Update from our Head of School - December 23, 2021

Hello Families and Supporters,

Happy Thursday! This last week before Winter Holiday Break was filled with lots of fun! Today a few classes wore pajamas, a few made ornaments, and many enjoyed popcorn from our newly gifted popcorn machine. Thanks to the Denkenberger family (Board member Cindy Denkenberger and her husband) for this awesome gift to our school. The children LOVED the popcorn today.

We had our virtual Winter Concert on Tuesday night. Videos from this event are being shared over the next few days on Facebook. If you weren't able to make it on Tuesday night via zoom, check out the videos there. A huge thank you to Mr. C and to the 3rd and 4th graders who introduced our songs and stories. Way to go!

As we head into Winter Holiday break we wish you all a wonderful holiday season with your families. We hope you get time to make some wonderful holiday memories with either old or new traditions. This year and last (and even before that) have been so hard on so many people (children included) and I wish everyone in our community peace at this time of year. May we all enter the new year rested, reflective, rejuvenated and ready to make our school, community, and world a happier, more peaceful place.

Messages for Families

3rd and 4th grade Ski Club:

When we return from the Winter Holiday Break, we will begin our ski club for 3rd and 4th grade students. This ski club will take place on Tuesdays afterschool. All 3rd and 4th grade families were sent information early in December, but there is still time to sign up. If you are interested in the ski club for your 3rd or 4th grade child and have not already done so, please send an email to myself and Tom Brown (tom.brown@truxtonacademy.org) so we can get you the appropriate documents to sign your child up.

COVID Vaccination Information: Now that there is a vaccine available for children ages 5- 11, some families are choosing to get their children immunized against the COVID-19 virus. This is not a required vaccine, however, it is important that we know if you are choosing to have your child vaccinated for contact tracing and quarantine decisions. Please send an email to Mrs. Leaf (leaf.carmer@truxtonacademy.org) and Mrs. DeHart (tdehart@homercentral.org) if you choose to have your child vaccinated after they receive each of the shots. You do not need to send in copies of the cards at this time, as Mrs. DeHart is able to look it up once she is notified. Cortland County is hosting some upcoming vaccination clinics for children and adults at the Truxton Community Center. Please click here for information if you are interested. Please note, these clinics are not affiliated with the school and we have made arrangements with the Community Center and the Health Department to ensure that they do not disrupt the children's learning day. If you have any questions about the vaccines or the clinics, please address them to the Cortland County Health Department.

Ways to Help Our School Sign up for and use Amazon Smile with Truxton Academy as your chosen charity Amazon Smile is a division of amazon that donates a portion of sales from many items to a variety of charities and nonprofits. Truxton Academy is one of those nonprofits. If you are purchasing items from amazon, please go to https://smile.amazon.com/ and choose Truxton Academy as your charity of choice. Purchases you are making anyway will benefit our school. Upcoming Dates: 12/24/21- 12/31/21: No School- Winter Holiday Break 1/3/22- School Resumes Updates from the classrooms: Ms. Elliott (K): This week our Kindergarteners learned about: * Different types of Christmas trees from Ms. Jess' Second grade class * Museum related vocabulary while reading 'Visit the Art Museum' * Retelling a story using the beginning, middle and end strategy * Why some trees lose their leaves and others don't Mrs. Francis (K/1): Ask the K/1s about:*the reading strategy of "Flippy Dolphin" *the fun things snowmen do at night and throughout the year *Math games Race to the Sun and Fill the Treasure Chest *making fanous lanterns (for Ramadan) and ornaments for Christmas *having an extra fun treat which activated all 5 senses Have a fun and relaxing Christmas break! Ms. Smith (1st): This week in 1st Grade we: * Learned to have a conversation with ourselves and partners when reading non-fiction books! * Did a hands-on project with Cheerios replicating the molecules of Solids, Liquids, and Gasses! * Reviewed our 2D shapes and learned some neat tricks to remember their names! * Celebrated a long overdue belated birthday! * Finished our L blends unit! * Learned about Honesty and why it is so important! * Took a shape nature walk in the snow looking for different shapes in nature! * Had a wonderful Holiday Party where we played games, watched some shows, and had some delicious popcorn! Happy Holidays to All! Ms. Jess (2nd): Ask you Second Grader about...-teaching Ms. Elliot's Kindergarten class about Christmas trees -the math words for sides and corners of geoblocks -playing the math game "Trace a Face," -what they learned reading non-fiction books, -and their Christmas party! I wish you all the best holiday season! Ms. Jess Ms. Madysen (3rd): Ask your third grader about…-playing the game Tic-Stack-Toe to practice adding prefixes and suffixes to base words -learning new games for practicing adding 2- and 3-digit numbers and numbers within 100. -using the five senses to describe a winter setting -our Christmas afternoon! Have a great week off and I cannot wait to see everyone in 2022! Ms. Sara/ Mrs. Hull (4th): This week, fourth graders continue to engage in non-fiction texts about environments and climate change. Some students are moving onto finding ways to decrease their own carbon footprint and to encourage others to do the same. In math, we have been working on multiplication and division strategies. This week we focused on solving word problems and determining if a problem requires division or multiplication. We built multiple towers to help with multiplying larger numbers. We also discovered how we can use simple multiplication problems that are related to multiples of 10 to solve problems with larger numbers. Those of us that were here in-person celebrated today with a movie and popcorn. We are looking forward to having our whole class back in person after break. Have a wonderful break and holiday season! Señora H (Spanish): In Spanish we learned vocabulary about Christmas, La Navidad.We also learned about traditions in Spain surrounding La Navidad, Año Nuevo (New Year) and el Dia de los Tres Reyes (Three Kings Days). Here is a link to a video and activities related to the winter holidays. There is craft the students can do at home as well.: https://rockalingua.com/videos/christmas-new-year Login: Truxton Password: 12345 Mr. C (Music and Enrichment Drama): In Music and After School we celebrated the end of the year with our December concert. If you weren't able to attend the livestream or would like to watch it again, you can watch it here: https://youtu.be/9arCOhjZ_hY Mrs. Boyden (PE): This week in PE we celebrate Christmas through a variety of Christmas games! We had a Christmas Scavenger hunt outdoors on Tuesday which the students loved!

Mrs. Boyden (Makerspace): In Makerspace this week we created Christmas ornaments either a reindeer, Christmas tree or Santa hat. Once students completed their ornament they played a Christmas math game!

Check out our facebook and instagram pages for pictures of our students' learning throughout the year: https://www.facebook.com/truxtonacademy Thank you for your continued support of our school family! Have a great holiday season and a wonderful start to 2022!

- Sara and the Truxton Academy Team