Update from our Head of School - December 5, 2022

Happy Monday Truxton Academy Families!

My emails get longer and longer but I have so much to share with you! First and foremost: each time I turn on the news these days, I hear the alarms sounding about the current public health emergency regarding the high rate of respiratory illness throughout the country. Each day, our absence list seems to be slowly increasing and more children are coming to the office with illness. The NY Department of Health sent out a reminder to all schools, today, to remind our students and staff to take precautions this holiday season and winter to help prevent the spread of infection. In response to this we would encourage you to do the following:

1. Stay up to date on vaccines, including flue and COVID-19.

2. Wash hands often with soap and hot water for at least 20 seconds

3. Not coughing or sneezing into your hands; sneeze or cough into your elbow

4. Stay home when sick or symptomatic

5. Wear a well-fitted, high-quality mask when in public indoor spaces (this is merely a suggestion, not a mandate)

With illness comes the need for tissues! From the office:

Tis the season for germs and running noses. We are looking for family donations for tissues. If you are able, please drop off at the office! Thank you!

Kindergarten

This week in Kindergarten we: *Learned 4 new letter sounds *Read and discussed the life cycle of a plant *Discusssed the difference between a seed and a seedling *Practiced how to measure starting from the top or bottom using various math tools

First Grade

This week in first grade we: -finished learning about s bends, r blends, and l blends! -learned how to use a chunking strategy to chunk larger words into groups to make them easier to read! -learned what a noun is and practiced identifying nouns in sentences! -learned more about how to build numbers using ten frames! -learned a new game in Math called "How many am I Hiding" -practice finding different ways to make a number using our magic spoon to hold vegetables and then finding different ways to fill our spoon with 2 different vegetables! -learned how to use number lines to find missing addends in an equation! -learned more about the Human Body! Ask your students some fun facts about the circulatory and nervous system! -filled our KWL chart till it got so big, Miss. Smith had to add more paper to the bottom to fit it all! -taste tested different sauces for our Rainbow Mac and Cheese! Ketchup was the favorite for first grade! -decided to use our Dessert Mac and Cheese in our Mac and Cheese contest! -brainstormed on how to advertise and sell our Chocolate Mac and Cheese! -chose to name our dessert mac and cheese......."Worms and Dirt"!!! *****HUGE shoutout of appreciation to: Ms. Jamie for all her help with this project and to Mrs. Riehlman for the use of her kitchen, and parents who sent in recipes. THANK YOU!!! -had a special guest visitor who did some fun musical activities that reinforced what we are learning about the Human Body! -started talking about how different cultures celebrate different holidays and got excited to learn about all of them! Second Grade Ask your Second Grader about...-making mozzarella cheese for our upcoming NYS Ag in the Classroom Mac and Cheese Competition, -using fractions in our mozzarella cheese recipe, -their presentation about dairy farming yesterday, today and tomorrow from Elsie, our Cortland County Dairy Ambassador, -learning about what is in cows total mixed rations and making their own trail mix TMR, -how they can check their own reading and strategies they can use to fix their own reading mistakes, -finding an author's intentions in their reading, -the vowel team ee and playing the space race game, -their dairy descriptive writing piece, -what senses they are using in their dairy descriptive writing, -reading about a Native American Hoop Dance for Native American Heritage Month, -their new math unit on geometry, -the difference between 2D polygons and 3D prisms, -where to find vertices, faces and edges on 3D shapes, -and playing the math game Find the Block. Third Grade his week in 3rd grade we:*got working on our entry for a Mac-n-Cheese Contest put on by Ag in the Classroom. We brainstormed ideas of ingredients to add to our recipes, slogans, we practiced measuring and explored fractions, voted on noodles to use, learned about how to market our product, cooked and enjoyed our base recipe, thought about what adjustments we wanted to make for our second attempt, and worked on a jingle. HUGE shoutout of appreciation to: Ms. Jamie for all her help with this project, Mrs. Carr for help with our jingle, Mrs. Riehlman for the use of her kitchen, and parents who sent in recipes. THANK YOU!!! *learned the Rabbit Rule in spelling *were introduced to arrays and learned how arrays will help us with multiplication *read "The Lost Little Dog" and talked about inference *talked about the structures and the function of the structures of a crayfish *learned how to tell male and female crayfish apart ***Please make sure to send permission slips in for our field trip this Thursday Fourth Grade This week the fourth-grade studied characterization using the novel, Because of Winn-Dixie. Students completed character charts using the three elements of characterization and shared their findings with their classmates. In math, the class enjoyed working on multiplication towers and solving multiplication and division stories. We enjoyed our visit to the beef farm to learn about beef cattle and the labor and mathematics that it takes to raise the animals. We continue to work on food webs and food chains and have started to work on a project on food webs. Fifth Grade In 5th Grade this week we:- Finished our submissions for the Top Cut Beef Contest! Wish us luck :) - Worked on solving problems related to volume in math. - Learned about space, stars, and elements in the periodic table with Ms. Crystal, Aria's mom :) The kids really loved it! - Navigated Quizlet and played some of the games with new vocabulary words. More on this later! We may need some parent help getting kids signed up/logged in with an account. - Continued practicing out research skills. PE/STEM This week in PE we started our dodgeball-like games! A fan favorite! Ask your child which game is their favorite!

In STEM this week we did a variety of activities from building with different materials to math fact fishing from fishing poles we made! Spanish In Spanish we reviewed numbers, colors and body parts as we read a couple of stories about some friendly monsters. PTO We are looking to finish the year out strong and have two more exciting opportunities to offer in advance of the holidays.

Truxton Academy Apparel (Now – 12/31)

Give the gift of school spirit swag this holiday season! Through the entire month of December, the PTO will receive 10% of all purchases made through our Truxton Academy Apparel store. To order you can browse the website and choose to have the items shipped directly to you or dropped to the school periodically for pick-up. Choose “Contract Sign-In” in the upper righthand corner of the page and use the code “Truxton”. We encourage you to submit any orders you wish to have in hand before the break by Friday, 12/16.

Trinity Valley (12/5 – 12/16)

The following items are available for purchase from Trinity Valley and can be picked up on Saturday, 12/24 at their store. Treat yourself and loved ones to your choice of: · Carrot Cake · A variety of pies (Apple, Apple Crumble, Cherry, Mixed Berry, Strawberry Rhubarb, Pecan, Pumpkin, Peanut Butter, Chocolate, Coconut) · Cranberry Orange Bread · Cinnamon Rolls Please label all orders with your student’s name and submit with payment no later than Wednesday, 12/14. Please make checks payable to: Truxton Academy PTO. The PTO recognizes that participation is not always feasible and hopes that by providing a variety of goods, price points, and campaign dates that we’re able to offer appealing options that work for a range of audiences. Your support is appreciated and makes it possible for to the PTO to help provide support for our children’s educational experiences! Please don’t hesitate to reach out with any questions. Student of the Month Celebrations: September-Responsibility Henry Carr River Zimmerman Brea Towers Levi Barron Jessa Harrington Hazel Morris Michaela DeLee Grayson Daley Lennox Eastman Aria Haedicke Brynlee Gunn October: Respect Levi Barron Bryson McKinney Luka Finton Stefan Kress Nathan Gonzalez Diaz Blythe McIntyre Krysali Valdes Ethan Rizzo Iris Masters Sophia Craig Miles Richmond Hayleigh Butler Kenzie Withey Emma Downes Amelia Cornwell Sean Downes Maddoc Francis Ethan Rizzo Olivia Lakie November-Trustworthy Claire Tice Kylin Burrows Sydney Morris Phoenix Petit-McClure Wyatt Walters Jordyn Underwood Luka Finton Randy Kelley Kaylin Cirbus Sam Cole Elizabeth Petrie Evelyn Cornwell Kira Johnson Emmet McGraw Juno Ackerman Grayson Davidson Alexis Sopp Chase Harty Upcoming Dates 12/12 Coffee with Kerryanne 10am and 5:30pm in the Cafeteria 12/12 Board of Trustees meeting 7pm 12/16 Cortland Performing Arts to visit during school-10am 12/22 November Student of the Month Breakfast 12/23 December Student of the Month Celebration 12/26-1/2 No School-Holiday Recess -- “Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love.” —Mother Teresa Kerryanne Schenck Head of School Truxton Academy Charter School pronouns: she, her, hersOffice: (607) 842-6252 Ext. 109 Cell: (607) 218-2268