Dear Students and Families,
It's a time to be thankful for so many things and yet, many of us feel anxious as the holidays approach and expenses are rising everywhere we turn. I will share that I always feel anxious at this time and when I do, I think of all the blessings in my life. Family, friends, work, the students and families here at Truxton Academy and all the opportunities I have to help students learn and grow are just a few of the blessings in my life this year. I hope you can find some time to reflect on the things you are most thankful for and concentrate on those things when life gets hard and you are feeling anxious. There is so much going on at our school! Field lessons to a dairy farm, the fish hatchery and the release of our pheasants are just a few of the fun things, not to mention our book fair, spirit week and our recent spaghetti fundraiser! We are collecting food pantry items for the Truxton Food Pantry. You can send in items with students and there will be a collection bin in the front foyer. Thank you so much for your support and generous donations to help the families who need a little extra help this holiday season!
Upcoming Dates
11/14 Board of Trustees meeting 7pm
11/16 Bookfair 5:30-7pm
11/23-11/24 No School-Thanksgiving Recess
Book Fair
Our second annual Book Fair is next Wednesday, November 16th. We are still looking for volunteers to work at the book sale! Please contact Mrs. Hull if you are interested.
We are also collecting food pantry items for the Truxton Food Pantry. You can send in items with students and there will be a collection bin in the front foyer. Thank you so much for your support and generous donations to help the families who need a little extra help this holiday season! Updates for the Classrooms: Kindergarten This week in Kindergarten we: *Developed language to describe and compare 3-D shapes and their attributes *Found combinations of shapes that fill a region *Identified whether a folktale is fiction or nonfiction *Practiced using sequencing words when telling a story *Practed on our letter sounding and handwriting skills
First Grade
This week in first grade we:
-Learned more S blends!
-Learned how to chunk letters together to make one sounds when reading words!
-Used our knowledge of sight words to read sentences with CVC words and S blends!
-Learned different ways to make a Hexagon!
-Learned about different attributes of different shapes!
-Learned how to combine shapes to make new shapes!
-Grouped different shapes based on different attributes!
-Learned about the skeletal system!
-Ask your students what the skeletal system does for our bodies!
-Learned what a system is and how different systems in our bodies work together to help us function!
-Learned about the muscular system and how our muscles help our bones to move!
-Read 'Thidwick The Big Hearted Moose'! We learned how taking advantage of people is wrong and how it is ok to stand up for what we need. (Thanks to one of our students for bringing that in!)
-Learned about Veterans Day and why we honor those who have fought for our rights!
-Ask your students what rights they have in the US!
-Did a Vet Walk with Ms. Boyden!
-Learned a little more about what it means to be Trustworthy! Ask your student what Trustworthy means to them!
Second Grade
Ask your Second Grader about...-their field lesson to Twin Oaks Dairy farm,
-how calves and cows are taken care of,
-the milking process,
-how milk is safely stored,
-what cows eat,
-our adopted calf from Twin Oaks Dairy,
-reading the book "Tales of the Dairy Godmother,"
-what they were feeling grateful for this week,
-what's happening in the fox story they are writing,
-what Veterans Day is,
-their trip to Veterans Park in Truxton,
-how finding a word inside a word can help us read tricky words,
-how we use what's happening in the story to figure out the meaning of a word we can read but don't know the meaning of,
-solving math story problems using tens and ones,
-building with groups of 2, 5 and 10 cubes,
-and playing the game "I Have, You Have" with tens and ones.
Third Grade
During this short week in 3rd grade we:
*worked with parts of speech and had fun creating a Mad Libs to practice the different parts of speech
*learned about Veterans' Day and then had Marine Corp Vet and parent, Matt McIntyre, talk to us about his experience in the Armed Forces (Thank you!)
*finished up our mini unit on addition and subtraction with regrouping
*worked had to pre-write and then draft our next narrative story
*worked on sorting the fiction books in our classroom library into sub genres
*took a trip to the library upstairs and each picked a book to bring back to the classroom
*checked in on our germinating seeds in the rock wool
*talked about what crayfish need in their habitat and how we will take care of them
Fourth Grade
Fourth-graders are busy reading non-fiction selections: Bug Bites and Say What, Horse? Students are learning to identify main ideas and details and are working in their writing journals to write and answer literal and inferential questions. The class is also working on a review of basic division facts and solving one digit quotients with remainders.
Ms. Raina shared a story with the class called, The Wall. A story about the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, DC, as we prepare to honor our veterans this Veteran's Day.
In science, the class will construct miniature catapults to test force, strength and distance as they launch candy pumpkins to land in a targeted area.
Fifth Grade
In 5th Grade we....
- Finished up our unit on separating a mixture using screens, filters, magnetism, and evaporation.
- Filled, set-up, and introduced our pet fish and frog to the new 10 gallon aquarium tank! (If you'd like to help us take care of our underwater friends by donating distilled water or other aquarium necessities, please let me know :) )
- Investigated how to use a multiple tower as a strategy for division, especially by using benchmark multiples of ten.
- Finished up our class book, Upside Down Magic
- Practiced using proofreading marks to edit writing on our own and in small groups
- Sang a class favorite song- Potatoes and Molasses- while one of us played it on the piano!
Spanish
In Spanish this week we practiced asking and answering lots of questions and read a story about three bears, Los Tres Osos.
PE/STEM
This week in PE we earned a free day for Monday and each class voted on their favorite game to play! On Tuesday we honored our Veterans with a little bootcamp training and on Wednesday we walked down to the veteran park in Truxton and planted our poppy flowers we made in STEM last week.
Please do not forget students need sneakers daily for PE. We have only so many borrowed shoes. Boots, Crocs and slide on shoes are not PE sneakers. Thank You! Art Art: the weather was so beautiful we went outside to do some observational drawings of the pheasants to add to our first long-term project: pheasant field guide books! Note from the Cafeteria: Please keep checking your child's myschoolbucks account, they must have money on their account to be able to participate in ice cream Fridays. ~Mrs. S. “Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.” – Norman Vincent Peale Kerryanne Schenck Head of School Truxton Academy Charter School