Weekly Newsletter
January 11, 2024
News from Principal Emma Liebowitz
A Bed for Every Child will provide a new twin mattress and wooden bed frame to a child in Massachusetts in need of a bed. Families can access the program through a referral made by advocates, such as case managers or community providers (healthcare workers, teachers, guidance counselors). The typical wait time to receive a bed is 30-45 days. SBHC staff can submit an application on behalf of a family! Click here to access the Bed Request Application Form. Please share this important resource widely!
Dance!
Grab your dancing boots and ball gowns to get fancy on the farm! We hope to see you all at the upcoming school dance on Saturday, January 20th, 6:00 - 7:30 pm.
Important Reminders:
Parents/Caregivers must accompany their children for the whole dance.
Students should bring a water bottle or use the drinking fountain.
There will be a bake sale hosted by the 6th grade, so BRING CASH! No other food will be served at the dance.
Exchange Program
Our exchange students from Mexico arrive this Tuesday! We are very excited!
Upcoming Events
Monday, January 15 - No School
Saturday, January 20 - School Dance
Wednesday, January 24 - 1:50 Dismissal
Link to Sanderson Academy calendar.
From the School Office
As a reminder, please do not let students out of cars before staff arrive at drop-off time.
Safety Drills
Every month we perforn a fire drill. A lockdown drill took place on Thursday, January 11th.
Health Office News from Nurse Loranna
Greetings from the health office!
I now have more covid-19 antigen (rapid) test kits that I can send home with your child(ren) if you are in need of any. Please reach out to me via email at lalmeida@mtrsd.org. Thank you!
Next Wednesday the dental program will be coming to Sanderson on 1/17/24. They will be here from 8:30-1:30/2 and will be set up in the gym. Please let me know if you would like to add your child(ren) to the list. If your child is in need of a dentist- this is a wonderful opportunity to get the dental care needed for your child(ren) while not disrupting your work schedule at home.
Preschool news from Ms. Freeman and Ms. Becky
This week we focused on Jan Brett and her amazing illustrations. We read several books retold or written by Jan Brett, and of course illustrated by her. We used the illustrations to help us learn more about the story and predict what would happen next. We loved seeing so many different animals in her stories and noticing her love of hedgehogs. We tried finding one in each book. We also love creating art projects related to the stories. We designed hats, made hedgehogs and stitched mittens.
Thank you to Ms. Becky for creating storytelling pieces for each of us. Now we can retell The Mitten or create our own versions. Thank you!
Preschool News from Ms. Melanie and Ms. Kylee
Preschoolers have been enjoying the long awaited winter weather. They have been boot skating on icy patches and exploring useful “tools” to break ice. They noticed that trapped under the ice are perfectly preserved leaves and patches of green grass.
Preschoolers also got an opportunity to go sledding with their 3rd grade buddies. What a treat! The hill behind the school offered the perfect place to glide downhill. When they tired of trekking back up the hill, they began burying each other in snowy piles. The sun was shiny and it was so magical!
Inside, preschoolers have been exploring a winter theme as well. They built their names with snowballs to make a cute snowman. Some of the snowmen are very tall! They also practiced drawing circles and cut out 3 circles that they drew to make a snowman to hang up. They even made fancy black hats for their snowman’s head. Another favorite activity has been making snowmen out of white playdough. There are stick arms, black hats, black button eyes, and red buttons to adorn their creations. Winter is so much fun!
Kindergarten News from Ms. Sarah, Ms. Veronica and Ms. Beckwith
In our literacy program, we are doing a short review of the components of weather with our new close read book titled Weather! We are focusing on sun, clouds, and rainbows with some writing activities. Our goal is to add lots of word labels to our illustrations and we are starting to grow into writing more of our own sentences, instead of only dictating our words to a teacher.
In phonics, we learned about the short vowel sound /e/, spelled with an e, and practiced writing the lowercase formation of e. Now that we have learned all five short vowel sounds, we are doing some review activities reading and writing short words with all the vowels. And we also learned about the heart word see, where we can hear the long sound for E and it is spelled with two vowel letters together. This will introduce us to the concept that many long vowel sounds are spelled with two letters.
First Grade News from Ms. Wyckoff and Ms. April
Happy 2024 and welcome back! We hope you all had a restful and enjoyable winter break! Over the past week or so first graders have been revisiting classroom expectations as well as our daily routines. To help us remember our classroom expectations, children were placed in small groups and given an expectation to act out. After practicing, each group acted out one of the classroom expectations and everyone else had to guess which one they were acting out. It was really neat to see how creative the groups got and really showed one another how well they know what’s expected of the class everyday.
Similar to the start of the school year where children come up with a hope & dream, we are thinking about our hopes and wishes for the year 2024 and the remaining six months of first grade. Children hope to go on a field trip, learn more about the Milky Way and our Brook trout, continue to become stronger readers and spend more time with their sixth grade buddies. The 2024 display is adorable and will surely make you smile!
In our ELA program we are continuing to focus on the sun, moon and stars. Our most recent close read book titled Summer Sun Risin’ shows us how the sun moves across the sky on a farm and what type of activities the family does during those parts of the day. First graders are focusing on character, setting and then acting out the beginning,middle and ending of the story before writing about it. During this time children are learning how to turn the question around by restating the question when they write. For example if the question is “Who is the main character?” children would begin answering the question with “The main character is …” As we practice this skill children are learning to respond verbally and write a complete sentence rather than a one word response. Ask your first grader to tell you all about Summer Sun Risin’
Second Grade News from Mrs. Lilly, Ms. Laura and Ms. Taylor
Second grade has wasted no time jumping back into our routine after winter break. We kicked off the new year by starting a new book in ELA called The Dog That Dug for Dinosaurs, the class was able to identify main characters, the setting, and what happened in the beginning, middle and end of the book all on their own. In their writing they were using large words like ichthyosaurs, plesiosaur, and pterodactyl! Writing has become an easier task throughout the year, students have increased their stamina, by being consistent with their letter formation and learning more sight words. In math we are learning a new technique for adding two digit numbers. We’ve also been focusing on how to skip count by 10, when starting with any number. During our phonics lessons, we are focusing on breaking apart two syllable words. First we find the vowels, then mark the consonants in between, we read each syllable, and then put it together. Some words that have felt too big or look scary, have now become easier for us to decode. Finally, we have started new reading groups during our ELA small group time. Each group works on different skills specific to their needs, we have a range of activities happening in our classroom at this time. Students may be working on phonics, sight words, reading in the library, typing, or doing a book study.
In science we made models of different seeds and learned how they travel through the air! We made ourselves into trees to watch the seeds fall.
Third Grade News from Ms. Carole and Mr. Luke
Happy New Year!
Upon returning from break, third graders started a new social studies unit on the history of the American colonies. We started by mentioning the 30,000 years of various Indigenous People who lived on this land, then began to focus on European settlements. So far they have heard and written about St. Augustine, Roanoke, Santa Fe, Jamestown, and Plymouth. They are loving the stories of what worked and what went wrong with these places. Soon we will move into the thirteen colonies, and eventually the American Revolution.
In math we wrapped up our unit on multi-digit addition and subtraction by learning how to use algorithms to solve them. They will now begin learning how multiplication and division work.
This week we were lucky to have Janna Brown, a meteorologist from Western Mass News, join the class to discuss types of weather, climate, and what it’s like to report on all of it. The class was very attentive. They loved her visit and learned a lot from her first-hand experiences.
We were also thrilled to have some snow to play in with our buddies this week!
Fifth Grade News from Ms. Johnson and Ms. Shero
Fifth grade has been learning about the water cycle. Students have watched some videos and participated in some activities and labs. They have made water cycles in bags to hang in windows, we observed the water cycle in a bowl, and we have cups set up around the room with water to investigate evaporation. Students have become water droplets and traveled through the water cycle, including rivers, glaciers, ground water, animals, and plants along with the ocean and clouds. Students also did an activity to compare how much salt water there is compared to how much freshwater there is. They also investigated how much of that freshwater is actually available for us to use.
News from Ms. Prew
It is time for midyear math assessments! These assessments, called check ins, are 1:1, interview style assessments. It is a wonderful chance for students to showcase all of the learning they have done so far this school year. If students are struggling with certain concepts we will develop a plan to support them. If you are ever concerned with your child’s math learning, please reach out! Be well! :) aprew@mtrsd.org
Library News from Ms. Wilson
Happy new year from the Sanderson Library! To get kids reading and checking out more books, we are kicking off 2024 with a “Cover to Cover” reading challenge for 3rd - 6th grade students. For this challenge, students have one month 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. Having a book read aloud to you counts, so this could be a great chance to start a new bedtime read-aloud!
This January, third graders will continue the Storyline project while fourth through sixth graders will begin research projects of their own. Fourth graders will design informational “did you know?” cards for 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. Younger grades will begin a four-week cycle of four different library “stations” that will include reading with stuffies, alphabet practice, computational thinking games, and a small group lesson with Ms. Wilson where they will learn more about navigating the library. I look forward to seeing students step up to these new challenges!
To close, here are a few of the latest library highlights from December, including a “buddy class” Storywalk and some of our work with coding and computational thinking.
Mindful Movement News from Ms. Sue
Happy NEW Year everyone!! It sounds like everyone had a good winter break with lots of activities, and time with family and friends. And now we have finally had some snow to make it feel like winter! This week we talked about I AM statements. These two words are so powerful, for what you put after them shapes your reality. We did a few artful activities and also some yoga stretches in between discussions so that it would get us thinking about what kinds of words we could use after the I Am…
Mohawk Trail District News
MTRSD Library News can be found at this link: https://www.smore.com/7vwq3
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!
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