Update from our Head of School - December 4, 2021

Hello Families and Supporters,

Happy December! We hope everyone enjoyed their Thanksgiving last week and got to spend time with family. This week was a very busy one with lots of learning and teaching happening. This is a season with lots of Holiday celebrations. Some of our classes learned about Hanukkah and how to play dreidel. Mrs. Boyden set up a PE Christmas tree made of hula hoops in the gym that was a big hit with our students. Students will continue to learn about holidays from various cultures and how similar holidays are celebrated in different cultures throughout this month.

Last week, our 4th graders had to say good-bye to Ms. G. She had to leave us for family reasons and the students were sad to say good-bye. Mrs. Hull and I are taking over the teaching of 4th grade in the meantime and I have been greatly enjoying teaching math to this awesome bunch of students. As we look for a new teacher, Mrs. Hull and I will continue to share the teaching responsibilities for 4th grade.

Good News!- We have received full funding for the All Kids Bike crowd funding for Curriculum and Bikes for our PE program. It is going to be so much fun teaching K & 1 how to ride on two wheels by the end of the year!

Thanks to Mrs. Boyden for setting up this fundraiser to add bike riding to the PE curriculum for our Kindergarten and First Grade students.

Family Survey:

As a new school, and one that values parent input as we continue to grow and develop, we use surveys from time to time to gather input from families. We realize these surveys take time and greatly appreciate any feedback you can share with us about your child(ren)'s experience at our school. Here is a survey for parents and guardians to give us feedback. This feedback will be helpful as we plan for the remainder of the school year. We estimate this may take 10 to 15 minutes to complete. If you are choosing to give feedback, please do so by 12/13. We appreciate you taking the time to help us grow.

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/YGYSSSN

Winter Clothes: As the weather is getting colder, please send your child to school with a coat, hat and mittens, as well as boots and snow pants as the snow comes. It is also helpful to wear layers inside the building as the temperature in our old building changes throughout the day. Your child may leave their winter gear in their locker if you wish. They will still need sneakers for PE on many days as well. If you need help getting winter gear for your child, please reach out and we will assist you in getting some warm clothes. Winter School Closures: In the case of school closure due to inclement weather, we will post on Spectrum (https://spectrumlocalnews.com/nys/central-ny/weather/closings) when our school is closed. For the most part if Homer Central Schools are closed, we will be too since we fall within their district's geographical boundaries, but there may come a time when we need to close and they do not. If your local district of residence is closed, there will be no bus transportation provided for your child on that day. If we are still open and it is safe for you to transport them, please do. If it is unsafe or you are unable to transport them, please keep them home. It will be an excused absence Remote Learning Preparations: Should we have an abundance of snow days this winter, we may choose to make some snow days remote learning days. Information will be sent out via email if this is the case. All teachers are preparing for the possibility of us having to go remote either due to an abundance or snow days or due to COVID quarantines. Please reach out to your child's teacher if you do not receive information about how to access their google classroom. A Note from the Nurse: If a child needs to sit out of PE or Recess we require they come in with a medical note. Please make sure that we are notified if they have to sit out and also notified of when they can participate again. 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. If you are looking for a way to get your child vaccinated, Kinney Drugs has some local options that may be available. These no-cost vaccination clinics for students in Cortland County Schools, age five (5) to eleven (11) will be located at the Homer Training and Education Center at Homer High School. Here are the clinic dates and times below: (1st dose clinic) Monday, 12/6 4-8pm (2nd dose clinic) Monday, 12/27 4-8pm Complete all of the requested registration information for the 12/6 clinic by visiting this link: https://kinneydrugs.as.me/HomerCentralSchoolsPediatricCovidClinic There are limited slots, so in order to take advantage of this opportunity, each guardian must register their child for the vaccination as soon as possible. Nutrition Update with Ms. Taylor Today we’re talking kitchen scraps! If you don’t raise chickens or pigs, you’re probably tossing food scraps all week long. This week I want to challenge you to save them to re-grow. Currently my son and I are hooked on growing food scraps, specifically chives. They are crazy easy to grow and it’s fun to watch! All you need are: chives, a small jar, and scissors. Cut the chives down to the white part so you’re left with the bulb and roots. Place them in a jar with water that covers the roots entirely, put them in a window, and change the water each day. I promise you’ll see fresh green chutes within two days, and they’ll be ready to cut and eat anywhere from day 5-7! We’ve also tried growing from an avocado seed and carrot greens as well, but those haven’t panned out for us (yet!). Other vegetables to re-grow include: romaine lettuce, beets, celery, fennel, garlic, bokchoy, radishes, and pineapple. Your job for this week is to choose what you’d like to re-grow, do 5 minutes of research on the how-to growing conditions for the specific kitchen scraps you chose, and discover that you don’t have to have a green thumb to grow your own food! 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. Grades 3 & 4 STEAM Enrichment Program Dog Treat Fundraiser Look out for an announcement for our dog treat sale coming up soon. We will have a sign up genius form available to preorder and pickup will be at the school during normal school hours. Upcoming Dates: 12/13/21 Board of Trustees Meeting 7PM- in person and via zoom 12/24/21-12/31/21 No School: Winter Holiday Break 1/3/22 School Resumes Updates from the classrooms: Ms. Elliott (K): Our kindergarten kiddos worked really hard to finish the last few activities of our units strong. Next week we will work on composing and decomposing 2-D shapes, explore more about South America while reading " A day at the market ", and we will also begin our first social studies unit on Monday.

Mrs. Francis (K/1): Ask your K/1s about:*Being awesome Writers during Writers' Workshop and showing great stamina *Different ways we can represent data (how many noses in our room? how many eyes?) *Adjectives to describe the way things we touch feel *Their All About Me and My Family books **Please make sure to send in snacks and water bottles everyday. Also, we need snow gear daily Ms. Smith (1st): This week in 1st grade we:*Started our new phonics unit on s blends, we are practicing saying s blends as one sound! *Learned about the holiday of Hanukkah and had a little Hanukkah party where we played dreidels and ate latkes! *Started our Social Studies unit on Community Helpers and will be doing a Community Helper project! *Started our new Math unit on subtraction! Ask your students: *What sounds: sc-sk, sm, sn, sl, st, sq, sw, and sp says? *What latkes are and how do you play dreidel? *What is your favorite community helper and what do they do to help? *When you subtract, do numbers get bigger or smaller? Ms. Jess (2nd): Ask your Second Grader about...-strategies to solve story problems -cool author crafts they used in their writing -how to retell a story -the school food they are researching to learn about where our lunch food comes from -how to play Dreidel -and the name of our new class pet they voted on. Friendly reminders from Ms. Jess: -Please send in a nut free snack and water bottle for your student each day -Please send in extra masks with your student -Please send in winter clothes for your student each day Thank you! Ms. Madysen (3rd): This week, third graders have been finishing up their first unit of readers and writers workshop. Next we will be starting new units in both readers and writers workshops! We will be focusing on reading nonfiction and informational books, and we will begin our unit on expository writing, which is writing to inform or explain a real and true topic of your students choice. Ask your third grader about... -the three rules for writing words in past (-ed) and present (-ing) tense -things we should practice saying more often (here is a video we watched this week from Kid President - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5yCOSHeYn4) -previewing "just right" nonfiction books using book tasting -how to use words like more/less than half, almost all, very few and half to describe data provided on a graph Please make sure your child is coming to school every day with a snack and their water bottle. They have been doing a great job remembering to bring back their folders daily. Also, with wet winter weather, boots and coats are a must to ensure we can all get outside! 4th Grade The fourth graders are thriving with their new teachers and exciting learning activities. In math this week, we reviewed multiplication of a 2-digit number and a 1-digit number and began to tackle division problems with remainders. We are learning how to handle remainders based on the context of the situation in word problems. We are doing a deep dive into non-fiction texts, while we begin to learn about how climate change affects our environments and human populations. Ever hear about the Thai cave disaster? Ask a fourth grader about how rescuers showed bravery, strength and resilience to save a young soccer team. Señora H (Spanish): Senora was out sick much of this week and the students did review Spanish activities with their classroom teachers. We were happy to welcome her back on Thursday. Mrs. Boyden (PE): This week in PE we announced our PE students of the month! Hayleigh Butler, Emmet McGraw, Conner DeLee, Phoenix Petit - McClure & Kylin Burrows! Congratulations to these students who showed exemplary behavior, effort, participation and sportsmanship this month in PE. We also began our "dodgeball like games" , a big fan favorite! Thank you for your continued support of our school family! Have a great weekend!

- Sara and the Truxton Academy Team