Hello Families and Supporters,
Happy Friday! There is a famous Japanese saying, "Fall down 7 times, get up 8," which encompasses this trait of never giving up. Last week I shared that our character trait and skill this month is Tenacity. The students also learned that the synonyms perserverance and persistance also mean never give up. It seems the world is giving us lots of opportunities to practice this skill. This week, our staff and students have shown great teancity as many members of our school community have had to switch to remote learning and teaching. Our ski club also started this month for some of our third graders and I got to get out to Labrador Mountain with them on Tuesday. Our skiiers showed great tenacity on the hills as their skiing skills continue to progress. Thanks to Board member, Tom Brown for getting this club (open to grades 3 and above) set up for us. We are excited to see it grow as our school grows. Monday, January 18th, is National Holiday honoring Martin Luther King Jr. We learned about this national hero this week in All School Meeting. You can read more books and learn more about him with your child on Epic using this link to view the collection of books: https://www.getepic.com/app/user-collection/1825101 Many people use this as a national day of service in memory of the work Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Here is a list of ideas from https://erie.macaronikid.com/articles/60005ff073bb731fa0dacdad/celebrate-martin-luther-king-jr-with-a-day-of-service that kids and families can do in service of others while still following COVID safety guidelines: Kindergarten - 2nd Grades
Make cards or pictures for nursing home residents (https://loveforourelders.org/)
Write to an elderly neighbor or local nursing home resident
Hold a book drive
Package care bags for homeless or families in need
Collect old towels, stuffed animals, and blankets for an animal shelter
Decorate lunch bags and use for snack sacks for families in need or the homeless
3rd - 5th Grades
Make easy, no-sew fleece blankets for children in local hospitals (http://hubpages.com/hub/How-to-Make-a-Blanket)
Collect and sort school supplies and create kits to benefit a local shelter or library
Rake leaves or shovel snow for elderly or disabled neighbors
Plant seeds to beautify neighbors' yards
Collect new socks for the homeless
More information about MLK National Day of Service and ideas on how to contribute can be found through AmeriCorps website here: https://www.americorps.gov/newsroom/events/mlk-day Health Updates As most of you know the number of positive COVID cases in the area continues to be high and we have seen it impact our school more in the months of December and January than it had previously. The vaccine program in New York has started and has expanded from Phase 1a to Phase 1b with more people eligible for the vaccine. While the vaccines are slowly rolling out to adults, it is still important that we monitor the health of our community through testing and ensure the safety of all through mask wearing and social distancing. Cortland County, in conjunction with Cayuga Health, has a new testing site at Gutchess Sports Complex. Currently the testing here is Monday- Friday from 9:00- 1:00 and is free of charge to those who have symptoms or have had an exposure. Beginning next week, testing will also be available, during the same times at this location, for those who are asymptomatic and have not had a known exposure. This testing is also free to all Cortland County Residents and Employees. We have heard from families who have wanted testing that they have been unable to get it. To pre-register for an appointment if you choose to, please go to www.cayugahealth.org. Hopefully this new opportunity will allow those who wish to get the COVID testing done. Thank you for continuing to work with us to ensure the health of our school family and larger community. Ways to Help Our School Amazon 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. Wednesday All-School Meeting Breakout Room Volunteers: We invite parents and volunteers to be Wednesday All-School Meeting Breakout Room Leaders. If you are interested and available between 11:00 and 12:00 on Wednesdays, please email Ms. Petit-McClure (sara.petitmcclure@truxtonacademy.org). Donations: Currently we are in need of sneakers for our borrow bin in the gym for PE. We will accept any children's sizes, but are in particular need of size 12. We are working on creating a makerspace for students to use. We would like donations of small and medium size boxes, toilet paper and paper towel rolls, small plastic bottles, and other recylables that our students can use to create inventions in our maker space. Please send these items in with your child or bring them to the office. Monetary donations are always welcomed through our website www.truxtonacademy.org. Just go to the website and click the Donate Now button if you want to make a contribution. Upcoming Dates: 1/18- Martin Luther King Jr. Day- NO SCHOOL Updates from the classrooms: Mrs. Francis' Class The Kindergarteners worked hard this week both in person and virtually. We practiced 1:1 correspondence by reading a book about two dogs who take a nap in a pan! The book went home, so make sure to ask your child to share their reading skills with you! We also learned the letter sounds for "m" and "r" and the sight words "can" and "to". We will keep practicing our sight words so we can know them automatically. We also used our new "Space people" to help us write a sentence about the book. In math we built our names using letter cubes and then compared our names to our classmates' names to see whose names were longer, shorter, and the same as ours. We had fun in science learning about the things we need to include in our bearded dragon's classroom habitat to keep her happy and healthy. We drew a diagram of the cage and will label the heat lights, basking spot, cool spot, as well as food and water dishes next week. The kids have great knowledge from our habitat project that they were able to transfer to how we provide for our classroom desert animal. Lastly, we learned about Dr. King and made Peace Flowers to show the importance of kindness, fairness and equality, freedom, and unity. Enjoy the long weekend and keep the teachings of Dr. King alive by doing something kind and helpful for someone! Ms. Jess' Class This week in K/1 we started new ELA stations, our science unit on solids, liquids and gasses and assessments. In our new ELA stations first graders practiced reading and writing their sight words and words with digraphs such as sh, th, wh and ch. Kindergarteners read and wrote their sight words, short vowel words and words with digraphs! We made a flap book all about solids, liquids and gasses...look for these coming home so the students can share their new knowledge with you! We read books about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and did a project on how we can make the world, our community or our classroom a better place by treating everyone fairly and getting along with everyone just as Martin Luther King Jr. wished for. The students have had extra opportunities to practice being fair and getting along with everyone during extra play time outside and indoor play stations where they play board games, build puzzles, build with blocks or legos, or choose a math or ELA station activity to complete with a partner. We have seen a lot of kindness and support in our classroom this week! Tuesday was National Milk Day so we went on a Virtual Field Trip to Dutch Hollow Dairy Farm to learn about the process of where our milk comes from! Keep up the great work kiddos! Ms. Smith's Class This week is we have been working on our final edits of our describing pictures writing activity. Our teaching assistant Ms. Bella had a blast having the students read their work and then try to guess which picture they chose! In phonics, we are using our new centers to learn our R blend words this week! In Math we have been reviewing shapes and subtraction! In Science we have started our new unit on solids, liquids, and gases! Ask your kids to find different solids and liquids and gases around your home! Have them explain why they think each item is a solid, a liquid, or a gas! Ms. Sol's Class The second and third graders this week started working with contractions in ELA. They learned how they are formed and the purpose of the apostrophe. We are still reviewing telling time and started with elapsed time as well as money and making change. Word problems and addition, subtraction and place values are also in the works. We also started working with cursive handwriting. This week's guided reading groups will either read about leaves/ trees or landforms by the sea depending on their reading group. Students are really enjoying our PBL for measurement and this week in the afternoons we started Ms.Sol's Furniture Company where the students are carpenters and designers creating furniture for our 18" dolls. Each week we will be working with measurement and using measurement from different professions. In the coming weeks we will explore the following professions: architect, interior decorators, tailor/ fashion designers, quilters and possibly chefs. Mrs. Hull's Class This week was busy for third graders. We completed our persuasive essays. Most third graders took the stance that a person should try to find the owner of lost money. Third graders also had the opportunity to learn about Martin Luther King, Jr.’s dream that all people be treated with fairness and equality. We are taking on the challenge of defining our own dreams for the world and thinking of steps we may take to realize those dreams. In science, students continue to think about how to best protect endangered species as they learn about physical and behavioral adaptations of plants and animals. Have a great weekend!-- PE In PE this week 2nd & 3rd Grade worked on volleyball skills of bumping and setting. K & 1 have been working on underhand hitting and learning how to play 4-square. Spanish This week in K/1 we continued to learn about families! We read a book called “¡A Comer!” To learn about family members. We also learned a song to help us out at well. Those attending in-person started on a family web art project! This week in 2/3 we continued to learn about nature, focusing on parts of a tree. The students made their own flash cards that we sent home today. We also played Pictionary to help up learn our words. As a reminder, we have a public facebook page where we share many pictures and stories of our students learning. Please check it out to see some of the wonderful work our teachers and students are doing every day! (https://www.facebook.com/truxtonacademy) Feel free to share our posts to spread the word about our school! Additionally, the PTO has a parent specific facebook group. If you are a parent and wish to join this group, you can find it at: https://www.facebook.com/groups/truxtonacademycharterschool Have a great 3-day weekend. Thank you for your support of our school! Thank you, Sara and the Truxton Academy Team