Shady Side Academy News

Your child has recently become a member of a "Tuesday Team."  All members of the Junior school were randomly placed on a team that will meet once a month after our Tuesday assembly.  After getting to know each other each team worked on deciding on a name for their team.  These teams will give our students a chance to work with children and teachers of all grades as well as support staff throughout the building.  Our first meeting was a huge success.  On December 9th we will meet again and students will have an opportunity to share photographs of their families with their team members.

The entire Jr. school has begun collecting pennies to buy a birthday gift for the Jr. School.  From now until February 13th, we will be collecting pennies.  On February 13th, we will have a a birthday party to celebrate the 100th day of school and the 100th year at the Junior School.  We are hoping to raise enough money to be able to purchase a new Shady Side Academy flag to hang at the front of our school in order to commemorate our 100th birthday at the Junior School.

We have also started our annual giving tree.  If interested in helping less fortunate families over the holidays please contact Miss Riscili.  We thank everyone for their generous support of this worthy tradition.

Monthly Update

The children have been coming into the classroom each morning and enjoying a variety of free choice activities.  We then begin our day with a morning meeting where we greet our friends, learn about our daily schedule and explore a variety of math concepts through our calendar. 

In Math we have recently started solving problems.  Students have been doing  a great job explaining their thinking to others and learning new math strategies from each other.  We have experimented with a dice game, and are working on mastering the game of Counters in a Cup.  Recently we have been very busy estimating and counting by 10's and 100's the pennies that students have been bringing in.  Feel free to talk to your child or ask for a demonstration next time you are in to visit. 

We have recently changed our Center Time to solely focus on Language Arts.  This has allowed us to be able to work on reading skills with our children 4 times a week.  During this time students have also enjoyed independently working on language related activities.  We greatly thank those parents who have volunteered to help us during this part of our day.  Please know your assistance is greatly appreciated.

In Social Studies we have been learning and sharing about our families. Please take a look at our beautiful Family Crests in the hallway.  We are also learning about the first Thanksgiving and have done a fabulous job reflecting and writing about what we are thankful for.  We hope you enjoy these stories your child has written over the holidays

In Writer's Workshop students have been busily writing about Halloween.  We look forward to sharing our published stories with our classmates starting next week.

We have greatly enjoyed our "Secret Readers" who have come and read stories to our children.  This helps us get to know all members of our Shady Side community.  Before these guests leave we have been very excited about getting to know them better by interviewing them.  Thank you to Ms. Trenz and Mr. LaCasse who took time out of their busy schedules to read to us, your stories were enjoyed by all.

Happy Holidays everyone!

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