Hello Families and Supporters,
Happy Friday! This week sure was a cold one. Our students missed getting outside as much as we usually do, but Ms. Sol's class got outside to do some measuring and the Kindergarten/ First Grade classes got to take a short trip outside to see an ambulance. Thanks to Anthony Davis from TLC for giving them such a great experience! In All School Meeting this week, the students listened to The Mitten by Jan Brett, which is a classic story about a mitten that streches to fit a whole lot of animals inside it. This story takes place in the winter so we learned about hibernation. We learned which animals in the book hibernate and which do not. Ask your children about their favorite animal from the book and if it hibernates. 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. A big thank you to families and supporters who have already sent in donations! Upcoming Dates: 2/8- Truxton Academy Board of Trustees Meeting 7:00 PM Join Zoom Meeting https://zoom.us/j/98161711210?pwd=THlYdW5wOGttWnllWE9VU1MvVWxmZz09 Meeting ID: 981 6171 1210 Passcode: SSN9b7 2/9- Report Cards Sent Home with students 2/15- 2/19 Mid Winter Break: No School Updates from the classrooms: Mrs. Francis' Class We enjoyed being back to school and learning in person in Kindergarten this week! We added 2 new letter sounds (b and y) and one sight word (you) to our ever growing list of letter sounds and words we know. The kindergarteners practiced reading CVC words and have showed good growth in their ability to blend sounds to read words. In Readers' and Writers' Workshop we enjoyed the book "I Went Walking" many times and in different ways this week. We started off the week reading it as a read aloud, then used our listening station to hear and follow along with the story, and finally the kids read the story to themselves by using the predictable nature of the text and their familiarity with the book. We also practiced writing sentences using the conventions of forming a sentence using this story. We will keep practicing this skill for many weeks to come and become experts at writing great sentences. In math we practiced counting, number identification, number formation, and seeing which of two numbers is more. During science we learned that bearded dragons are omnivores who eat both plants and meat. We created a menu for our bearded dragon by sorting the different types of food she will eat. We also saw how much of each type of food she should have and learned that it is important to "dust" her meals with calcium in order to keep her healthy. Lastly, the K/1 team had a special visit from an EMT with from TLC who came and talked about what they do for our community. This ties in with our Wednesday virtual learning project about Community Helpers and gave us a first hand chance to meet one type of worker who helps our community function and stay safe. We even got to tour an ambulance! Thank you TLC for coming to speak to us! Have a nice weekend! Ms. Jess' Class This week in K/1 we had an awesome presentation from Anthony, an EMT with TLC! He showed us all the tools he uses like his stretcher and radio and we were able to tour inside his ambulance. We learned about what he does as a community helper. Thank you Anthony! In math we are using number lines to solve subtraction problems and played Roll and Record. In reading groups we are practicing our sight words, digraphs and blends. We have new writing journals we are using to practice writing complete sentences. In science we are learning about solids, liquids and gasses. We did an experiment called Mystery Balloons where we had to guess which ballon was filled with a solid, liquid or gas.Some of our hyphothesis were correct! Keep up the good work kiddos! Ms. Smith's Class This week in K-1 we are finishing up our s blends unit! We have been using our fun centers to help build our skills. In reading, we are reviewing our reading strategies and trying to use the different strategies to help us solve difficult words when reading! Our writing assignment for this week was to write a letter to a former classmate. We asked her how she is doing at her new school and asked her to be pen pals with us. Additionally, this week we had a Community Service member come to our school to talk about his job. Thanks to the hard work of Ms. Francis, our guest showed us an ambulance and talked about what he does that helps the community! In Math, we are continuing to build our subtraction skills! This week we focused on subtracting numbers 3-5 and will continue to build on these skills! In Science this week, we used our 5 senses to make observations during an experiment! Our experiment was to put an egg in a jar of vinegar and watch what happened over 3 days. Ask your students what they discovered about the egg on day 3! Ms. Sol's Class This week our students started working with the rules of capitalization. Students enjoyed measuring outdoor spaces with non standard measurements. We reviewed money through worksheets and games and continued with independent and guided reading. We are still working in Ms. Sol's Furniture Company in the afternoons making furniture for the dollhouse. On Thursday, we opened our contraction hospital to operate on words and put them back together as contractions! Mrs. Hull's Class It feels like the week flew by in third grade this week. Students are focused on researching the behavioral and physical adaptations of endangered species in our area. We will continue this research as we think of ways that we can help endangered species thrive once again in New York. Students have the opportunity to help prepare and serve lunch with Ms. Brigette this Friday. We hope to make this a monthly event as we learn new ways to help our school family. In mathematics, third graders are exploring strategies for finding the difference between two numbers. We use distance riddles and travel stories to develop an understanding of subtraction. Stay warm and have a great weekend! PE This week in PE we practiced stretching and breathing through yoga poses to increase our flexibility! Spanish This week in K/1 we learned about our family members in Spanish through song, art, and books! Virtual K/1 made their own family webs and in-person we made paper dolls of our family members! In 2/3 we practice parts of a plant and parts of a tree by labeling the plant and tree as well as through a Jeopardy 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. Thank you for your support of our school!