Hello Families and Supporters,
Happy Friday! It has been a different week here at Truxton Academy as we have again switched temporarily to virtual learning. That didn't stop our teachers and students though! The learning continued, even in a different format. Teachers kept familiar routines such as morning meetings and brain breaks. Students continued to do work with the whole class and individually. Teachers made things fun. Students participated. It give me such joy to witness the flexibility of students, families, and teachers in these challenging circumstances because of their commitment to learning and teaching. Our plan is to return to our regular (hybrid in-person or virtual) schedule on Monday. I am so proud of you all! Our fish arrived this week! Last year we got brook trout eggs from SUNY Morrisville through our partnership with then for theTrout in the Classroom Program. This year COVID changed what we could do a bit and we didn't get eggs, nor get to go visit the fish hatchery, BUT 150 small brook trout joined us to live in the tank in our hallway. Our students returning in person on Monday are going to be so excited to see them. The plan is that we will take a walking field lesson to the creek to release them in the spring when they are big enough. Thanks to Mrs. Boyden for going to pick them up! This week at All-School Meeting we read The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats and spent time talking about what we like to to outdoors. We are so glad out studnets enjoy the snow so much! We are supposed to get more snow this weekend so we hope everyone gets outside to enjoy it. 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. Updates from the classrooms: Mrs. Francis' Class Kindergarteners worked hard while learning virtually this week! In phonics we learned the letter sound for Ee. Then we practiced listening closely to pick out the vowel sounds in different words. Vowel sounds are usually the trickiest sounds for kids to hear accurately so we will continue working hard and listening closely to pick those sounds out. Today we learned the sight word "see" and then we had fun playing sight word Bingo with the 9 sight words we know. We had so many bingos!!! We also read the silly Piggie and Gerald book, "We Are in a Book". Piggie and Gerald made me say "Banana!!!" many times. In math we practiced counting and 1:1 correspondence by drawing snowmen with a certain number of buttons, dots for smiles, stick hands and more, we also counted bees and added more bees to make a new number. In science we learned more about omnivores (like our bearded dragon), herbivores, and carnivores. We listened to a song about these different types of animals and what they like to munch and crunch. Then we made a list of our favorite foods and sorted them by if they are plants or meat. We asked ourselves if we thought they were foods a bearded dragon would eat. Nice job working hard while virtually learning Kindergarteners! Ms. Jess' Class This week K/1 students and families persevered through our week of virtual learning and did a great job!! Even though we were virtual, we still did some amazing learning! We started learning about the concept of subtraction and how we take away, make numbers smaller, less and fewer. We practiced two subtraction strategies, drawing pictures and using a number line. We played two math games this week, One or Two Less and Roll and Record. We were still able to do our reading groups and these kiddos showed off their awesome reading skills and strategies. In phonics we started learning about beginning blends such as cl, bl, fl, tr, and gr. Students had the option to practice their math, reading and phonics skills online using IXL, Boom Cards and Google Classroom or with paper worksheets. We read a short informative story about what Inauguration Day is and how we have a new President of the United States. We had fun doing our regular Morning Meeting Greetings like Tell Me Something Good Tuesday and learning a new Brain Break game called Sharks and Seaweed! Ms. Smith's Class Ms. Smith's students have done a great job learning remotely this week! Students did lots of reading at home and practiced using their good reader strategies to figure out tough words. We are working hard on reading words with blends (br, dr, bl, sl, etc.) The students did some writing about Martin Luther King Jr. In math we have been practicing subtraction and the students are doing a great job. In science we have been learning about States of Matter: Solids, Liquids, and Gasses. We had fun making Ooblek at home and we made models of the molecules in different states of matter using cheerios or other objects at home. Ms. Sol's Class This week in Ms.Sol's class we experimented with seesaw app to complete and submit work. We built reading forts, worked on contractions, reading, fractions, subtraction up to 20, place value, telling time up to 5 minute increments, some graphing, money, elapsed time, watched video about 3 branches of government and completed 100 Lego creation challenge. Mrs. Hull's Class Third graders continue to stretch their minds as they design research projects to learn more about the first people and cultures to live on this land. Plants and animals were also here long before us and we learn how their structures provide necessary functions of life. In math, third graders are thinking about and practicing time as well as bouncing up and down the number line. Here’s a riddle for you, “I am 12 away from 50. What number could I be?” Have a great weekend! PE In virtual PE this week we learned about nutrition! Students created their own healthy lunches, had a good laugh at some food jokes and did some fun follow along videos for movement and learning more about nutrition. Spanish K/1 this week practiced a song to learn about the family members in Spanish as well played a matching game! 2/3 practiced the parts of a tree and the parts of a plant in Spanish through a drawing game! 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 weekend. We look forward to seeing many students back in person on Monday. Thank you for your support of our school! Thank you, Sara and the Truxton Academy Team