Weekly Newsletter

January 30, 2024

News from Principal Emma Liebowitz

Thank you to the PTO for sponsoring our all school ice skating trip! Everyone had a great time! We appreciate all the work you do! Also, many thanks to the 6th grade volunteers who visited classes to talk about helmet safety while on the ice!

Updated Bullying Prevention and Intervention Plan

The most recently revised Mohawk Trail Regional School District Bullying and Intervention Plan can be found at this LINK.

Upcoming Events

January 31 - Motivational Basketball Assembly (1:30)

February 3 - Local Education Council (LEC) Meeting at 3:30

February 4 - Exchange Students Depart

February 5 - 1:50 Release

February 13 - Senior Luncheon/Performance (10:45)

February 14 - Masked Reader Event (10:00)

February 17 - 21 - No School

February 18 - Students depart for Mexico

February 26 - School Meeting at 2:15

February 28 - Author Visit - Sean Peters (9:00)

Link to Sanderson Academy calendar.

News from the Student Leadership Team (SLT)

The Winter Wonderland dance was a huge success! We couldn’t have done it without the Student Leadership Team (SLT), the PTO, and many parent volunteers. Special shoutout to former Sanderson music teacher Ben Green for pumpin’ up the jams!

Library News from Ms. Wilson

The 2025 Youth Media Awards took place on Monday, January 27th. These annual awards are given to authors and illustrators every year by the American Library Association. The most familiar ALA awards are the Newbery Award for outstanding children’s literature and the Caldecott Award for outstanding illustrations, but there are many others! You can check out the full list of winners and honorees here (and add them to your family’s reading list!).

In the library, younger grades took part in a mock Caldecott and older grades took on a mock Sibert (The Sibert Award is for the most outstanding children’s nonfiction book). After reading a few “contenders” for this year’s awards, classes voted for their favorite. Younger grades chose The Yellow Bus, by Loren Long, while older grades voted for Life After Whale, the Amazing Ecosystem of a Whale Fall by Lynn Brunelle and Jason Chin. The actual Caldecott winner was Chooch Helped by Andrea L. Rogers, and the Sibert Winner was (to the chagrin of the upper grades) Life After Whale by Lynn Brunelle and illustrated by Jason Chin!

News from Nurse Mikaela

The health office was gifted two brand new warm winter jackets in size 14-16. Please reach out if someone in your family could use one. mwhitaker@mtrsd.org

Preschool News from Ms. Casey and Ms, Becky

We have been continuing to learn about things that happen in the winter. Last week we focused on hibernating animals and animal tracks. We looked for tracks when playing in the woods and tried to figure out what animals they may have come from. The kids noticed that most trees lose their leaves in the winter but that some (evergreens) do not.

We incorporated some forest animals into our block area and it brought up a great discussion about the difference between coyotes, wolves, and foxes. We took some time to look some things up about these animals and tried to figure out what some of the toy animals were by thinking about the facts we learned.

We will continue learning about what happens in the winter with migrating animals and animal adaptions and then move our forest animal study into nocturnal animals.

Preschool News from Ms. Melanie and Ms. Kylee

Preschoolers continue to learn about animals in winter. They are experts on which local animals adapt and can be seen moving around outside. They are also versed in the ways that animals make changes to survive in the cold.

Our focus has changed to studying animals that hibernate. The children are enjoying learning about snakes that huddle together in a big mass and turtles and frogs that sleep in the mud. The children are very curious about what it might be like to sleep all winter. What food could be eaten to keep you feeling full for such a long time? What activities might you miss out on (sledding, ice skating, snowman building, fort construction, skiing and of course drinking hot cocoa)? We even took a survey to see who would choose to hibernate and who would rather not. Most of the class thought it would be fun to give hibernation a try!

We will wrap up our Animals In Winter theme by taking a look at migration. Children will learn which animals migrate and the reasons they need to move.

Kindergarten News from Ms. Sarah and Ms. Veronica

In our social skills program, we started a unit on thinking strategies, as it is often how we think about a problem that determines if it sends us into an uncomfortable yellow zone or not. This week’s mental strategy was to evaluate the size of the problem that is upsetting you and put it in perspective by comparing it to truly big problems. When you realize your problem is not so big, it helps you to make your reaction not so big either. We talked about how when problems first happen, they often feel big. But we can compare it to truly big problems to help put things in perspective. We practiced sorting example problems into their size. Small problems are easily fixed and don’t interrupt your day very much. Medium size problems stop you from what you are doing and take a little more effort to fix. Big problems take a long time to solve and often don’t have clear solutions.

First Grade News from Ms. Wyckoff and Ms. April

The second half of January sure has been busy here in first grade! First, we started the week with our second visit from the Hitchcock center. First graders learned all about bird beaks and bird migration. They “flew” around the school pretending to be hummingbirds migrating south for the winter with a few stops along the way. We also welcomed two new students (not new to Sanderson!) to our first grade classroom. First graders have been so welcoming to our new friends and have been modeling what it looks like to be a respectful and responsible first grader! Our Brook trout are now in the swim up phase. They have absorbed their yolk sac and are ready to begin feeding. First graders also hosted our all school meeting this week. They practiced their parts, created fun greetings and activities and were shining stars as they sang “Count on Me” By Bruno Mars.

Second Grade News from Mrs. Lilly and Ms. Laura

In math we have been continuing to practice adding with an open number line. We are going to start to incorporate more subtraction too. In our reading block we are learning about r-controlled vowels. We learned that R changes the sound of the vowel. Our favorite so far is the /ar/ sound, because it sounds like a pirate! We have also started a new social studies unit about the past. We just spoke about primary and secondary sources. Do you have cool artifacts at home your child could bring to school and share? We’d love to see it!

On Monday, we had The Hitchcock Center visit us again. We learned about beavers and their teeth. We had a fun, cold lesson outside!

Third Grade News from Ms. Carole, Mr. Luke and Ms. Taylor

We have been busy in math learning about multiplication, and we spent time making a chart with all of the multiplication facts up to 10 x 10. This is a large display which the class worked on collaboratively and enjoys using when needed. As we get more familiar with strategies for the multiplication facts, reliance on this chart will become diminished, but right now it is very popular!

Third graders have had two different sessions working with our guests from Mexico to learn some Spanish. It has been exciting for them to begin to see how a different language sounds, and to embrace the challenge of saying a few words.

On January 17th we were treated to a special visitor from the Vermont Museum. To tie into our Pourquoi Tale writing, we got to hear other cultures’ Pourquoi Tales and meet the lead characters. Third graders from Charlemont and Colrain joined us as we met a tarantula, a turtle, a brown rat, and a red-tailed hawk. Third graders are continuing to work diligently on their own tales and will soon learn how to use a Google doc to type their stories.

Fourth Grade News from Ms. Lagoy and Mrs. Upright

Fourth grade is beginning a new and exciting unit in math: geometry. In this unit your child will: ❚ Measure angles and determine angle measurements based upon given information ❚ Sort and classify shapes based upon the number and kinds of sides and angles they have ❚ Calculate the area and perimeter of rectangles Your child will learn and practice these skills by solving problems like those shown below.

We are looking forward to our STEM project Monday with the exchange students from Lomas Altas. Fourth graders will partner with a student from Mexico to build a football launcher and upright. We will build upon what we learned about designing and building launchers in our October STEM challenge when we built pumpkin launchers.

In ELA students have started to write their literary essay about the animal they researched. In this paragraph, students described the animal, wrote about its habitat, diet and predators. They will write proof paragraphs next week about their defense mechanisms. Be sure to ask your child to tell you about their animal.

We are close to finishing up our study of the Midwest Region in geography. Your child should be able to tell you about a place they’d like to visit by the end of next week.

News from Ms. Prew

Check this out:

Reading News from Mrs. Morey

Read-alouds are a great way for students to hear fluent reading, begin to understand story structure and be exposed to new vocabulary. Here are some tips for developing a read aloud routine from The Meadows Center for Preventing Educational Risk:

Counseling News from Ms. Neuf

This month the 5th graders have been acting as mentors to a few 3rd graders through the “ Minecraft” game. This provides a “win-win” opportunity for both the 3rd graders and 5th graders to form cooperative relationships over a game that they all enjoy.

Spring Musical

MTRS is putting on a Spring Musical to be performed on May 2nd and 3rd of 2025. We would love to involve students in Grades 5 & 6 in this show. At this stage we would like to find out who might be interested. In January, Director Paul will schedule a student meeting for students in grades 5 & 6 at MTRS to see which roles students will take in the show. A parent information meeting will also be scheduled for January/ February with information about rehearsal and an opportunity to ask Paul logistical questions.

Places will be limited to the first 15 students who sign up: Spring Musical Interest

If you have questions, please reach out to Director Paul: Stagedirector@mtrsd.org