Weekly Newsletter

We are so excited to have the students back at school! We have enjoyed hearing about their summer adventures.

All staff and students are creating hopes and dreams/goals for the year. These goals will be in a binder that is displayed in the foyer. From these goals, students work with their classmates and teachers to create their classroom rules. Two representatives from each class (K-6) come together to share their classroom rules and come to a consensus on the Sanderson Academy School Rules. The final rules are shared at an assembly. Posters of the rules are displayed throughout the building.

We held a school meeting (K-6) to learn about expected behavior on the bus. We started the meeting with a windshield washer greeting. Next, the staff introduced themselves and shared a place they traveled to on a bus. Students shared with a partner where they had gone by bus. We followed that up with an interactive singing of “The Wheels on the Bus.” Lastly, chairs were lined up two by two and staff used Interactive Modeling to demonstrate appropriate bus behavior. We will revisit and reflect on how the bus rides have been going as the year progresses.

Hello from the library! I hope you all had a wonderful summer full of reading and books (or experiences that would make good stories!). Now that school has resumed, it is wonderful to see familiar faces peeking in at the books on display as they pass by in the hallway, everyone a little taller than they were just a couple of months ago. Library classes will begin next week, and book checkout will start the week after. This month, we will build our library community and become reoriented with the library space, its expectations, procedures, and opportunities. Students will learn or review how to browse and navigate the stacks (fancy library word for ‘shelves’), and they will enjoy activities and fun read-alouds about books and libraries. I can’t wait to get started! I will send a letter home with important library information soon. In closing, I would like to send a HUGE shoutout to all who contributed to my Donors Choose fundraiser in August. Because of your generosity, we were able to add another comfy chair, logic and computational thinking games, and several new books to our library. It takes a village to raise a reader, and I thank you all so very much for your support!!!

In Preschool, we are so excited to welcome some new students as well as many returning students. The children are enjoying exploring the classroom and learning how to take care of the toys and materials. They are also learning the classroom routines and the names of their classmates. The classroom is buzzing as curious learners discover new things.

In our outdoor classroom, the children are becoming familiar with the boundaries. They are noticing all of the beauty that the natural world has to offer. The ever changing canvas provides for a new experience each visit. Eating snacks in the outdoor classroom has been a highlight. We are looking forward to continuing to learn more about each other as we embark on a magical journey together this year!

Our focus this week has been on learning more school routines and opening the play centers. The art center now contains watercolor paints and crayons. We opened our math center with pattern blocks, snap cubes, and rods. We are working on our first group art projects--birthday cakes for our months of the year display and started an ocean background for our fish tank. And we added our boots & bug spray routine and explored the first of our woods options (Close woods) for recess time!

Welcome back Sanderson families! We are off to a great start together in first grade. We welcomed two new first graders to Sanderson and classmates have been so welcoming, kind and helpful to our new friends. First graders are getting to know each other through a variety of activities. One activity is called, “Mystery bag” where children were sent home with a paper bag and filled it with items that help us learn a bit more about one another. We are learning expectations and routines that help us navigate our day. During our first week we have been reading many stories about the start of a new school year. Some of these titles are : A Letter From Your Teacher: On The First Day of School by Shannon Olsen, First Day Jitters by Julie Danneburg, Schools First Day of School by Adam Rex and Our Class is a Family by Shannon Olsen. After reading Our Class is a Family we made first grade bracelets as a fun little art project and to celebrate the start of our year together. It’s going to be a fabulous year because first grade is the place to be!

Second grade is off to a great start! We have spent the last week learning about our classroom expectations and getting the hang of new routines. We have been working each day on a fun back to school book that we can’t wait to show at open house! We have slowly started to begin some of our curriculum this week. We started off our math program by making some LEGO people that are colored depending on our likes and dislikes. After we finish we will build picture graphs to discuss what similarities and differences we have. We’re looking forward to jumping into more school work and learning what second grade is all about!

It has been a pleasure getting this school year started with our new class. We welcome two new students this year, Jaylee and Hunter. Everyone has been adapting easily to the new routines and expectations. We have reflected on last year as learners and begun to think about our goals for this coming school year. Using the desire to reach those hopes and dreams, we will create the environment we need to achieve them by crafting our classroom agreements later this week.

We have already been enjoying our gardens as well. We have been eating Sungold tomatoes and cucumbers for snack, and we harvested our garlic bulbs. We will soon bring in our corn and hang them to dry over the next few months.We are watching one enormous pumpkin which continues to grow but has not yet begun to turn orange, and we are eager to pull up our carrots.

It is so wonderful to be back in school with all of these new fourth graders. I hope you all had an amazing summer. We have spent these first few days together writing our hopes and dreams and establishing classroom rules. Our first ELA module is underway where we will be learning all about poetry. We are reading Love That Dog and will read our first poem, “The Red Wheelbarrow” by William Carlos Williams soon. I look forward to hearing from your children about what poetry means to you and thank you for your participation in that assignment. In geography, we are beginning our study of the Northeast Region. Our STEM project for the month of September is designing and building Spaghetti Towers.

Fifth grade has started off strong. We are staying current with world events through CNN 10, students are crafting their hopes and dreams for the year, we are reviewing multiplication facts, we have started our ELA unit about human rights, and are beginning our studies of the formation of the colonies. So much to learn!

Welcome back Sanderson families! I hope you all had a wonderful summer. I am super excited to see you all soon at the Open House event on Wednesday, September 18th at 6:00. You will find me in a new classroom, previously known as the fishbowl, so please stop by and say hi! In the meantime, I want to share these two documents with you: the 2024-2025 Title I Information Letter and the 2024-2025 Title I School-Family Compact. These documents will also be sent home in Thursday folders. Please read them over and email me with any questions or comments that you may have. See you soon! :) aprew@mtrsd.org

Thank you to all who turned in registration forms for band and orchestra so quickly! We have an exciting variety of instruments this year and I am looking forward to getting started with all of our instrumental students. Returning students began this week. Beginning students will begin as soon as instruments arrive.

If any 4th, 5th, or 6th-grader would still like to join us, it is not too late! We especially need clarinets, flutes, and strings (violin, viola, cello, bass). If you are interested in learning to play an instrument, please drop off a registration form (there are more in the music room if you need one). We would be delighted to have you join us!

Our band and orchestra kids will be holding a Bake Sale during the open house on September 18th. We hope you will stop by, visit our fabulous music room, and indulge in a yummy treat (or maybe even two). All proceeds from the bake sale will go to support the instrumental music program at Sanderson Academy.