Weekly Newsletter
March 3, 2022
News from Principal Emma Liebowitz
COVID-19 School Planning Task Force Virtual Town Hall, March 3 at 6PM
The COVID-19 School Planning Task Force will host a virtual town hall on Thursday, March 3 at 6 p.m. to meet with members from our local Boards of Health and medical community to gather information and discuss mask mandates across our community.
This meeting will help the task force in gathering information and data in making recommendations regarding any potential changes. The meeting will be livestreamed via the district's Vimeo channel, www.vimeo.com/mtrsd.
If you would like to ask a question to be addressed by our medical experts, board of health, or COVID-19 school planning task force members at the virtual town hall, please use the link below to submit your COVID-19/caseloads/masking (etc.) questions in advance: https://forms.gle/c6bWQgFQUA5Bhx7Y8
Events/Calendar
Wednesday, March 9 - 1:50 Release
Wednesday, March 9 - School Committee Meeting at 6:30
Wednesday, March 16 - 1:50 Release
Thursday, March 24 - 12:30 Release for Caregiver/Teacher Conferences
Friday, March 25 - 12:30 Release for Caregiver/Teacher Conferences
Wednesday, March 30 - 1:50 Release
Link to Sanderson Academy calendar.
Health Office News from Nurse Loranna
Greetings from the health office!
There will be a virtual town hall meeting this Thursday, March 3 at 6pm where the members of the covid task force will be available to answer any questions you may have. Here is the link to watch: www.vimeo.com/mtrsd.
If you have questions/concerns, please submit them before the meeting via this link https://forms.gle/c6bWQgFQUA5Bhx7Y8. Thank you!
Also, please send me a copy (easiest way is taking a picture) of your child’s covid vaccination card if you have not already done so. Thank you!
Library News from Ms. Wilson
March is National Reading Month! To celebrate, the library will be hosting a “Battle of the Books” for students in first through sixth grade. Using a bracket in the style of the NCAA basketball tournament, we will pick a school-wide favorite out of eight books. This year, our selections will all be award-winning books. We began Round 1 this week with this year’s Caldecott Medal winner, Watercress, by Andrea Wang and illustrated by Jason Chin. Watercress was also a 2022 Newbery Honor book. Our other selection for this week was Radiant Child: The Story of Young Artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, by Javaka Steptoe, which won the Caldecott Medal as well as the Coretta Scott King Award in 2017. I am eager to find out which book will make it to Round 2!
Today, March 2, is Read Across America Day, as well as Dr. Suess’s birthday. In addition to participating in the Battle of the Books, students have also been invited to take part in a “Read Across America” challenge. The goal is to read 8 different books by 8 different authors who are from 8 different states. Prizes will be awarded to those who complete the challenge. Participating students have been given a blank map to fill in with book titles and author names. Look for it at home! Learning more about an author can often illuminate new aspects of a story or help us to connect with a story more deeply. Some of our younger students might need help figuring out where the author is from…this could be a great activity to do with your child!
Preschool News from Ms. Freeman
This week we read and enjoyed Mouse Paint, by Ellen Stoll Walsh. The book is about three white mice finding paint while trying to stay away from a cat. The mice explore jars of primary colored paint and experiment with color mixing. As we read the book, preschoolers predicted which colors the mice would make, and experimented with color mixing themselves. We mixed primary colored finger paints to create new colors and compared our results to the book.
Preschool News from Ms. Melanie
We spent a wonderful frosty morning recently with our third grade buddies and Mr. Doug Cranson, a local man, who came to share with us his experience with snowshoes! Mr. Cranson showed us a variety of vintage snowshoes that he has been collecting since he was a boy. He told us stories of how he learned to snowshoe on equipment he borrowed from a neighbor and how that neighbor eventually gave him the very snowshoes that he used to borrow so many years ago—he still has them and he showed them to us. Then Mr. Cranson brought out snowshoes that he had made for his own children when they were young. There were many different kinds of snowshoes, made from different materials, but they all worked the same way. He even had a snowshoe made from spruce boughs and we learned that things found in nature can be gathered and made into useable snowshoes. Mr. Cranson demonstrated how the snowshoes made it easy to walk in deep snow. Soon we went outside and everyone had a chance to try walking with snowshoes. It took a while to fasten them all on, and they felt strange at first, but we quickly learned how to move our feet to let the snowshoes do their work. Our snowshoeing classmates and buddies tamped out a giant wheel pattern in the deep snow and before long, kids were even running in their snowshoes enjoying a rousing game of Fox and Geese! After the game, we snowshoed down to the outdoor classroom and stopped at the gathering log to share our thoughts about snowshoeing. The general consensus was that although it was challenging at first, most of us felt comfortable after a little practice and are eager to try it again. Some of our buddies said they thought they would like to try and make their own snowshoes! It was a lovely way to spend a winter morning and we are grateful to Mr. Cranson and our third grade buddies for helping us learn about snowshoes.
Kindergarten News from Ms. Sarah
We did several activities this week to re-establish our community after our vacation. We reviewed our class promise and why it is important. We read aloud a book each day about one of our class values. Students worked in small groups to come up with skits that demonstrate how to follow our class expectations and the rest of the group then guessed which expectation the performers were acting out. “Lulu” came to visit and the kids taught her our class plan for self-control. Everyone practiced using the break/calm down areas in the classroom. And we played a game to practice our class attention signals. It is so great to have everyone back together again and the kids all look like they grew over the February break!
First Grade News from Mrs. Wyckoff
This week we welcomed a new friend to our classroom! First graders are so excited to have a new friend to play with and share all their interests with. Everyone has done such a great job modeling how to follow our classroom rules and routines as well as to introduce our new friend to fun activities we all enjoy here in our classroom. In science we are learning about the reason for seasons. Children learned the following vocabulary words: tilt, axis and equator. We used a globe to demonstrate just how earth tilts and rotates on its imaginary axis. The talk of seasons and when the sun rises and sets led us to a discussion about traveling. Each child took turns identifying a state they have traveled to by marking it on our large classroom map with a sticky note. This gave us a great visual of how close or far away various states are, the cardinal direction (Florida is south of Massachusetts or New York is west of Massachusetts) of these states from Massachusetts as well as common places many of us have visited, were born or once lived in!
Second Grade News from Ms. Robertson
We welcomed March by beginning a unit on poetry. We started out the unit by discussing the different elements of poetry, such as rhythm and rhyme, and poetry-related vocabulary, such as imagine, describe, and stanzas as we read the poem “March” by John Updike. We will continue to reference these elements and vocabulary words throughout our poetry unit. This week also finds us working with syllables during our Fundations time, where we are focusing on strategies for reading and writing two syllable words, such as complex and disrupt, as well as exploring compound words, such as slingshot and catfish. During our math block, we continue to use open number lines to practice the addition strategies of “skip count by 10s” and “get to a multiple of 10” (also called a friendly number). When solving a problem such as 22+20 on the open number line, we can start at 22 and skip count by 10s to 32 and then 42. To solve a problem such as 59+31, we can start at 59 and make 1 jump to 60 (the closest multiple of 10 to 59) and then skip count by 10s to 70, 80, and then 90.
Third Grade News from Ms. Carole
In math this week we have been learning how to use the algorithm method to solve multi-digit subtraction problems. While most adults learned in school that this was THE WAY to solve a subtraction problem, today’s children are learning that there are, in fact, many ways to solve problems. The fun part of teaching about algorithms today is that we teach WHY the algorithm works, not just how to do it. This means a lot of time with both manipulatives and notebooks, side-by-side, showing numerically what is happening with the blocks physically. The students are doing a great job getting comfortable and confident with this mathematical thinking.
On Monday we were treated to a fun learning opportunity with our preschool buddies. Mr. Cranston shared with us some home-made snowshoes, and then we went outside and helped our buddies walk with snowshoes on their feet. Third graders were, as always, incredibly enthusiastic and helpful with their little friends.
Fourth Grade News from Ms. Laogy
Our opinion essays are really coming along. Most students have a working draft and are eagerly engaging in our revision lessons. This week, we learned how to write an introductory paragraph, with a hook and a strong opinion statement. We also learned how to make sure we had three very distinct reasons to support our opinion and how to consider our audience while crafting our reason paragraphs. I can’t wait to continue our work on this exciting writing project. Next week, we will consider opposing opinions to strengthen our arguments.
Fifth Grade News from Ms. Johnson
Fifth grade has started to learn about the westward expansion of our country. We are starting in 1803 when our third president, Thomas Jefferson, was president. We are learning about different peoples’ perspectives and reasons why people went west. We’ve learned about the Louisiana Purchase, Lewis, Clark, York, Sacagawea, Tecumseh, the War of 1812, and are now learning about Andrew Jackson. We’re getting information from a couple text resources and our reading anthology and will jump into some projects to reinforce what we are reading about next week.
Sixth Grade News from Mrs. Lilly
Sixth grade has jumped right back into our routine after vacation. We started a new math unit called Covering and Surrounding. This unit will help students further understand measurement. We will study area, perimeter, surface area, and volume. This builds on the unit, Prime Time, that they did in the beginning of the year. We’ve also started a new ELA unit where we will be reading the book Hidden Figures. On Monday, we looked at primary sources from the Apollo 11 mission to the moon, excerpts from speeches made by President John F. Kennedy, and excerpts from the book Hidden Figures. Next Friday, March 11th we will have guest speaker Rachel Simmons joining us in sixth grade. Rachel is a local author who specializes in social emotional learning of teenages! We are looking forward to meeting her next week.
Reminder: Butter Braid fundraiser is due this friday! You can place an order by sending in a check or money with an order form or you by order online using this link: https://your.mcmfundraising.com/signup/D3BR
News from Ms. Prew
Happy March, Sanderson community! Can you guess my rule for the ladybugs below? Please send me your ideas - I would love to hear your thoughts! Also, check out this Math Recovery website for a TON of great math resources. Click on the "Resources for Parents" tab to access books, games, videos, and more! Enjoy! :) aprew@mtrsd.org
News from Trish Aurigemma
This month's Newsletter will focus on Language Development for children from 7-8 years in age: The following information was found on the Home Speech Home.com and Oxford Owl.cu.uk
Children from 7-8 years old may typically understand multiple meaning words, demonstrate understanding of grade level stories by answering detailed questions, understand directions and follows 4-step oral directions. Learning to read is also a big part of any child’s language development. Children typically begin to learn the patterns of matching speech sounds with letter symbols. They begin with learning the letter sound identification then quickly move to open and closed syllables to form words, and then sentences. Children in this age range will begin to read simple picture books to early chapter books.
Children ages 7 and 8 typically have gained most of their grammar knowledge which include, using parts of speech in complex sentences in conversations. Many of their later speech sounds may also mastered, such as /r/, hard /j/, /tch/ and /sh/ in this time frame. They may also answer inferential and factual questions and give 3-4 step directions, begin to give synonyms and categories in word definitions. Finally the budding of figurative language begins. (Figurative language examples: “It’s raining cats and dogs.”). You may begin to hear children experimenting with silly word plays like Knock Knock Jokes.
Children from the ages of 7 to 8 years may enjoy the following activities that may nurture their language development. Parents and caregivers play an important role in modeling and experiencing these activities with their children. Here are a few fun and simple activities to try with your child to help develop essential speech and language and reading skills.
Story telling and retelling- take turns reading a story with your child, then have them tell the story back to you, but switch the ending. Ask a few questions about the characters and setting and how the characters and your child feel about the story.This is a great way to introduce new vocabulary.
Cook together- Cooking with your child is an excellent way to practice reading directions, following directions and measuring ingredients. After you share the enjoyment of eating what you have created. Then your child can describe the process of what you have made together.
Phonics Games-you and your child can do word searches together or, play Junior Scrabble,Bananagrams or Boggle.
Memory games- you and your child can have fun trying to memorize menus in restaurants, or memorize directions to a friend’s or relatives house using the right terms.
Listening games- You can draw a picture and then while you describe what you have drawn your child has to draw what you are describing. Compare your drawings. Then let your child draw a picture.
I hope you find this information helpful and as always, if you have any questions feel free to contact me. For next month's entry, I will discuss the language development of 8-9 year olds.
Girls on the Run
Baseball Sign-Ups - LAST CHANCE
Camp Offering
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