Weekly Newsletter
January 25, 2024
From Principal Emma Liebowitz
I would like to take this opportinity to make a request. We have been reminding students about positive bus behavior. It would be great if caregivers can to talk with their child(ren) about safe, kind bus behavior. Thank you!
Exchange Program
It has been so wonderful to get to know our visitng students! They have been enjoying the snow, field trips and interacting with classes!
Upcoming Events
Monday, January 29 - LEC Meeting at 3:30
Tuesday, January 30 - Exchange students leave
Wednesday, January 31 - All School Meeting at 2:15
Wednesday, February 7 - 1:50 Dismissal
Tuesday, February 13 - Students leave for Mexico
Wednesday, February 14 - 1:50 Dismissal
February 19-23 - No School
Tuesday, February 27 - Students return from Mexico
Wednesday, February 28 - All School Meeting at 2:15
Link to Sanderson Academy calendar.
Preschool news from Ms. Freeman and Ms. Becky
Preschoolers are learning about rectangles, squares, circles, and triangles. We plan to use these basic shapes to create collages, snow people, and other works of art. We will use a variety of art tools and materials which will help strengthen our fine motor skills. We will also have fun learning about shapes by singing songs, playing games, and going on shape walks. The photos show us creating shapes using geoboards and our classroom display.
Preschool News from Ms. Melanie and Ms. Kylee
Preschoolers have been enjoying being “Letter Detectives”. They are finding letters all around the classroom and pointing them out to teachers and friends. We recently took this activity out into the rest of the school. Children were shown a letter card and asked to find that letter in the environment around them. They walked up and down the corridors scouring print for letters. They found so many letters and they are even beginning to recognize lowercase letters.
Another fun letter activity they have been working on is finding letters in our library books. For this activity, each child chooses a book to look through and they search for the letter that the teacher presents to them on a card. They are getting really good at finding letters quickly and accurately. Embedded in this activity are many book handling skills. The children are taught to look at the front cover, with the title, author and illustrator and the back cover. They are learning how to gently turn the pages and scan the text from top to bottom and left to right. Ask your “letter Detective” to find letters at home!
Kindergarten News from Ms. Sarah, Ms. Veronica and Ms. Beckwith
In our social skills program, we started a unit on thinking strategies, as it is often how we think about a problem that determines if it sends us into an uncomfortable yellow zone or not. This week’s mental strategy was to evaluate the size of the problem that is upsetting you and put it in perspective by comparing it to truly big problems. When you realize your problem is not so big, it helps you to make your reaction not so big either.
First Grade News from Ms. Wyckoff and Ms. April
This week first graders began taking our classroom adopted stuffy cow Celestial home for a weekend of fun! Each first grader will take the cow home on a Friday and return the cow on a Monday. After each visit first graders will write in the shared journal sharing some adventure they did with their cow, such as going to see a movie, reading a book, going sledding or enjoying some hot cocoa! Families send a photo of their child with Celestial and that gets taped into the journal. Families and children get to see what Celestial was up to during her visit home with other children! By the end of the year Celestial will have visited 17 children’s homes!
First graders had so much fun on their recent all school ice skating trip! Everyone was smiling and laughing and kept trying even when they fell down! It was wonderful to see sixth grade buddies and older siblings skate with first graders either by helping them or just enjoying some skate time together! What a wonderful day it was!
More first grade news
This week we are finishing up our third unit in our SEL program (Second Step). First graders are focusing on emotion management, which includes a great strategy like self-talk. Self-talk is the inner conversation you have with yourself. “What we say to ourselves can change the way we feel. If we say positive, or good, things to ourselves, we’re likely to feel better. When we say negative, or bad, things to ourselves, we tend to feel worse.” We all experience strong feelings like anger, sadness or feeling worried, but we can use strategies like self-talk, taking some deep belly breaths and talking to a trusted adult to help us feel better!
Third Grade News from Ms. Fisher and Mr. Luke
In math we are underway learning multiplication facts. Using arrays, scales, and word problems, they are able to see the connection between repeated addition and multiplication. Feel free to practice these at home or on long car rides.
Last week third graders were excited to spend some time with our guests from Mexico. The students visiting us are bilingual, so we took advantage of that knowledge base to learn a basic introductory conversation from them. The third graders enjoyed this so much they asked to have another session with them, so we will be doing that again next Monday, before they head back to Mexico.
More third grade news
Third graders also had a great time ice skating this week. It was impressive to see how much confidence they each gained in the course of just one hour!
Fourth Grade News from Ms. Lagoy and Ms. Upright
This month we’ve been working on some exciting things during our science time. We began by uncovering a secret code that’s all around us: barcodes! We saw how a barcode’s unique pattern is made of two basic parts, black lines and white lines. Then we created our own two-part codes (like “smiles and frowns” or “claps and snaps”) to send secret patterns across the room. It was a goofy, good time—and we were very intrigued to learn that digital devices like cell phones send patterns of encoded information, too! You can support your child’s learning at home by teaming up with your child to create your own secret code. It could be a simple pattern that stands for a special message (like three taps for “I love you”) or an entire alphabet that lets you spell out messages in code (check out Morse code for inspiration).
This week we learned about how sound is a vibration! We made paper cup telephones to experiment with how sound vibrations travel. Something that your child might have found surprising is how well sound can travel through string, as long as the string is taut. You can support your child’s curiosity by inviting them to consider whether sound can travel through any material. For example, here’s a fun, easy experiment you can do at home: Will sound travel through the wall? Have them try holding a cup to their ear, just like with a paper cup telephone, but with the bottom of the cup pressed against a wall. Then go to the other side of the wall and talk. See if it works!
Next week, we will observe how sound only travels when there’s some material it can travel through, and we will reason about why this is true. Check out this video your child saw, showing what happens when air is sucked out of a container while a sound is playing. Here is another video that might be fun to watch with your child. We did not watch this video in class.
We will wrap up the unit by learning how sound vibrations are actually *waves* that travel through the air. We will be able to see direct evidence of this by watching videos taken in slow motion and special lighting; it will be very cool to see.
Library News from Ms. Wilson
In the library, 2024 kicked off with a “Cover to Cover” reading challenge for 3rd - 6th grade students. For this challenge, students have the month of January to read as many chapter books or novels from the Sanderson Library as they can. For each completed book, students can enter a raffle ticket to win a pizza lunch with Ms. Wilson and a friend. The winner will be drawn on February 1st. Many students have participated and there is still one week to go…plenty of time to read another book!
This month, third graders continued the Storyline Project and have constructed their mini-library which is now flush with books. Soon they will break into “sub-committees” to tackle some smaller projects, like book organization, decoration, and creating guidelines for their space. Meanwhile, fourth through sixth graders have begun a variety of research projects in the library. Fourth graders will design informational “Did you know?” cards to display on the library stacks while fifth graders will conduct an “audit” of the Sanderson Library to find out what nonfiction topics we’re lacking and how we can best fill those gaps. Sixth graders will research a career of their choice and share their findings on business cards that they will design using Canva. The younger grades will cycle through four different library “stations” over four weeks, which will include reading with stuffies, alphabet practice, computational thinking games, and a library skills group with Ms. Wilson.
The 2024 ALA winners were announced on Monday! Big, by Vashti Harrison, won the Caldecott Medal, while the Eyes of the Impossible by Dave Eggers won the Newbery. Click here to read the list of winners and honorees in each youth media award category. There are some really beautiful books in the world right now!
News from Ms. Prew
Reading News from Mrs. Morey
K-6 teachers are currently wrapping up DIBELS assessment. This literacy assessment is administered three times a year, Fall, Winter and Spring. It is comprised of one minute subtests to identify student’s strengths and areas of need in order to develop small group instruction as well as to show student growth over time. If you have any questions about DIBELS feel free to reach out to me at kmorey@mtrsd.org
MTRS theater participation opportunity for district 5th and 6th grade students
Dear 5th and 6th grade families and caregivers,
Please know auditions for YOU'RE A GOOD MAN, CHARLIE BROWN have been postponed to Thursday, January 25th from 2:30-4:30 in the Mohawk Trail Regional auditorium. Please come prepared to sing HAPPINESS. Copies of the sheet music and a printable contact form may be requested from MTRS Director of Performing Arts Eva Husson-Stockhamer, stagemanger@mtrsd.org, or may be found on the MTRS school website under Performing Arts. If you'd like to complete the form online, please click here. We are sorry for the inconvenience and can't wait for January 25th!!
SEPAC News
Free virtual workshop
Community News and Events
Check out what is happening in our area!
PROJECT SAFE CHILDHOOD: Keeping Kids Safe and Secure Online
For the next several weeks, we will share information provided by the United States Attorney's Office related to safety of children.
Active links for the image below:
CyberTipline: www.CyberTipline.com or by calling 1-800-843-5678
Resources: www.justice.gov/usao-ma/outreach/project-safe-childhood www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0006-talk-your-kids www.justice.gov/opa/video/parents-stay-safe-home-stay-safe-onlin
About Us
Email: eliebowitz@mtrsd.org
Website: https://sanderson.mohawktrailschools.org/
Location: 808 Cape Street, Ashfield, MA, USA
Phone: (413) 628-4404
Facebook: facebook.com/SandersonAcademy