Weekly Newsletter
November 3, 2022
News from Principal Emma Liebowitz
We hope you will join us for our Pizza and Movie night this Friday. Please see information below for details and RSVP HERE.
Events/Calendar
Thursday, November 3 - 12:30 Dismissal for Conferences
Friday, November 4 - 12:30 Dismissal for Conferences
Friday, November 4 - Pizza and Movie Night at 5:30
Monday, November 7 - Local Education Council Meeting at 3:30
Wednesday, November 9 - Full day of school
Friday, November 11 - No School
Wednesday, November 16 - 1:50 Dismissal
Friday, November 18 - Third Grade to Sturbridge
Saturday, November 19 - Local Goods Distribution (9:00 - noon)
Monday, November 21 - Picture Retakes
Tuesday, November 22 - Turkey Trot at 2:00
Wednesday, November 23 - 12:30 Dismissal
Thursday, November 24 - No School
Friday, November 25 - No School
Wednesday, November 30 - Full day of school
Link to Sanderson Academy calendar.
Picture Retake Date
Picture retakes will take place on Monday, November 21.
Health Office News from Nurse Loranna
Greetings from the health office! Did you know why the newest covid boosters are called bivalent? They are called bivalent since they protect against both the original virus as well as the Omicron variants. It is very common for a virus to change over time, such as the influenza virus which is why each flu season the influenza vaccine is updated to provide protection against the anticipated circulating influenza types each year. Viruses adapt in order to survive and vaccination helps protect the population and makes it harder for the virus to inhabit its host (us). We are lucky to live in a country where vaccines are readily available as they can save lives!
There has been some promising news regarding rsv and developing vaccines to help combat this terrible virus. This is quite exciting as RSV can cause severe respiratory issues in both infants and immunocompromised children. Please see the attached letter from the MA department of health and American Academy of Pediatrics for more information and tips on prevention.
Be well~Nurse Loranna
Preschool News from Ms. Melanie
We spent a lovely and productive morning raking leaves in our outdoor classroom. We worked together, raking huge piles all throughout–taking a moment here and there to jump into one or two! Our third-grade buddies joined us and helped rake all those piles onto a big tarp and then preschoolers and buddies dragged the leaf-filled tarp to the compost pile for dumping. Our outdoor classroom is looking spiffy! We thank our buddies for all their good help!
Preschool News from Ms. Freeman
This week we are enjoying the beautiful weather and encouraging everyone to spend extra time outdoors! We had a wonderful walk with our second grade buddies and used natural objects to create something. Buddies made leaf piles to jump in, others created fairy houses, people, and animals. The photos show some of our creations. There is a snowman, a bird, a campfire, and a fairy house.
Kindergarten News from Ms. Sarah
This week, we had our annual fire safety presentation with Firefighter Mike! Students practiced procedures like the low crawl to get under smoke and stop-drop-and-roll if you get fire on your clothes. We also learned about how to call 911 for emergencies and got to see Firefighter Mike with his big suit on so it’s not so scary if we see a firefighter in real life. We transformed our dramatic play center into a fire station and the kids have been enjoying playing rescue and exploring some of the safety ideas we learned about in our safety presentation.
First Grade News from Ms. Wyckoff
In our social/emotional curriculum (Second Step) first graders have finished the first unit, which focuses on skills for learning. In this unit first graders learned the listening rules, focusing attention, following directions, self-talk and how to be assertive. Self-talk is used when we need to remember the steps to complete a task and being assertive helps us ask for help in a respectful, firm and calm way.
First graders had so much fun on our recent sugar rush run! Everyone persevered even when they felt like giving up and some even challenged themselves to complete 3 laps (3 or so miles!) We ended our day by decorating pumpkins and then writing about their unique pumpkins features. Check out all these silly, spooky and fun faces!
Second Grade News from Ms. Robertson
This week we started our lessons from the Second Steps social skills program. The first lesson is called “Being Respectful” and the main objective of this lesson was on identifying respectful behavior in others and in ourselves. This first lesson also extended one of the messages of the book The Invisible Boy, which was a focus of our reading block last week, where the characters showed respect to each other by appreciating individual abilities and qualities.
As part of our recent Fundations lessons, we have been reviewing that the sound of /k/ can be spelled three different ways (c, k, and ck) and we have been practicing the spelling rules of when to use c, k, or ck. For example, ck is used when the /k/ sound comes immediately after a short vowel at the end of a word or syllable, as in flock, flick, and socket. But when there is another sound present between the short vowel and the /k/ sound, k is used at the end of the word or syllable, as in silk and task. We also occasionally do a “Word of the Day” study, where we discuss word families/rhyming words and other word forms. We also discuss the different meanings of the word and discuss words that mean the same (synonyms), and if appropriate, opposites (antonyms). For example, a recent “Word of the Day” was flock, and we focused on the -ock word family and brainstormed rhyming words, such as dock, clock, and shock. We then thought of other word forms for flock, such as flocked and flocking, and discussed the different meanings of the word (ex. a flock of birds and to flock to an event).
As October came to an end, we closed out the month with two schoolwide activities – the 5K Sugar Rush and the traditional costume parade. All second graders participated in the Sugar Rush and did a wonderful job of completing the course, whether by running or walking. We also had some very imaginative characters joining us for the parade. The Sugar Rush and the costume parade were two fun ways we said good-bye to October!
Now that we have turned our calendars to a new month, we are eager to see what our November Number Corner calendar markers will present. One of the November Number Corner activities will expand our knowledge of telling time, focusing on telling time to 15-minute intervals, such as 1:00, 1:15, 1:30, and 1:45. Measuring will be another focus, where we measure the length or the width of classroom objects using nonstandard units, such as popsicle sticks and unifix cubes.
Third Grade News from Ms. Carole
In celebration of things that are a little bit interesting and maybe even Halloween-ish, we learned about bones and spiders in the past week. Using Mystery Science activities, we learned about where our bones in our hands are and made x-rays of them, and we also learned some cool facts about three very varieties of impressive spiders. We had a lot of fun on Monday celebrating Halloween together, too. (see pics) At the All School assembly this week, each third grader shared something about our garden harvest with the school community. Ask your third grader what he/she shared if they haven’t already told you about it.
Next week we will be tackling the tremendous job of tie-dying a three-color, spiral pattern on forty-four Sanderson shirts for the orders that came in through the Local Goods catalog. (If you are available to help us out with that project next week, please contact Carole directly.) We will also be introducing the concepts behind multiplication.
Our Point of Interest this week is The Continents. You can help with this one at home by seeing if your child can name all seven of them.
It has been wonderful to connect with parents at conferences for the past two weeks. As always, thank you for your continued support in making learning meaningful and interesting.
Fifth Grade News from Ms. Johnson
Fifth grade has been reading Esperanza Rising by Pam Muños Ryan in our ELA block. We have been learning vocabulary words, how to find the definitions to words we don’t know, how to write summaries and character reaction paragraphs, how to quote accurately from a text, and how to peer critique. This week, we have finished the book! We are going to continue to work on writing skills by using the story and characters. There are some scenes where the characters make yarn dolls, so on Wednesday, we made yarn dolls in class.
Sixth Grade News from Mrs. Lilly
Sixth grade is wrapping up our first math unit, Prime Time. We have spent time learning about factors, multiples, prime factorization, and the order of operations. After Prime Time we will move onto our next unit Comparing Bits and Pieces. We will be looking at ratios, rational numbers, and equivalence. We are also moving through our ELA program and are about to begin writing our first essay. We will start writing a compare and contrast essay. Just a reminder that 6th graders have their braided bread fundraiser going on through November 10th.
Mindful Movement News from Ms.Sue
Third grade wanted to challenge themselves with the Stick Together game…how many yoga poses could we do? They did AWESOME at Cooperation (which is the first word in our Sanderson C.A.R.E.S. program) the teamwork and creativity that each brought to their mat was wonderful to witness. Here are a few photo examples:
News from Ms. Prew
Check out this website! It is called Tang Math and it is super fun. Tang Math Junior is split by level (numbers 1-5, 1-10, or 1-20) and Num Tanga is organized by content area (money, fractions, measurement). Enjoy! :) aprew@mtrsd.org
Tiered Focused Monitoring Review of Mohawk Trail and Hawlemont Regional School Districts
Basketball!
CFCE News
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