January breezed by! We want to welcome all of our new families and some "new" returning families that joined us after Winter Break! We love to see our little school grow and have the opportunity to engage new learners!

Teachers and staff are so excited about some changes made this quarter to help your child continue to build on their strengths. Just before returning in January, staff attended a professional development that focused on how to help each child build on their strengths based on their weekly and benchmark assessments, as well as take charge of their learning. Mrs. Angela and Ms. O created individual slides for each child that contains links to the various programs we use (Renaissance, Freckle, Cloud9 Social Emotional Learning, Typing.com); their goals and goals they have met; their percentage rankings in Renaissance; and links to documents such as journals, their detective logs (Social Studies and Science) and a document to communicate directly with their teacher (Teacher Talk). These slides provide each child the opportunity to take charge of their own learning and be more engaged in the curriculum. Ask your child about their slides! Check out a sample below of what your child's slides look like!

Re-Registration begins this month! The end of the month we will open up pre-registration for all new students who are not currently enrolled, so make sure to get your forms returned quickly so that your child's seat is reserved. We hope to increase enrollment next year, so please share the schools information with friends and family who have children that will be entering grades K-5. For our students in 5th grade, we highly recommend that parents check out Adventure Schools for middle school. They have a great program with a very similar philosophy as ours and they are an "A" rated school! Mr. Jack and Mrs. Angela both work closely with that school so you know it is great!

February is a busy month with mandatory Parent/Teacher Conferences, Love of Reading event and Rodeo break! Teachers are looking forward to meeting with each of our families to discuss their child(ren)'s continued progress and how parents can help their children at home. If you or anyone you know would like to come read to students during Love of Reading, please speak with your child's teacher to set that up. We love to have the community come in and read to our students!

We are grateful for each of our families, your support and the opportunity to educate your child. If you have any questions, concerns, ideas or just want to chat about your child's education, please do not hesitate to reach out to your child's teacher, Mr. Jack, Mrs. Angela or Ms. O. We are all here to help!

Students continue to explore our new Social Emotional Learning (SEL) Program, Cloud9 World and are having a lot of fun learning about the character strengths and traits and how to apply them to their every day life.

During the month of January, students finished up the character trait EMPATHY. You show empathy for others when you imagine yourself in someone else's position or challenge. Empathy is actually feeling what someone else is feeling. Empathy goes beyond sympathy (feeling sorry for someone) and shows someone your loyalty and respect. When you show empathy for someone else, you are patient, gentle, kind, compassionate, and loving. We learn empathy primarily from watching the actions of others. Have you seen a change in your child's empathy?

Students will be focusing on the character trait COMMUNICATION, during the month of February. Communication is the sharing of information between a sender and a receiver. Communication includes speaking, listening, reading, and writing, as well as nonverbal clues. Good communicators use empathy to listen, and greet others with a respectful handshake and by looking the receiver in the eyes. Good communicators speak clearly with confidence and courage. They also listen with patience and an open mind so they can provide accurate feedback.

Check out the home connection materials and guides that you can use at home with your child and practice COMMUNICATION with them. We have both English and Spanish versions! Ask your child(ren) questions each day about what they learned during SEL and how they can apply it to their day. It is a great opportunity to be involved with the SEL curriculum!

If you have any questions on the SEL program, please speak with Mrs. Gilbert.

"Happily ever after doesn't begin with Once upon a time: it begins with NOW." This quote from the Frog Prince is the perfect motivation to kick off the new year and the second half of the school year. I know we all had a much needed break, but I was excited to come back and absorb the motivation that radiates from these students! January has been a fast-paced month that set our school on an educational path that we are lucky to be on!

Students came back to school with a revamped computer support that allows them to practice organizational skills, independent work and increased teacher-student communication. Further, students also have more time with independent and/or group time with teachers and our awesome paraprofessionals to continue to support students where they are and boost them forward by building on their strengths.

In the K-3 ELA class, we have been focused on our sight words and breaking words into phonemes to assist in becoming fluent readers. We have relied on Nearpod, YouTube songs, Fry’s Sight Words and our typing skills to increase exposure to reading. Students have a list of words at their level and practice typing them. Each student meets with Ms. Lia one to two times a week to practice fluency to help them ‘level up’ every couple weeks. The K-3 class continues to practice and grow in writing skills. Handwriting skills allow students to continue to progress in spelling and independent writing. Students have written narratives, made predictions in our read aloud and learned facts about important people in history. Students will continue to focus on reading fluency and independent writing skills. The most beautiful part is watching them become confident in themselves and PROUD of their work and accomplishments.

The 4-5 ELA class continues to amaze me with the progress that is displayed daily. Students have received weekly spelling words with the hopes of the whole class receiving 100% for a free lunch on Mrs. Gilbert! The focus has been Greek and Latin Root words. The ability to identify these root words help break down harder words and assist in understanding the definition. Students are asked to define the Greek/Latin root, then define the word, as well as write a sentence to demonstrate understanding. This allows various ways to understand the connection of reading and writing. These students have also become experts in relative pronouns and adverbs! Students use Nearpod, worksheets and Kahoot to check understanding. We have played around with the understanding and use of homonyms and homophones (to, two, too // son, sun) while making little cheat sheets and typed notes in our ELA Journals. As we move into the next month students will work on fluency, reading for detail and reviewing figurative language.

Working with the students holds some of my proudest moments. Students have shown academic growth and personal growth. The smiles from the students when they have accomplished their Freckle Goal, or when a word clicks and they gain confidence in their reading abilities inspires us all. I am proud to be part of this team to support the students in their journey to being amazing!

If you ever wanted to chat, or learn about your student’s progress, please do not hesitate to contact me on Class Dojo!

January has been a fast paced month because it feels as though we just got back from break! I hope you all had a fun, safe, and relaxing winter break. The students have come back to school working harder than ever. The students have been using new tools for their Data Slides where they can access personalized programs. These slides not only allow them to practice and build on their strengths but also shows them their personal scores and gives them documents that they can interact with and receive feedback on. The students have been involved in creating goals and accomplishing them in their Freckle accounts both in Math and ELA. We also had the amazing opportunity to get some new students here at Academy Adventures Midtown!

Kindergarten through third grade has been working on place-value and regrouping, mainly focusing on building numbers and finding new ways to build them. Students have been building on their strengths and have become a lot more confident in the process. Kindergarten has been focusing on building numbers, writing them correctly and counting with precision. First graders have been focusing on numbers 20-100 using place-value blocks, counting on and backwards, and making sure they are writing and saying them correctly with accuracy. Second and Third graders have been focusing more on 2-digit and 3-digit numbers and working on building them, regrouping them, writing and saying them accurately. With the younger grades, I like to make sure we focus on the process of learning by keeping the activities light and fun for the students where they can focus more on manipulating the numbers. We use a lot of base-ten blocks, connecting cubes and colors to help draw, build and organize the different numbers to help with different visualizations. The students have also learned a few songs related to place-value and regrouping which have been fun to listen to and hear them sing! They all have been working on these strengths a lot and my goal is to continue building on that throughout the rest of the month so that the students really dive into manipulating and having fun with math.

Fourth and Fifth graders started a new topic on decimals. Our goal by the end of February is to be able to multiply and divide decimals! We started off by looking back at our prior knowledge of fractions and place-value to help relate to how decimals work and have spent the past two weeks building decimals using place-value charts. We have begun comparing and ordering decimals and will continue to build on our operations with decimals throughout the next month. Using place-value charts, tokens, money and base-ten blocks not only helps the students memorize the values within decimals, but also gives them the opportunity to manipulate the numbers in a more physical way. The students play games to integrate their learning and prepare for future math challenges. We use the manipulatives during task cards, rotations, board games and competitions to help make the learning more fun. The students have also been completing weekly homework to review topics we have covered throughout the year.

Each student works really hard and I am so happy to see what they are accomplishing so far this year! I am so proud of each and every student for all the hard work they have put in and am excited to see all the progress yet to come! With the new year comes new goals that focus on building on your students’ strengths. Without this fantastic staff and your support as parents, we would not be able to provide such outstanding in-depth and differentiated instruction for your students, so thank you! If you ever have any questions or concerns please don’t hesitate to reach out on Class Dojo!

Happy New Year, everyone!! Students have been studying the Lunar New Year and know this is the Year of the Rabbit. If you want to say happy new year in Chinese, it’s:

Xīnnián hǎo, (It’s pronounced shin-yen-how)

The Social Studies and Science Team wants to welcome Mrs. Gilbert and Ms. Emily to world of Social Studies! They are teaching SS (Social Studies) on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Ms. Lia and Mr. Gilbert continue to teach Social Studies on Monday, Wednesday and Friday and Science all week.

Along with the Lunar New Year, we have been exploring music in Social Studies. Everybody loves some kind of music but what makes music? We have talked about rhythm, tempo, melody and harmony. The kids even used a program to create their own original music!

Earlier this month we celebrated Civil Rights’ Day in Arizona so the K-3 class learned about famous peacemakers who fought for equality and justice. We will continue to learn more about that in both classes as February is Black History Month.

The 4-5 class learned about The Columbian Exchange and will continue to discover more about that very important time in history. They will begin to study Colonial Times in America in February.

In Science we have been ‘digging’ into fossils and the Earth’s processes! All the students seem to be enjoying this unit and are asking lots of questions. We timed this unit to be taught just before the 2023 Tucson Gem Show that starts January 28th. There are lots of exhibits around town and you might just be surprised with what your child knows!

Coming up in Science for K-3 is more about Life Cycles and for 4-5 they will go out of this world to study The Solar System.

Thank you for supporting your child’s learning by asking questions and showing interest in what they are learning every day.

Thank you to everyone who joined us for the Title I Family Movie Night! We appreciate all the families who participated! We hope that you enjoyed the yummy Chili that the students made! They were very proud of their chili and excited to share it with their families!

We love having family movie nights! If there is a movie you would like us to show, let us know!

Join us on February 14th for our annual Love of Reading day! This year, we will be making Stone Soup in addition to having lots of fun family activities that center around Reading. We encourage you to come and read with your child, read to the class or have your child read to you! Stay and enjoy some yummy soup for lunch!

Watch Class Dojo for more details!

Positive parent involvement is key to your child's success! Academy Adventures Midtown encourages family participation with our open door policy and providing many opportunities for parents and family members to join us for fun events at the school.

We are always open to ideas from you on things we can do as a school to help keep you involved in your child's education. Please share your idea with Mrs. Angela or your child's teacher.

Here are a few suggestions on how you can be involved:

• Use the SEL Home Connections and Guides with your child in the evenings and weekends
• Attend Parent/Teacher Conferences
  
• Join us for our Title I Family Love of Reading and Stone Soup
  
• Help with or donate to our Bake Sales
  
• Read with your child for at least 15 minutes each night
  
• Cooking/ baking with your child at home is a great way to practice reading and math skills
• Volunteer in your child's classroom

We have an open door policy! You are welcome to stop by anytime, just make sure you sign in at the door and wear a Visitor Sticker!

Mandatory Parent/Teacher Conferences. Please make sure you sign up for your time slot. It is a first come, first serve basis. All families are required to attend a conference. If you have any questions, please contact your child's teacher.

Conference days are Early Dismissal. There will be NO After School Program.