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Renaissance Academy News
December 2022
Here is the link to our calendar for reminder on days off and early release days for your reference.
Upcoming Events:
December 12 - February 10 -Encore Session Two- RSVP required. Inquiries to Rhiannon Tobeck, Director of Arts & Technology
December 21- Family Arts Concert at 6:30pm
December 19-22- December Spirit Week for Staff and Students- Check right for the dress up themes for each day. If a student is not dressed in theme, please send his/her in school uniform. Thank you!
December 21- Board of Trustees Meeting 4:30-6:00pm
December 23- No School- Winter Recess begins!
December 23 - January 2- Winter Holidays & Recess
January 3, 2023- Students and Staff Return to school!
Academics at Renaissance Academy
Social Emotional Learning (SEL) Focus for December
Here are the topics for our character education program, Positivity Project that students will be learning about and working on in the month of November: Bravery, Gratitude, and Kindness.
Academic Focus in December
K-2 ELA
Brr… It’s cold outside, but inside our K-2 classrooms are piping hot with small group reading time! Small group reading (often called Daily 5) offers teachers the opportunity to offer targeted skill development to their students in order to help them learn to READ! Those children who are not meeting with a teacher are working independently or with a partner on other reading, writing, and word work activities. To help with this at home, there are a number of different things you can do while reading with your child daily. Kindergarten parents, have your little ones find letters and heart words they know. See if there are any words on the page they can read. First grade parents, when children come to a simple word (i.e. cat, shell, ball, tin, into), support them in saying all the sounds in the word then blending the sounds together to solve it. Second grade parents, after reading with your young reader, ask questions that start with any of the 5Wh & How words (who, what, when, where, why). All of these tricks help students read the words on the page while also making sense of what they just read. Happy reading!
K-2 Math
It's beginning to look a lot like Winter! Our K-2 students are rocking and rolling. In Kindergarten, students will take their first Interim Assessment (IA)! These assessments help us guide instruction for whole group and small group learning. Students have begun Unit 4- Measurement. After two units of counting, and one unit of Geometry, where students observed, analyzed, composed, decomposed, and classified objects by shape, students now compare and analyze length, weight, and capacity. This unit supports students' understanding of amounts and their developing number sense. In first grade, students will complete Unit 3- Story Problems and start Unit 4- Data. Students will take their first IA in the second week of December. In second grade, our scholars will complete Unit 3- Story Problems w/ Add. & Sub. to 100, take their first IA and then start a six day unit on Data. We are so proud of all our students and parents at home who are invested in our student's education and success!
Can You Make 10?
6th Grade: Narrative From Different Perspectives
2nd Grade Write Superstars!
Ms. Finley is a Kindergarten teacher here at Renaissance Academy. She supports students social-emotional needs as much as she supports their academics. An RA family nominated her for the Golden Apple Award and she was selected. The news came out to surprise her and her class and celebrate her winning this amazing award! RA has the best staff around!
(Click on the title above or the picture to see the news clip online.)
Arts at Renaissance Academy
- Garth Fagan Dance Field Trip: On Friday, December 9th, 5th and 6th grade students who are currently participating in dance enrichment are going to see a Garth Fagan performance. This is a special opportunity for our students, as Garth Fagan is one of our partners and will most likely be offering an Encore class in the spring!
- Once on this Island Musical Field Trip: On Wednesday, December 14th, 4th grade students will attend "Once on this Island" at SOTA. This musical will allow our students to dive deeper into what they have learned about theatre over the years.
- Winter Concert: On Wednesday, December 21st, at 6:30pm, approximately 115 RA students will perform in the annual Winter Concert. There will be dances, performances by the band, and songs by the choir. It will be a really special evening! Students will perform for their peers on Tuesday during the school day.
- 2nd Grade Visual Arts Integration: 2nd grade students are starting off the new trimester of arts integration by diving into a math and art connection. Students will be practicing addition and subtraction through lego sculptures inspired by Ekow Nimako.
- Bach Children's Chorus - Greece Chapter: For the first time ever, RA will be partnering with the Bach Children's Chorus during our before school Encore program. Karla Krogstad will be working with our students to help them learn new songs and perform them in the community.
- 4th Grade Music Integration: 4th grade students are diving deep into music integration this trimester by research artists of the Harlem Renaissance. Students will analyze the songs of popular musicians of the time period, read texts about the musicians, and complete research papers.
- Skills-based Visual Art: This year in art class, Ms. Garland and Ms. Wyatt introduced "Choice Based Art." Students have the opportunity to plan and create their own unique works of art, using art materials of their choice. Wow!
- Lion King Jr.: Students have been busy rehearsing their dances, songs, and dialogue for the Lion King Jr. musical. We are so excited to see our students perform in the community in March! Check out students rehearsing the songs in the photo above!
Save the Date for next month's "What's The Buzz?" Mental Health Talk for parents
Restorative Practices Spotlight
At Renaissance Academy, the staff is going through ongoing training in the area of restorative practices to continue to make the school a restorative environment for students to learn and thrive. We are partnering with an organization in our community called PiRI (Partners in Restorative Initiatives) to complete extensive training and grow in this work. Each month in the newsletter we will share some information about restorative practices for your learn about, and that we also encourage you to try to instill at home.
What are restorative practices?
Restorative practices are highly effective ways to prevent harm—and to rebuild relationships when harm has already been done.
How do restorative practices work?
On the surface, restorative practices work in a very simple way: by bringing people together to talk and to share their stories.
Before conflicts arise or harm is done, restorative practices make it possible for people to build relationships. The sense of community this interaction creates helps to prevent problems—and makes it easier to resolve them if they do occur.
But when harm has been done, people rarely want to talk. Injured parties may want to shield themselves from further pain. And those who inflicted harm may not want to face up to their victims—or their mistakes.
After harm has been done, restorative practices bring people together to talk about the impact of that behavior on themselves and their community. By creating a process that is voluntary—and by using methods that reduce anxieties for both victims and offenders—restorative practices work in situations that might otherwise be out of reach.
Restorative practices are proven tools for helping people to listen, to talk—and to understand.
Next Steps to Try at Home:
In classrooms at RA we do "Community Circles". The class sits in a circle where they all can see each other. There is a question posed to the group. Only one person is allowed to speak at a time - whoever speaks gets to hold a "talking piece" or an object that signifies they are the ones talking at that time. We go around the circle and give each person a chance to answer the question.
Try this at the dinner table! You can pose questions such as:
- What was the best part of your day today and why?
- What was something that happened today where you helped someone else? How did it make you feel?
- What was something that frustrated you today? How did you work through it?
- What are you looking forward to for the rest of this week/tomorrow/this weekend?
As a parent, try not to respond immediately after your child answers the question to try to fix or solve something! If he or she has the talking piece, they are the ones to be speaking. This helps us as adults work on our listening skills too and really get to know our children! Make sure that you answer the question too!!! This will help your children learn more about you.
Try it out!!! Let us know how it goes!
RA Board of Trustee Meeting Dates
- December 21, 2022
- January 18, 2023
- February 15, 2023
- March 15, 2023
- April 19, 2023
- May 17, 2023
- June 21, 2023
The public is welcomed to attend and are allowed to speak during the section titled "Public Comment".
Renaissance Academy Charter School of the Arts
Website: http://www.renacad.org
Location: 299 Kirk Road, Rochester, NY, USA
Phone: 585-225-4200
Facebook: facebook.com/renacadarts