Weekly Newsletter
April 14, 2022
News from Principal Emma Liebowitz
Please Note
Friday, April 15 - Kindergarten Registration at 9:30 (no school for current Kindergarten students)
Friday, April 15 - Preschool Registration at 11:00 (no school for current Preschool students)
Friday, April 15 - All School Grounds Clean-Up at 2:00
Events/Calendar
Friday, April 15 - Kindergarten Registration at 9:30
Friday, April 15 - Preschool Registration at 11:00
Friday, April 15 - Earth Day presentation (3-6)
Friday, April 15 - All School Grounds Clean-Up at 2:00
April 18 - 22 - Vacation Week
Monday, April 25 - Local Education Council (LEC) meeting at 3:15
Tuesday, April 26 - Fourth Grade MCAS
Wednesday, April 27 - 1:50 Release
Thursday, April 28 - Fifth Grade MCAS
Friday, April 29 - Fifth Grade MCAS
Link to Sanderson Academy calendar.
Health Office News from Nurse Loranna
Tick season has begun, we have gotten a few reports of ticks being found on staff and students. Living in rural New England, ticks are a common occurrence, the best way to avoid a tick bite is prevention. When outside, especially in heavily wooded, or tall grassy areas, you should do a tick check and wear appropriate clothing. Wearing long pants and a long shirt can help, as well as tucking the pant legs into socks as ticks often climb up legs to get to the warmest spots. Wearing bug spray prior to going outside can also help, be sure to get ankles. Do a thorough tick check upon returning inside. For younger children, doing a tick check at bedtime works well when bathing or changing into pajamas. Check in armpits, groin area, behind ears, and along the hairline. Ticks are searching for a warm place to get their next meal. If you find a tick on your child, stay calm. Remove it as soon as possible with tweezers, grasping the tick as close to the skin as possible. You do NOT want to squish the tick's body while it is embedded. If a small amount of the head is left behind, unless you can easily remove it, you can leave it alone. Cleanse the area with soap and water and apply bacitracin to the bite. Keep an eye on the bite for a bulls-eye rash. It is normal if the bite appears darker than the rest of the skin, some minor irritation and redness is a localized and common occurrence. If the tick is engorged when you find it and remove it, reach out to your child’s pediatrician. They may want to give a course of antibiotics. Be on the lookout for signs of illness such as fever, fatigue, swollen lymph nodes and headache after a tick bite. They need to be attached for at least 24 hours in order to transmit any disease such as lyme. So prevention and quick removal of ticks is key. Here is an example of the correct way to remove a tick: https://www.cdc.gov/ticks/removing_a_tick.html. Feel free to reach out if you have any questions and/or if you remove a tick from your child so I can keep an eye on them when at school :)
Library News from Ms. Wilson
Poetry is happening in the Library! First graders looked for examples of imagery (description using the 5 senses) in the book Hailstones and Halibut Bones by Mary O’Neill and wrote their own short poems about spring. Second graders worked together to illustrate the poem “Block City” by Robert Louis Stevenson, and third graders wrote some beautiful (and funny) haiku poems that they illustrated and shared aloud with one another. Fourth graders experimented with “Found Poetry,” acrostic poetry, and using a thesaurus to rewrite a nursery rhyme, which had some very amusing results! Fourth, fifth, and sixth graders are also helping to illustrate poems to distribute on “Poem in Your Pocket” day, which is April 29th.
A couple weeks ago I announced winners for the “Read Across America” challenge and accidentally overlooked one participant who had indeed completed the challenge. So, a here is an extra-big congratulations to Wyatt Kuta for completing the challenge!
Preschool News from Ms. Freeman
Each week we visit the school’s library and select books to bring back to the classroom. Many were interested in an origami book a preschooler had selected. We were amazed at what could be created by folding paper. The back of the book showed other origami books in this particular series. Many expressed interest in paper airplanes. Ms. Katie happened to have a paper airplane book and shared it with us. Preschoolers enjoyed trying to fold their own creations or decorated paper while waiting for an adult to help them fold their plane. The photos show some preschoolers working on their airplanes and test flying them in the classroom.
Preschool News from Ms. Melanie
We had a great time with our third-grade buddies, decorating eggs! Our buddies prepared the eggs for us, removing the insides and attaching a string to the top. Working as buddy teams, we glued on layers of colorful tissue paper and hung the eggs to dry. On another day, we added decorative ribbons and glitter for a very festive look! The eggs are lovely! Speaking of eggs, the incubator in our classroom is humming along, keeping the chicken and duck eggs warm. Each day, we mark off another day on a special hatching chart. The days are flying by! We expect the bantam chicks first, followed by the bigger chickens, and finally the ducklings will hatch after one extra week. We are looking forward to the hatchings after we return from April vacation week. We hope everyone has a great spring break, full of joy and outdoor play!
Kindergarten News from Ms. Sarah
In science, we did a mini-unit about heat from the sun. We chose different areas of the school grounds to represent the microclimate differences in urban, suburban, and rural environments (a review from our fall social studies unit on communities). Then students built shelters to protect their “pet ice cube” from the sun. They placed a “test ice cube” outside their shelter as a control for the experiment. Afterwards, we compared the two ice cubes to evaluate the effectiveness of their shelters and discussed how the different shelter materials helped protect the ice cube.
First Grade News from Ms. Wyckoff
First graders are busy bees these days, with so much growth happening both academically and socially! In the classroom first graders have been learning how to compare and contrast two different stories written by the same author- The Mermaid and Goldilocks and The Three Bears both by Jan Brett. First graders learned that The Mermaid is called a fractured fairy tale because although it’s very similar to the original Goldilocks and the Three Bears, the characters, things or items and setting are different. During math first graders are learning how to write a number over 100 in expanded form. For example if we take a number like 134 we would say 134 is made up of 100, 3 tens and 4 ones (100+30+4=134) In science we started our new unit Survival of living things. We are working to answer the question: how do living things grow and survive? To kick off this unit we first explored the idea of living and nonliving. First graders learned that living things need air, food, water, light, and a suitable habitat to survive. Living things can move, grow, change, and reproduce. We then explored a variety of animals, objects and plants and had to decide if they were living or nonliving based on the animal,plant or objects needs or what it can do. Outside first graders are having a blast learning how to play gaga ball in the new gaga pit built earlier this year. They are taking all their social skills learned inside during our Second Step time and applying them to this fun activity outside! First graders are thinking about fair ways to play and the steps needed to take when a problem with a peer comes up. Keep up all the awesome work first graders!
Second Grade News from Ms. Robertson
During our reading block, we are starting to learn more about nonfiction texts. Using a nonfiction big book called Amazing Animals, we are reading about different animals as we focus on learning about nonfiction text features, such as captions, boldface and italic print, and sidebars. By learning about these parts of a nonfiction book, we can better utilize them as we read nonfiction text. Our math time finds us solving story problems using the theme of parcels and presents. A parcel represents a group of ten gifts while a present represents a group of one, similar to the tens and the ones we use in our work with place value. For example, 3 parcels and 4 presents = 3 tens and 4 ones, or 34. We are solving story problems about parcels and presents in different ways, such as drawing a picture of the parcels and the presents and using a number line.
We are also revisiting fractions during our Number Corner calendar activities this month. We have learned that fractions can be written for equal parts of a whole. For example, the fraction ¾ can be written for a garden that is divided into four equal parts and three of the equal parts have veggies planted in them. We have also discussed that fractions can be written for parts of a set. For example, if there is one strawberry and four blueberries on a plate, the fraction 1/5 can be written for how many of the fruits are strawberries and 4/5 can be written for how many of the fruits are blueberries. We have also looked for different patterns that are shown on the calendar, such as the green markers repeat the pattern of fourths, thirds, halves, and wholes. Feel free to use the picture of our April Number Corner Calendar shown below to extend our discussion of fractions and patterns with your second grader at home.
Wishing all our families a fun, safe, and restful April vacation! Enjoy!
Third Grade News from Ms. Carole
We have been learning about the Vernal Pool this week in preparation for Vernal Pool visits after spring break. The students are interested in learning about the many creatures that depend upon this temporary aquatic habitat for only some parts of their life cycles.
This week we are also excited to see our class book, “Wild Animals of Massachusetts,” come back from the publisher. Seeing their own hard work in color print and with a binding was very exciting for them, and they eagerly talked about taking them home and sharing them with family members. We hope you like them!
We are still in need of more chaperones to join us on the trip on April 29th to the Hancock Shaker Village. Please reach out if you are available to help us get the students there and back.
Sending out best wishes for a fun and relaxing spring break!
Fourth Grade News from Ms. Laogy
We are wrapping up our measurement unit in math this week. In the next unit, students will be formally introduced to a host of new geometric concepts, including identifying and measuring angles, exploring parallel and perpendicular lines, and discovering reflective symmetry. In the first module, students will focus on comparing, analyzing, classifying, and measuring angles. We will be finishing our studies of the Southwest over the next few days and then move on to the West Region. When we get back from April Vacation, we will start to spend some extra time outside for science.
Fifth Grade News from Ms. Johnson
Fifth grade has started learning about food chains and webs. So far, we have learned about photosynthesis. Students watched a video and did some reading. Then they created posters to show the process of photosynthesis. Then they learned about the food chain and food web. After a little more information gathering, we will create some food webs. One of the concepts they are learning is about how plants (producers) make their own food, primary consumers (herbivores) get energy from the producers, secondary consumers (carnivores) get energy from the primary consumers who got it from the producers, and so on. They are learning that at each level, some energy is used, so more is needed to be consumed to get enough energy at each level.
Sixth Grade News from Ms.Lilly
Wow! What an amazing turnout we had for Pizza and Bingo on Friday night! Thank you all so much for donating raffle items, money, and your time. The fifth and sixth graders raised so much money for their upcoming trip to Camp Keewaydin. THANK YOU! Now that ELA MCAS is behind us, we have shifted back to reading our book Hidden Figures. We are just about half way through the book. We’ve also started a new math unit, Decimal Ops. We will be focusing on looking at real world problems using decimals. We are doubling down on math right now due to the math MCAS coming up on May 3rd and 5th. We are reviewing topics they learned earlier this year and also skipping ahead and touching on topics we haven’t yet covered. Have a fantastic April vacation!
News from Ms. Prew
Our Sanderson students love hearing the joke of the day each morning so I thought I would share some classic math jokes with you all this week. Let me know which one is your favorite (my favorite is the first one). Do you know any good math jokes? Send them my way! :) aprew@mtrsd.org
What is the math teacher's favorite season? SUMmer
How do you make seven even? Subtract the "s".
How are a dollar and the moon similar? They both have four quarters.
Why did the obtuse angle go to the beach? Because it was over 90 degrees.
You know what seems odd to me? Numbers that can't be divided by 2!
Summer Opportunities
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