Dear Academy School community,

We hope this week’s caller finds you well, after an enjoyable April break and a smooth transition back to school.

It’s hard to believe that it’s May as we are sending out this edition of the Academy Caller.  While we will miss some of our traditional Spring events, we are looking forward to what the next few months have in store here are Academy.

Our plans for an addition to our main school building to replace the “White House” are progressing to a town vote scheduled for May 11th.  This project will provide much needed space for our student support staff, and will replace old, inefficient windows along the western side of our building.  There is an informational session this Thursday at 7:00 through Zoom:

Join Zoom Meeting

https://zoom.us/j/99611131638?pwd=M0NzUVBHM1lFbkFDelJ6Y25yRXkvQT09

Meeting ID: 996 1113 1638

Passcode: Jt96eX

After our experience with the Local Motion bike trailer, and seeing so many students thrilled to have bikes at school, and challenge themselves in new ways, we are currently fundraising in an effort to build our own permanent collection of school bikes.  This fundraising right now is through GoFundMe (gf.me/u/zri7x6), but stay tuned for bike-related events in the future.

On the opening day of Teacher Appreciation Week, I’d be remiss if I didn’t continue to say how thankful we are for our entire Academy School community.  While this year has been challenging in so many ways, our teachers have been innovative, dedicated and tireless in their efforts to provide a top notch educational experience for our students.  While we will eventually return to life as we knew it pre-pandemic, many of our experiences this year will remain as a part of our school identity, and we couldn’t be more excited about what’s to come here at Academy.

Some important dates:

May 31st - No school (Memorial day)

June 14th - Last day of school for students (half day)

Wishing you all a nice Spring.  As always, thank you for sharing your students with us, and please reach out anytime.

Jon

TEACHER APPRECIATION WEEK

Teacher Appreciation week starts today and runs till Friday, May7. We invite you or your child to send a note or email to their teacher(s). A simple thought and words of encouragement go a long way.  

Right before break Mr. Speno's remote students got to plant vegetable and flower seeds with Ms. Kathy that they then took home. Mr. Sessions talked about bike safety and then students got to try out the bikes and some even went on the bike trails with Mr. Sessions. Looks like I great time was had by all!
 

Jane Geidel's third grade students wrote editorials about saving the earth. Read these words of wisdoms by these amazing kids! In the next issue of the caller I will share more editorials from these third graders!

Don't Pick Sticks off Trees by Grace

One day you're outside to play .And you need a sick for a wand.Then you notice that picking sticks off trees hurts the trees. Trees are a part of earth. If you hurt the trees, you hurt the earth.Picking sticks off of trees is bad because trees help us breath so don't hurt trees.You don't want to hurt something that helps you breath. Find a stick on the ground and if you can't find any do something else.  If you can't find a stick on the ground, have magic from your hands.  I'm asking don't pick sticks off of trees.

Lyra  4/12/21 

Have you ever been out on a nice hike when all of a sudden you look down and see an empty bag of chips? Not only is liter it’s ugly, it  hurts the earth,too. Yea it happened to me litter goes into the ocean and it can kill a lot of fish. Also if you want to save the earth and fish, don't litter. Make sure to put litter in the trash. 

Do not litter anywhere it can kill any kind of animals. Litter goes into the ocean. Garbage is bad for whales, sharks, and octopuses. Garbage is also bad for stingrays. Save the fish, we need them to live. If we did not have them, we would have never tasted them. Fish live in the ocean, and garbage goes into the ocean. Do not litter anywhere.

To help save the planet there needs to be more trash cans and recycling bins.

By Jasiah

Did you know there are over 500,000 pieces of trash in the sea?  To help stop this you should RECYCLE , REUSE , and REDUCE. And another thing is to stop buying plastic products. To help save the earth, we need more trash cans and recycling bins so that people don’t litter.

Why do we need to save the turtles?

By Imari

Save the turtles to help the earth. In the ocean there will be no fish left by 2050 .

Every year 8 million fish are killed by plastic . Fish, sharks, birds and turtles can get killed by plastic .

Please help save the turtles.

Family Engagement Corner

z-z-z-z-z

I’ve lost sleep in my life, but never over the question-why does z-z-z represent sleep? Actually, I never even spent awake time wondering why…until now.   

Some literature suggests:

It may have been around 1918-picture a small saw cutting through a log-which seemed to best describe the sound of snoring. Onomatopoeia (if that is a fun word to look at, wait until you hear how it is pronounced!) means formation of a word from a sound associated with what it is named. Sawing wood=snoring=zzz.

Think back; when you play pretend asleep with your children, didn’t you include some snoring? Without the sound effects that game is a bit boring.

The sounds of sleeping are quite difficult to represent, particularly when sound effects are not an option. Comic artists needed a way to indicate sleeping and so popularized zzz to represent sleeping. It seems zzz is more of a symbol than a word. 

Sleep hygiene refers to healthy sleep habits. Studies have shown that kids who regularly get an adequate amount of sleep have improved attention, behavior, learning, memory and overall mental and physical health. 

We spend a third of our lives sleeping or attempting to sleep. On May 6th at 6:00pm Dr. Kristan Outwater will talk about sleep hygiene. With how much you invest in your children’s awake hours and how important sleep is for everyone, please join us!

Click on the link in this Caller to sign up for a 30-minute sleep presentation with Dr. Outwater. Q & A’s will follow.

“Without enough sleep, we all become tall two-year-olds.” – JoJo Jensen

"I don't need a hairstylist, my pillow gives me a new hairstyle every morning." - Unknown

Click on Sleep Hygiene to read more!

Summer Garden Program

Come explore the school gardens this summer! Help Garden Coordinator Tara Gordon tend to the beds, learn about new plants, and harvest some veggies to bring home. Each garden will also be a prize center for RiseVT’s Come Alive Outside Passport which helps families find fun adventures throughout Windham County. 

Students must be accompanied by a parent or guardian during open garden hours, adults are welcome to join in the fun as well! Open garden hours will follow the most recent CDC guidance around gathering outdoors. The program starts the week of June 21st. The final week is August 30th. Tara will be on vacation the week of August 16th but we'll continue maintenance of the gardens then. 

Mondays:

9-11 AM: Guilford

3-5 PM: Green Street 

Tuesdays

9-11 AM: Oak Grove

Wednesdays

9-11 AM: Dummerston

3-5 PM: Academy

Thursdays

9-11 AM: Vernon

Ellen Nam's Kindergarten class outside having lunch and enjoying the spring weather.

Food Connects been featuring food service workers to help tell the story about what's been happening in school kitchens during the pandemic.  This story features Jazzy. Click on the link below to read.

Click on the link below to view the Academy menu for the month of May.

CHECK OUT THE LATEST EPISODE OF NEBULA NEWS. YOU DON'T WANT TO MISS IT! Click on the picture below to check it out.