and everything and to just bond and get to know each other. I am so grateful to have those 10 minutes or so each week with the kiddos. I am also grateful that online learning has given me the opportunity to get to know my families better than ever before. I appreciate how much you all put into your children each and everyday, and I enjoy the moments we have random side little conversations and jokes. This would never happen in a classroom and I truly enjoy when it does happen. You all are amazing and I am thankful that you have trusted me with teaching your babies in the craziest year of their little lives. I am hopeful that we will be together inside a classroom one day. Have a very Happy Thanksgiving. 💛-Ms. Shaw

Veteran's Day Week 2020

Happy 13th week of FRL. So much to update you on, so let's get to it.

Math:  There will be no math on Monday so that we may begin our Social Studies unit, as well as introduce the students to My Lexia. More information on both of those below. The rest of the week we will work on subtracting a number from itself, subtracting with a result of 1, and relating subtracting 5 and doubles in subtraction problems. 

ELA:  Our NatGeo spelling sound for next week is final blends -nd,- -kn,  -nt, -mp, and -ft. As always with our short weeks, please still do all 4 days of spelling work.

Social Studies: We will be doing our Veteran's Day unit this week. We will make an awesome lap book and red "America's White Table" to help the children understand what Veteran's Day is and why we will have this day off. 

Snowdays:  Speaking of days off, it does not appear we will be getting any days off due to the snow this year. As long as we are remote, students have access to their iPads and learning will continue as usual. There could however be a delay called so please tune into the radio or Facebook to stay updated on that possibility happening-even as soon as tomorrow. If we are to have a late start I will send an email with an updated schedule for the day in the morning, then I will see you on Zoom at 10:40. 

Show and Tell:  This weeks show and tell theme is something with stripes. With the addition of a couple of new students I am once again updating the show and tell schedule. Below is your childs show and tell day:

• Monday - Aria, Christian, Cohen, Cypress, Dakota

• Tuesday - Damiana, Guner, Isaac, Jake, Jocelyn

• Wednesday - Juniper, Marcus, Nino, O'Ryan, Paloma

• Thursday - Rayland, Reese, Riley, Sofia

• Friday - Vaerick, Victoria, Violet, and Make - Ups

RTI, Reading Groups/1:1 Schedule:  We have had to reform RTI groups due to losing one of our instructors. This was an opportunity to look at more current data to help guide the reformation of groups, in both RTI and for my small reading groups. With that I have attached the new RTI groups and the new Reading Groups form. You will notice I also change some of the 1:1 sight word practice times to fit the schedule better and to fix some overlaps that were in the schedule. Please make sure your child is attending all 3 of these to help them with their reading development this year. If there is a snow delay RTI is cancelled everything will be cancelled to better accommodate a fuller learning day.

 

My Lexia Core 5:  Lexia is an approved reading intervention that is tailored to your child's needs, that we plan on incorporating the data and corresponding lessons into RTI. This is now a requirement that your student be on Lexia for 30 minutes a week. Please make sure your students have My Lexia Core 5 on their iPads. It may be there already, you may have to go get it from the self service app. After you have it on their iPad their log in will be the first initial of their first name and their last name (ex: ashaw) and their password will be abc1.  I will show them how to access this on Monday, and they will have time to be on the App after this. I have added it to the schedule when we do Dreambox so that they may choose between the two, or both :) as long as they are meeting the minimum of 30 minutes a week on Lexia. Your student may do it at any time during the time that works best for them, this time is just a suggestion as I feel it fits in the schedule well. As with anything, please just do Lexia whenever works best for you family. When is not pressing, just need that 30 minutes. Thank you.

I hope you all find some time tomorrow to get outside and play in the snow. If you have any questions about any of the information in this weeks blog please feel free to reach out. Stay warm and stay safe. -Ms. Shaw. 

Week 12 Updates

Happy November and week 12 of FRL. Thank you to all the families who picked up materials on Friday. It was so good to see so many faces, kids and adults. For sure the highlight of my week. Here is what we will be learning this week in school:

Math: We will be finishing subtraction word problems this week, with an assessment on Wednesday. Then we will begin working on decomposition strategies for subtraction. 

ELA:  We will wrap up our Lit Study on Mummies in the Morning this Week. We will also begin a new unit in NatGeo, focusing on Goods and Services and Needs and Wants. This weeks spelling sounds are blends and triple blends s words. Our spelling focus each week is definitely increasing in difficulty. Please make sure they are writing their words each day and doing some kind of word work at least twice a week to practice them. This can be writing them on a wipe off board, spelling them in their notebooks, writing them in shaving cream on the counter or in a salt tray, with their playdough, etc....as long as they are getting some extra practice a few times a week. 

Science:  We will finish Mummifying our Apple this week, taking a look at what our apple in our natron mix looks like and recording our data towards the end of the week. 

Show and Tell: This weeks theme is bring or wear your favorite shirt. 

Fundraiser:  Thank you to all the families that helped us sell discount cards and raise funds for Marshall school. We sold 723 discount cards. You all rocked it! Our very own Cohen even took home the electric scooter, selling the most cards out of the whole school. He picked up his scooter this Friday, and figured out how to zoom around in not time. Nice job Cohen!

Mark Your Calendar:  The following will be days off in November:

• Wednesday, November 11th - School Closed - Veterans Day
• Wednesday, November 25th - Friday, November 27th - School Closed - Thanksgiving

Hope you all had a restful weekend. I will be off this Monday so I will see everyone on Tuesday. - Ms. Shaw

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