Dear Students and Families,
What a week we had last week! So many first time experiences here at Truxton Academy with the Lock in (officially, it's a lock out), an early dismissal and a snow day. I want to thank you for being so flexible and understanding while we worked through these new experiences. The health and safety of our Truxton Academy community remains at the forefront of our mission and vision. Additionally, I want to give a shout out to all of the staff for also remaining flexible and working as a team to get everything to run smoothly while continuing the education of the children. It really does take a village, and then some!
We want to give a shout of congratulations to Ms. Brianna Bovay, our Kindergarten TA! She and her partner, Drew, welcomed a baby girl on December 15! Mom and baby are doing great! While Ms. Bovay is out of the classroom, we have Mrs. McKinney filling in during the morning before she works her magic in the cafeteria.
We've added a TA in the 4th grade classroom and want to welcome Ms. Penny Deemer. Ms. Deemer came to us as a substitute teacher and we found her skills to be invaluable! She is supporting the 4th grade classroom full-time which means that Ms. Raina can be in the 5th grade full-time.
The government is offering another round of free at-home Covid tests delivered via the post office, just in time for the Christmas / New Years holidays. You can sign up for them here: https://www.covid.gov/tests?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20221215&instance_id=80229&nl=the-morning®i_id=53971320&segment_id=119595&te=1&user_id=5b84f11c00506723932e7d64a6ad15e7
We'd like to ask each family to send in a box of tissues if you can. As we continue to battle the multitude of illnesses that are circling about, we find ourselves in dire need of them. Speaking of illnesses: if your child is not feeling well, please keep them home. We have teetered on the edge of having to close school due to illness on a couple of occasions this year. It is our hope to avoid that scenario by increasing our cleaning protocol and asking you to partner with us to keep sick children at home and encourage your children to wear a mask until they are 100% better. Please know, this is a suggestion, not a mandate.
As I've said before, the holidays can be a stressful time for everyone. Last night, I was ordering a pizza for my family and in the midst of ordering there was a misunderstanding and the clerk burst into tears. I was reminded that we don't always know what other people are going through and it's always better to give grace and forgiveness than anger and resentment. The other side to this story is that I felt terrible for causing the tears and I had to remember to give MYSELF grace and forgiveness. My point? Give yourself grace, give yourself forgiveness, and give yourself some time to enjoy this season and all its glories....no matter how small or insignificant they seem to be. Even if you don't celebrate the holidays, as we transition into the winter months, it will be equally important for you to try this. Deep breaths, celebrate the little things and remember that everyone is going through something that might be bigger or smaller than your "something".
Upcoming Dates
12/22 November Student of the month breakfast
12/23 December Student of the month celebration
12/23 Wear your PJ's to school for our afternoon movie celebration
12/26-12/30 Holiday recess
1/3/23-School Resumes
Kindergarten
This week in Kindergarten we:
*Learned 4 new letter sounds and had lots of practice with reading and writing skills
*Learned how to maintain a farm and farm animals
*Played lots of new math games to help us compare two quantities and practice adding and subtracting
*Read some of our favorite Christmas stories in the library with Ms. Penny
First Grade
This week in first grade we:
-learned about nouns, adjectives, and verbs.
-continued to use our knowledge on digraphs and blends to help us solve tricky words.
-worked on how to write sentence using nouns, adjectives, and verbs.
-learned to check the beginning, middle, and end of our sentences for capitals, spaces, and punctuation.
-started adding 3 digits together.
-listened to a story about a traveling rooster and his friends and used math to figure out how many animals were traveling together!
-learned about the greater than and less than signs and how we can use them to read Math equations!
-read the rainbow fish and talked about how sharing can not only help others but can make ourselves feel good.
-started talking about our new science unit on habitats!
-did a PBL on the human body systems. Students got to come up with their own lesson plans and activities and then were able to teach the 2nd and 3rd graders what they learned! Thank you second and third graders!
-welcomed Ms. Carr into our classroom and had a wonderful musical lesson on body percussion!
Second Grade
Ask your Second Grader about…
-having Community Circle with 5th Graders,
-investigating fractions, one half and one forth,
-playing Fact Family Scoot,
-our Dairy World bulletin board,
-what they named our adopted calf from Twin Oaks Dairy,
-celebrating ALL the reading strategies they’ve learned so far and how they are growing as readers,
-their writing pieces on how to make the Grinch happy,
-reading about all the different holidays celebrated this time of year,
-their favorite holiday tradition,
-and about the Rabbit Rule in spelling.
Third Grade
This week in 3rd grade we:
*learned the ar spelling pattern
*wrote fun, imaginative stories about winter
*worked with arrays and labeled them with multiplication facts (these will go home next week to help the kiddos practice and memorize all multiplication facts within 100)
*identified the multiplication facts we know and ones we are still working on
*continued to work with the article "Escape from the Ice" and focused on descriptive language and answering questions using complete sentences
*wrote about our independent reading in our reading journals
*observed and discussed crayfish behavior when we introduced various stimuli (touching their back, adding another crayfish to the bin, etc.)
*learned that cookies know best!
Fourth Grade
This week the fourth-grade read the fiction story, What Jo Did by Charles Smith Jr. The story focused on how we can learn to appreciate the talents of others. Students practiced cause and effect, common and proper nouns and writing plural words. Students finished writing their holiday narratives.
In math we continue to practice double digit multiplication problems. Please keep studying this concept at home.
The class is in the final stages of planning what they will grow in one of the grow towers.
The fourth-grade enthusiastically participated in their first music lesson with Mrs. Carr! Students enjoyed writing and performing rhythm music with their classmates! We hope to learn more about music and look forward to music classes on Wednesdays!
Fifth Grade
Ask your 5th grader about...
- Their narrative story/picture book they are writing to share with their Kindergarten buddy!
- Our trip to Syracuse Stage to see The Little Mermaid!
- Whether 2/5 is greater than or less than 1/4, and where it would fall on a number line with 1/4, 1/3, and 1/2
- The equivalent fractions song. (Maybe they can sing it for you!... They think it's an awful song, but it sticks! )
- How to "pop" a kernel sentence.
- Their inquiry project about outer space.
PE/STEM
This week in PE we have been working on our volleying skills!
K-2 have been using balloons & 3-5 have tried to play an actual game of volleyball. We are working hard!
Next week the teachers are challenging the 5th graders to a game for the whole school to watch & cheer us on!
This week in STEM
K-2 built & created their own snowflakes focusing on symmetry! We are still wishing for more snow (Sorry!)
3-5 did a gingerbread coding activity!
Have a great rest of your week!
Mrs. S
"Teamwork is the ability to work together toward a common vision. The ability to direct individual accomplishments toward organizational objectives. It is the fuel that allows common people to attain uncommon results" -Andrew Carnegie
Kerryanne Schenck
Head of School
Truxton Academy Charter School
pronouns: she, her, hersOffice: (607) 842-6252 Ext. 109
Cell: (607) 218-2268
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