Hello Families and Supporters,
Happy Friday and Happy March! We had a great first week back from our Mid-Winter Break and March is off to a great start! We have so many fun plans as we move into Spring.
We have two Agricultural Themes for the month of March; Ag Literacy and Maple Production. This month is National Ag Literacy month and as part of that month, our classes will be reading Agriculture themed books. We will have community volunteers come in to read this year's National Ag Literacy Week Book, Farmer Will Allen and the Growing Table, by Jacqueline Briggs Martin to our first through 4th grade classes. They will also do an activity with these volunteers. Additionally, all of the classes have an activity put together by our Rural Life Lab Committee that they will be doing for the month of March. Thanks to the parents and others who serve on our Rural Life Lab Committee!
This month, we will also focus on learning about maple syrup. We have an awesome new bulletin board for our classes to visit and learn about the animals that live in the sugarbush thanks to some parent volunteers. We also have a parent volunteer coming in to demonstrate maple tapping and teach about both the modern methods of maple tapping and the traditional indigenous methods or maple tapping. All of our classes will experience this learning opportunity through an in-school field lesson next week. We are so excited!
If you want to learn more about maple syrup production for yourself or with your child, check out this video from the New York State Maple Production Association: https://vimeo.com/82816054
We are Hiring:
We currently have openings for the following positions:
- Social Emotional Specialist (Social Worker or Social Emotional and Academic Intervention Teacher)
- Substitute Teachers
- Teacher of the Arts
All positions are posted on indeed.com.
If you know anyone who is interested, please ask them to send a resume and cover letter or letter of interest to sara.petitmcclure@truxtonacademy.org
Messages for Families
Special Persons' Day- March 18th
Students may invite a parent or other special person to watch their dance performance and do an activity in their classroom. See the attached schedule for your child's performance time and classroom activity.
The students decided on what colors they wanted to wear for their performances. Please have them wear the following on March 18th. If you need help getting the appropriate clothing for your child, please reach out to Mrs. Leaf (leaf.carmer@truxtonacademy.org) or Ms. Petit-McClure (sara.petitmcclure@truxtonacademy.org)
4th Grade - White shirt, blue pants
3rd Grade - Truxton Blue & Green
2nd Grade - Black
1st Grade - Yellow shirt, blue pants
Kindergarten/1st Grade and Kindergarten - Red
Family Math Night- March 24th
Truxton Academy will be hosting its first ever Math Night in recognition of World Math Day on Thursday, March 24th from 5:30 pm to 6:30 pm in the cafeteria and gymnasium. Everyone is welcome to join us in some fun math games and STEM activities. Snacks will be available as well. We look forward to getting together and having some fun with math!
Yearbook Ordering is happening now!!!
2021-2022 Yearbooks cost $8, plus 40 cents as a processing fee. This year, yearbook orders will go through Isaf-Merkur, the company who is publishing the yearbook. To order a 2021-2022 yearbook for your child, visit: https://buytheyearbook.pictavo.com/PictavoSchool/FindSchool
Our school code is: 700844
Note from the Main Office: 1) Thank you to those who have returned paperwork for this upcoming school year. If you haven't yet, please return the 2022-2023 school year paperwork as soon as possible. As a reminder, the transportation request is due no later than April 1, 2022 in order to have local district transportation for your student(s). You can complete and submit paperwork in person at our upcoming Open House & Registration Event this Saturday, March 12, 2022 10am-12pm. Please email Mrs. Leaf (leaf.carmer@truxtonacademy.org) with any questions. 2) Please have your child check the lost and found for missing items. We have several mittens and gloves missing their pairs!
At-Home COVID Testing Kits: We received more at home testing kits this past week. We will be sending home a kit with every student this week. If you choose to test your child, please send the results to Mrs. Leaf via email at leaf.carmer@truxtonacademy.org Donations Needed: Extra Clothes: We are in need of extra clothes for our older kids who have spills or get clothes wet at recess. Our closet of borrowable clothes is in need of pants in size 8, 10, and 12 for both boys and girls. Classroom Supplies: We need dry erase markers and post-it notes Other: 2nd grade needs shoe boxes or other small cardboard boxes for a project Help up Build our Classroom Libraries: Here is a wishlist of books for each classroom. You can buy the books through this website or elsewhere. Thriftbooks has used books and sometimes that is a money saving option. Check out the books wanted for your child's classroom or any classroom: Kindergarten: https://www.thriftbooks.com/list/share/2beb98c2e6c22338/ First Grade: https://www.thriftbooks.com/list/share/06f1868ff2b6582a/ Second Grade: https://www.thriftbooks.com/list/share/8c00ddcdf9f8956c/ Third Grade: https://www.thriftbooks.com/list/share/21f8fdfdb6f0eed1/ Fourth Grade: https://www.thriftbooks.com/list/share/beda8187236a301d/ Spanish: https://www.thriftbooks.com/list/share/66e046cb2e91fcc0/ Makerspace: https://www.thriftbooks.com/list/share/af7a8e360eb91d94/ Fifth Grade: https://www.thriftbooks.com/list/share/2ec16518e195dde8/ Upcoming Dates: 3/12- Open House & Registration Event 10AM- 12PM 3/18- Special Persons Day 3/24- Family Math Night, 5:30- 6:30 Updates from the classrooms: Ms. Elliott (K): This week in kindergarten we: *Created a dance while learning about vowels *Added ten new words to our sight word list *Practiced writing sentences with a period at the end *Put together a class pattern break book to help us read *Discussed the different types of communities we live in (urban, suburban, rural) *Designed a map to show our peers what's in our community Mrs. Francis (K/1): Ask your K/1 kiddo about:*S blends sn, sm, sc/sk and how with blends you can hear 2 distinct sounds (unlike the new sounds made with digraphs-ch, sh, th) *what they learned about otters from our nonfiction otter book *the story about how Ralph became a writer in "Ralph Writes a Story" (and what happened to that poor inchworm!) *subtracting bigger numbers during our dice game *figuring out which number we are looking for in a story problem (do we know what happened in the beginning, middle, and/or end or the math story?) *how we changed the shape of our wood samples, ways in which sawdust and shavings are alike and different, and how we made particleboard *where bearded dragons live in the wild and what it is like in their natural habitat Ms. Smith (1st): This week in first grade we: *we solved really tricky words by chunking them up and crashing the parts together! * started a new writing unit, using our How To writing style to write a book about our school! * Started learning about chicks and chickens so that we can prepare and be responsible for raising chickens in our classroom! *learned a new SEL activity using the 3-Step interview! This helps students retain information and practice paraphrasing. Ask your student how it goes! *learned about our new morning checklist and morning activity routine! *learned about our final H brother! Whistling Whit! *practice our Math strategy of counting on to add numbers together! *learned about stalagmites and stalactites from Ms. Smith's vacation and received a stone that loosely matches the color of their birthstone!
Ms. Jess (2nd): Ask your Second Grader about...-what they observed and learned about our mealworms, -how they will take care of our mealworms, -they learned on our virtual field trip to Shaver Hill Maple Farm, -playing the math game Close to 20, -solving place value (tens and ones) story problems, -how to take care of our chrome books that we will be using more for math and reading each week, -what they learned about how toothbrushes are made in their reading magazine, -how our plants are doing in our grow tower, -how big our class calf Penny is and where she is living now, -how they will take care of everyone whether they wear a mask or not. Ms. Madysen (3rd): We had a jammed packed first week back from break! Ask your third grader about...-how to compare fractions on a number line using greater than (>), less than (<) or equal to (=). -how to solve two-step word problems using addition and subtraction. -what Morse Code is and why Brian believed his dog was using it to talk to humans. -how to identify the plot in a story using the beginning, middle and end. -their Power of Yet(i) and the difference between fixed and growth mindsets. -receiving their first letter from their Pen Pals! -the country they are researching in social studies. -their virtual field trip to Shaver Hill Maple farm to learn about maple syrup. Yum! Ms. Chelsea (4th): This week 4th graders investigated addition strategies with large numbers and estimation in math. Ask them if they can explain what makes an estimate useful! Kids wrote short stories and dialogues in response to story starters and began brainstorming a persuasive piece, keeping the task, audience, and purpose in mind. At the end of the writer's workshop, 4th graders have been reading their work aloud (if they choose to) and it's noticeable how inspired they are by each other's work. One of our scholars did a read-aloud for everyone, one of his favorite books and the other students are excited to do the same. We will officially be starting class jobs next week, and we are all excited about earning gems that will go towards special privileges like opening up the new cozy corner. Señora H (Spanish): In Spanish in K, K/1, 1 and 2 we reviewed body parts, colors and numbers. We read two stories about friendly monsters and also drew our own monsters. In 3 and 4 we reviewed the numbers 1-40 and learned how to talk about how much something costs. Mrs. Boyden (PE): This week in PE we started to learn and practice our dance performance routines! We are doing such a great job already! Mrs. Boyden (Makerspace): This week in makerspace we celebrate Dr. Seuss Birthday by making Truffula Trees from the book & movie The Lorax.
Thank you as always for your support of our students and our school family. Have a wonderful weekend!
- Sara and the Truxton Academy Team