Hello Families and Supporters,
Happy Friday and Happy New Year! We made it through the first week back to school. We hope you all had a joyful and restful winter holiday break. This first week back after the holidays can be rough on families and teachers alike, especially during these challenging times, but our students and teachers had a great first week back. The snow made for some fun PE classes and recess days. We played catch-up with some of the activities we had planned for before break when our school was switched to remote learning temporarily. Our students made bird seed ornaments for our tree out in front of the school. We also did an ornament exchange where the students made ornaments for each other. Tomorrow, January 9th is National Law Enforcement Officer Day. Ms. Boyden and our students made a video thanking the law enforcement officers in our community. We are grateful for the service of the law enforcement officers in our community. Check out our students' video on our facebook page! January Skill and Character Trait This month we are focusing on persistance (or perseverance or tenacity) with our students. This character trait means to keep trying; not give up when things get challenging. Teaching tenacity involves teaching problem-solving skills and self-awareness. This month, we are focusing on teaching the skills students need to recognize their frustration and then work through their problems. This week in All-School Meeting, Ms. Petit-McClure read a book called, Kunu's Basket about a boy who struggles with making a basket. He takes a break and then is able to try again with help from his grandfather. We discussed how we can respond to problems and how it is helpful to see those problems as opportunities. Reframing your thinking about challenges can help students build tenacity and persistance. This month, join our teachers as we look for opportunities to teach and reinforce this skill. When you notice your child(ren) working through challenges and sticking with tasks that are frustrating, praise and encourage them for using problem solving strategies. 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). Wednesday All School meetings will resume in January. Thank you The East Homer- Truxton United Methodist Church provided some holiday food and gift baskets to a few of our families. We thank them for that gift! Thank you to the two parents who have been regular volunteers in our Wednesday All-School Meeting, to the parents who have stepped up to help our PTO get back up and running, and to the parent who helps with our early morning walking program everyday. We appreciate you! Updates from the classrooms: Mrs. Francis' Class This week in Kindergarten we worked hard to get back into our school routines. We also finished some fun holiday activities that we didn't get to do before break, better late than never! In phonics we added two new letter sounds to our growing list. We worked on the letters k and c and noticed they both make the same sound (most of the time). We also worked on the sight word "the" and reviewed the word "like". We used movement to help us practice these words. We continue to read and write everyday during our ELA stations. This week we made Spacemen and Spacewomen which we will use to help when writing sentences in the coming weeks. I am doing end of the marking period assessments and I am very impressed with the great letter/sound knowledge the kids are demonstrating! In math we worked on counting and comparing numbers to find which number was more. We also talked about taller and shorter and compared the length of two cube towers. In science we are learning all about bearded dragons because we will be making a book about how to care for them. This will help us when our bearded dragon class pet comes to school after February break. We continue to work hard and do lots of great learning! Thanks for a great week Kindergarteners! Ms. Jess' Class In K/1 this week, we were so happy to be reunited, we missed each other! We learned about the New Year and did some counting activities up to 21 to represent 2021. We are using a new K/1 behavior goal chart to choose one goal to focus on each day. This helps us remember what our classroom expectations are. It also gives us opportunities to discuss that we have choices with our behavior and that we can change our day by changing our choices. In math, we are reviewing our addition strategies. We learned a new math game called "Roll and Record." In ELA we are continuing our practice on digraphs such as sh, th, ch and wh. We are starting assessments this week in ELA and math. Next week we will be starting our science unit on States of Matter. We will also be starting our next Wednesday project next week on Community Helpers. Ms. Smith's Class This week in ELA, we have started our 'L' blends unit. In this unit, students will be working on saying, bl, cl, fl, pl, sl, and gl as one sound instead of two separate letter sounds. This skill will reinforce our reading and writing skills. Students have been playing at our new centers to help them build these skills. We have also been learning about why reading everyday is so important for us as learners. We introduced a reading chart explaining that if we read for 20 minutes everyday, by the end of the year, we will have read almost 3,000,000 words. Keeping this goal in mind can help us keep reading, even if it is hard. Additionally, our class has been working on a writing assignment where students pick a picture and then describe that picture in writing. Students then will be able to guess which picture the student chose based on the details in their writing. In Math, we have been continuing our shapes unit and reinforcing previously taught skills such as, how to solve word problems. I encourage all families to create and solve word problems as a family. Have your student show their thought process. What strategy will they use to get their answer? This week we have been presenting out Habitat projects in Science. Next week, we will be starting a new unit about solids, liquids, and gases. We are also getting prepared for our next project regarding helpers in the community. More information will be sent out soon. Ms. Sol's Class This week we started a Project on measurement, using the Project Based Learning approach to learning. We also reviewed place value using expanded notation of numbers and telling time. In reading, students are participating in guided reading groups or book clubs at their individual levels. Mrs. Hull's Class Third graders in our class are steadily getting back into our learning routines as we start our new year. This week, we began to examine our ethics, or rules for ourselves, as we think about whether or not we should return money that we find. We are also learning and practicing strategies to accurately add and subtract three-digit numbers. This week, we begin a new PBL as we work towards answering the question, "How can we protect endangered species in our area?" Students are investigating the wildlife that share our community. We will keep you posted as we build our knowledge. Have a wonderful weekend! PE In PE this week we enjoyed the snow with some sledding and started our volleying unit! Reminder to keep tracing your hours outside. If you need a tracker, you can find it here: https://www.1000hoursoutside.com/trackers. Spanish K/1: We finished up learning about las formas- the shapes! Yay! We also began to learn about our familia. Students are learning how to say the names of each family member in Spanish. 2/3: We finished learning about emotions! Students started to learn about nature, specifically the parts of a tree and the parts of a flower. 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! Thank you, Sara and the Truxton Academy Team
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