Weekly Newsletter
March 31, 2022
News from Principal Emma Liebowitz
Events/Calendar
Friday, April 1 - Sixth Grade MCAS
Tuesday, April 5 - Fifth Grade MCAS
Wednesday, April 6 - 1:50 Release
Thursday, April 7 - Third Grade MCAS
Thursday, April 7 - Pioneer Valley Symphony (Grade 4-6)
Friday, April 8 - Sixth Grade MCAS
Friday, April 8 - Pizza and Bingo starting at 5:30
Tuesday, April 12 - Fourth Grade MCAS
Wednesday, April 13 - 1:50 Release
Thursday, April 14 - BMX Bike Show at 10:30
Thursday, April 14 - 12:30 Release for Conferences
Friday, April 15 - Kindergarten Registration at 9:30
Friday, April 15 - Preschool Registration at 11:00
Friday, April 15 - All School Grounds Clean-Up at 2:00
Link to Sanderson Academy calendar.
Health Office News from Nurse Loranna
Well that taste of Spring seemed to disappear this week with our chilly temps but the weather seems to be getting warmer as the week goes on, phew! We are all ready for spring to enter in full! Seasonal colds continue to be present in the community, please reach out to me if your child is feeling unwell and keep them home from school. There is also an increase in dry skin and chapped lips; applying hand lotion after washing hands and before bed can help and I have available packets of chapstick for any student who needs that. Increasing water intake is another good idea to help combat the dry skin and lips! Thank you!
Preschool News from Ms. Freeman
This week we are learning about feelings. While reading a story, we have been pausing to focus on a character’s feelings. We notice how most illustrations show how the character is feeling. A smile indicates the character is happy. A frown, sad. In one book the character was scared, but didn’t show it very well, so we modeled how it would look to feel scared.
Here are some of the books we read to help us learn about feelings. Find a book at home and talk about the character’s feelings. Give it a try!
Preschool News from Ms. Melanie
Preschoolers continue to learn about colors and shapes. The children listened to the story Color Zoo, by Lois Ehlert, which does a beautiful job of combining these two topics of focus. Ehlert’s creative style with cut out and overlaid pages uses shapes to make the faces of various animals. After hearing the story, the children were then given colorful shapes, which included: squares, rectangles, triangles, and circles. They arranged the shapes into an animal of their choice and glued them to a piece of white paper. The children had so much fun using their creativity and knowledge of shapes! Their ideas ran the gamut from an alligator to a dinosaur, a peacock, a unicorn, a mouse, a bird and so many more. They are displayed in the hallway outside of our classroom, please stop by to see them for yourself.
Kindergarten News from Ms. Sarah
In science this week, we did three assessment tasks to show our learning about properties of matter. One was a bingo game, where students took turns spinning a spinner to select a form of matter, and then everyone found a picture showing that form of matter on their individual boards. The second was a sorting activity with pictures of solids and liquids (and four liquid cards had a gas hidden in the picture!) And last, students explained in their own words how you can recognize the different states of matter.
We also wrapped up our tapping of the trees with a book about sugaring, which linked to the states of matter. And we had a maple syrup party to sample our delicious syrup from our tree! (We used French toast sticks to help with the syrup sampling.)
First Grade News from Ms. Wyckoff
This week we are wrapping up our space science unit. We have learned the importance of the sun, why we have seasons, the phases of the moon and the 8 planets in our solar system. In first grade we love creating and making art, so of course we had to end the unit by using a variety of art materials. Using black paper, chalk and star stickers, children created and named their own constellation. In the second activity first graders took turns mixing ingredients to make our own sparkly galaxy dough. The galaxy dough was then paired with a variety of space objects like gems, glow in the dark stars and other space related items. This has been such an exciting way to close out this unit!
Second Grade News from Ms. Robertson
This week we continued our work with our science unit on landforms and bodies of water by exploring the questions “If you floated down a river, where would you end up?” and “Why do rivers flow?” by doing an investigation called Paper Mountains. We worked with partners to predict where “rain” would go when it “rained” on the mountains we created out of paper. We then made observations and formed conclusions about where the water in a river flows to and why a river flows, learning that water flows from a high place (a mountain) to a low place (an ocean). Another partner activity we did was a matching assignment where we matched illustrations of landforms and bodies of water to their definitions.
Third Grade News from Ms. Carole
Third graders will be taking their first MCAS this week, so they have been practicing answering questions with essays as well as using analytical techniques for answering multiple-choice questions. In an activity to make personal the concept of adjectives, they each wrote an adjective to describe how they were feeling before taking the MCAS. Here are the various adjectives they generated: fine, nervous, over-all good, great, confident, okay, awesome, bad, interested, and weird. Leading into the first day of such a large expectation, one can certainly feel all of these feelings, and I appreciate the third graders’ comfort with sharing them. We also spent some SEL time with Ms. Duprey this week talking about test-taking anxiety and strategies for calming one’s nerves. Good luck, brave third graders!
Fourth Grade News from Ms. Laogy
In math this week, we have been learning about strategies for solving subtraction problems. On Tuesday, we finally got to our lesson in which the students learn the standard algorithm for subtraction. Many of them observed, “Hey, this is how my parents do it,” or, “This is how my parents tried to show me.” We will spend the rest of the week practicing the standard algorithm and comparing it to the other strategies we have used throughout the unit. In geography, students will be learning about the products and natural resources of the Southwest. In other news, fourth graders will take their ELA MCAS on Tuesday, April 12th and Tuesday, April, 26th.
Fifth Grade News from Ms. Johnson
Fifth grade has been putting the concepts of the Earth, sun, and moon together. We have been thinking about their sizes and distances and how we see them from Earth. Students also started studying gravity. They have done activities to show how gravity pulls toward the center of the Earth as well as compare objects falling around us to objects falling on the moon, and objects falling in a vacuum.
Sixth Grade News from Ms. Lilly
It was so wonderful getting to finally meet some of the 6th grade families during conferences. Thank you all for taking the time out of your busy schedules to touch base. We had an exciting shift to our schedule this week! Over the past seven months sixth grade has had recess on their own. We decided that we would rearrange our schedule a bit to have recess with third and fifth graders. This will be a nice change of pace for our class! It allows students a chance to see friends from other grades, play games in different locations, and socialize with many kids. This Friday we have our first MCAS session for English Language Arts and our second ELA session will be the following Friday, April 8th.
Just a reminder:
Friday, April 8th at 5:30 - Pizza and Bingo
You can sell tickets in advance or people can purchase tickets at the event. Please make sure to be asking for donations towards our raffle as well. Thank you!
News from Ms. Prew
For the past couple of weeks I have shared with you some routines that our Sanderson students engage with during mathematics. Here is another fun routine - Math in Our World. This routine is all about discussing and problem-solving a real-world situation. Check out the Math in Our World examples below. Which watering container would you use in your garden? Why? Which container would hold the most water? The least? How do you know? Now take a look at the pancake recipe. How many pancakes would you make to feed everyone who lives in your house? Does everyone eat the same amount? What if you were just making pancakes for yourself? How would you need to alter the recipe? Enjoy exploring Math in Our World. :) aprew@mtrsd.org
Step Up Day at MTRSD
April 12 - MTRS Student Arts Panel
How do the arts play a role in the Trailblazer Model? What opportunities do students have to experience arts education at MTRS? How are MTRS students supported in building a creative community?
Please join us for a VIRTUAL student-led panel discussion on Tuesday, April 12 from 6:30 p.m. - 7:30 p.m. Our talented students will be leading this event to share their artistry and educational experiences. Take a virtual tour of our arts spaces! Enjoy a sampling of student work in vocal and instrumental music, studio and digital arts, and theater. We hope you will join us! Caregiver and Community, please RSVP using this form.
CPR Training Information
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