Smash Friday Letter

PRESIDENTS’ DAY - MONDAY, FEBRUARY 15
SCHOOL CLOSED
**********************************
LOOK FOR YOUR
JOG-A-THON PLEDGE ENVELOPE IN TODAY’S FRIDAY LETTER
JOG-A-THON, MARCH 5!
****************************************
Dear SMASHing Families,
Several parents and staff members forwarded me the following New York Times Op-Ed piece that acknowledges much of what we do at SMASH. Please take a moment to read the article as a family, discuss examples of these practices in your family's SMASH experiences, and then send me an email with your thoughts (jrishe@smmusd.org).
Truly Yours,
Jessica

P.S. Special Thanks to Cole's Mike and Nikki from Core 3 for donating the printed postcards for our February 21 Core 2 and Core 3 Art Exhibit at ReDiscover Center!
**********************************
The New York Times
Playing to Learn, Susan Engel, OP-ED contributor
Published February 1, 2010
The Obama administration is planning some big changes to how we measure the success or failure of schools and how we apportion federal money based on those assessments. It's great that the administration is trying to undertake reforms, but if we want to make sure all children learn we will need to overhaul the curriculum itself. Our current educational approach-and the testing that is driving it-is completely at odds with what scientists understand about how children develop during the elementary school years and has led to a curriculum that is strangling children and teachers alike.

In order to design a curriculum that teaches what truly matters, educators should remember a basic precept of modern developmental science: developmental precursors don't always resemble the skill to which they are leading. For example, saying the alphabet does not particularly help children learning to read. But having extended and complex conversations during toddlerhood does. Simply put, what children need to do in elementary school is not to cram for high school or college, but to develop ways of thinking and behaving that will lead to valuable knowledge and skills later on.

So what should children be able to do by age 12, or the time they leave elementary school? They should be able to read a chapter book, write a story and a compelling essay; know how to add, subtract, divide and multiply numbers; detect patterns in complex phenomena; use evidence to support an opinion; be part of a group of people who are not their family; and engage in an exchange of ideas in conversation. If all elementary school students mastered these abilities, they would be prepared to learn almost anything in high school and college.

Imagine, for instance, a third-grade classroom that was free of the laundry list of goals currently harnessing our teachers and students, and that was devoted instead to just a few narrowly defined and deeply focused

goals.

In this classroom, children would spend two hours each day hearing stories read aloud, reading aloud themselves, telling stories to one another and reading on their own. After all, the first step to literacy is simply being immersed, through conversation and storytelling, in a reading environment; the second is to read a lot and often. A school day where every child is given ample opportunities to read and discuss books would give teachers more time to help those students who need more instruction in order to become good readers

Children would also spend a hour a day writing things that have actual meaning to them - stories, newspaper articles, captions for cartoons, letters to one another. People write best when they use writing to think and to communicate, rather than to get a good grade.

In our theoretical classroom, children would also spend a short period of time each day practicing computation - adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing. Once children are proficient in those basics they would be free to turn to other activities that are equally essential for math and science: devising original experiments, observing the natural world and counting things, whether they be words, events or people. These are all activities children naturally love, if given a chance to do them in a genuine way.

What they shouldn't do is spend tedious hours learning isolated mathematical formulas or memorizing sheets of science facts that are unlikely to matter much in the long run. Scientists know that children learn best by putting experiences together in new ways. They construct knowledge; they don't swallow it.

Along the way, teachers should spend time each day having sustained conversations with small groups of children. Such conversations give children a chance to support their views with evidence, change their minds and use questions as a way to learn more.

During the school day, there should be extended time for play. Research has shown unequivocally that children learn best when they are interested in the material or activity they are learning. Play - from building contraptions to enacting stories to inventing games - can allow children to satisfy their curiosity about the things that interest them in their own way. It can also help them acquire higher-order thinking skills, like generating testable hypotheses, imagining situations from someone else's perspective and thinking of alternate solutions.

A classroom like this would provide lots of time for children to learn to collaborate with one another, a skill easily as important as math or reading. It takes time and guidance to learn how to get along, to listen to one another and to cooperate. These skills cannot be picked up casually at the corners of the day.

The reforms suggested by the administration on Monday have the potential to help liberate our schools. But they can only do so much. Our success depends on embracing a curriculum focused on essential skills like reading, writing, computation, pattern detection, conversation and collaboration - a curriculum designed to raise children, rather than test scores.
Susan Engel is a senior lecturer in psychology and the director of the teaching program at Williams College.
*************************************************************
Is your child going to start Kindergarten in September?
SMASH applications are due NO LATER THAN March 31.
Any sibling application for Kindergarten received after this date cannot be guaranteed a space.
*********************************
SMASH SCHOOL TOURS
MONDAYS 9:00-10:00am
February 22 March 1, 8, 15 & 22
*******************************
WEDNESDAY BAKE SALES - Healthy Treats & Fun Items Sales start at 2:30 pm (Muir dismissal)
CORE 1 - March 10, April 28
CORE 2 - March 3, April 21
CORE 3 - February 24, May 12
CORE 4 - February , May 5
*********************************************
DATES TO REMEMBER
Mon, Feb 15 - Presidents’ Day - SCHOOL CLOSED
Sat & Sun, Feb 13 & 14 - 12:30-5:00pm - Santa Monica Pier Aquarium - Whale of a Weekend
Sun, Feb 21 - 3:00-6:00 pm - Cores 2 & 3 Art Gallery opens at the ReDiscover Center
Mon, Feb 22—9:00am - SMASH school tour
Wed, Feb 24 - 5:00-6:00 pm - Site Council Mtg-Center for Nonviolent Education & Parenting Presentation
Wed, Mar 3 - 8:45am - Auditorium - Yosemite Assembly - NEW DATE
Fri, Mar 5 - SMASH JOG-A-THON
Mon, Mar 29 - Fri, Apr 9 - SPRING BREAK, SCHOOL CLOSED
***************************************
Santa Monica High School Theatre Presents: The Tony Award Winning Musical "RENT"
Five Shows in Barnum Hall: Students $10 Adults $15
Fri 2/19 at 7:00pm; Sat 2/20 at 7:00pm Fri 2/26 at 7:00pm; Sat 2/27 at 2:00pm & 7:00pm
Tickets:Samohitheatre.org 310 395-3204 Ext. 239
***********************************
Last Weekend for THE AMAZING BONE, A Children’s Musical
For ages 4 to 104. Saturdays and Sundays at 11:00am, February 13 & 14
Morgan-Wixson Theater, 2627 Pico Blvd. Tickets: $6 for ages 12 and under; $8 for ages 13 and over. For information and reservations go to www.PigAndBone.com.
************************************
Stopping Violence in Young People’s Lives, A live streaming radio show
Friday, February 12, 6:30 pm Santa Monica Playhouse, 1211 4th Street
Join 8-13 year old student producers and hosts to discuss violence prevention.
Broadcast streaming at www,getsmartradio.net @ 6:30pm sharp—or come be a part of the live audience.
*****************************************
City of Santa Monica Socceropolis - Spring 2010 Soccer Camp Ages 4-9 years
Airport Park—Camps available March 29-April 2 and April 5 –April 9; 9:00am-noon
Sign up forms in office or visit www.socceropolis.com
*****************************************
Haitian Relief LA Presents The Gift of Music & Arts for Haiti
Sunday February 12, 11:00am-5:00pm Echo Park Lake
*****************************************
WHALE OF A WEEKEND AT THE AQUARIUM!
Saturday & Sunday, February 13 & 14 from 12:30—5:00 pm
1600 Ocean Front Walk, beach level at the Santa Monica Pier
Highlighting the annual migration of the Pacific Gray Whale. Wildlife observation station; whale related arts and crafts; story time, face painting, film screenings and a 2:30 staff presentation & discussion on whales.
*********************************************
Santa Monica Citywide Reads!
Heads into its 8th year in 2010 with featured selection Little Bee by Chris Cleave.
Special Events: An Afternoon with Chris Cleve on Sat, Feb 20 at 2:00pm.
Main Library, MLK jr. Auditorium. The author presents a reading, discussion and book signing.
***********************************************
Only 3 more weeks until
Jog-a-thon 2010
Friday, March 5
GO GET THOSE PLEDGES! Ask your neighbors, call family
and friends, pledge your whole Core (penny a lap anyone?),
email those faraway relatives. Is your teacher or parent running? They can get pledges too! We have extra pledge packets in the office.

VOLUNTEER! Are you handy with a paper cup, spray bottle or rubber band? If so, the Jog-a-thon needs you! We need parent volunteers to help hand out refreshments, count laps and cheer on our SMASH athletes.

Contact Lillie Schlessinger at 310-392-9446 or
lillie.schlessinger@transamerica.com to volunteer.

You can volunteer or just come and cheer!
Pledge Packets are due back Thursday, March 4

********************************
ptsa news
Dear SMASH community,
As many of you know, due to statewide budget cuts, SMMUSD will be about $10 million short
this school year, and about $14 million in the next three years. Clearly such budget cuts will have
a severe impact on our schools and our children. The Board of Education has authorized an
emergency school funding measure (the “parcel tax”) that will be placed before voters on May 26, 2010 (mail in ballot). At this week’s meeting, your PTSA has unanimously passed a resolution to support this measure. The PTA Council (comprised of PTSA officers throughout the district) has asked all schools in the district to support the school funding measure campaign. Your PTSA has voted unanimously to support this campaign with a financial contribution in the maximum amount permissible by PTA bylaws. Yet the support must be twofold. The campaign will need volunteers. Please look for future information from SMASH PTSA, and/or go to the PTA Council’s website (http://smmpta.org/index.html) for more information. If there ever was a time to be active it is now! It is time to help protect our schools!
Thank you!
Helga Schier and David Saltzman
C0-Presidents, SMASH PTSA


WANTED
Board members and committee chairs for 2010/2011 Consider becoming an active member of the PTSA. Contact your nominating committee:
Faye Jarow (fjarow@intelhc.com), April Motola (apnomo@earthlink.net) or
Tracy Saltzman (rhubarb1@earthlink.net)
*****
SAVE THE DATE
JOGATHON: 3/5/10
*****
Next PTSA MEETING
Wednesday, March 10, 2010, 8:30AM
*****
Contribute to our FAMILY DONATION DRIVE: ptsasmash.blogspot.com
************************************************
CORE 1 NEWS: WE LOVE YOU!
Our next field trip is on Wednesday, February 17 to the Fire Station. Our appointment is at 9:30 and we will be eating snack at the park afterward. This will be a walking trip so we will not be sending permission slips. We will return to school around 11:00, so the children will be eating lunch at their regular time. Each child will need to bring a snack, however, and we would love to get as many chaperones as possible. WE STILL NEED LOTS OF CHAPERONES, AND WOULD LOVE FOR YOU TO GO! Sign-ups are in the Magic Garden.

New Partners Dismissal Procedure: We are trying a new way to dismiss the Partners on Mondays & Wednesdays. At 1:30, Instead of being dismissed to the small yard to wait with Jackie for their grown-ups, Partners will wait on the rug in the Magic Garden. If your child has an enrichment class, or after-school care, they will be picked up from the Magic Garden. Please do try to be on time to pick up your child. Children not yet picked up at 1:45pm will be walked to the school office to wait with Janice. This is so that Jackie can return to the Sparkling Sea to support the Bigs in their learning. Thank you.

Core 1 Arts Share: Pirates & Fairies Holistic Drama Group: As you know, all of us in Core 1 have been participating in holistic, improvisational drama with Kristy Pace for the past 8 weeks. On Wednesday, February 24, Core 1 will share with the school community what we have done in drama this term…and YOU are invited! Family, friends, and the other SMASH Cores are welcome to visit our museum, hear our picture book and see a video of our process in Core 1. Our Arts share will happen in three rotations, running approximately 30 minutes, starting at around 9:20am. We will also be selling DVD’s and copies of the book we created around our experience for you to enjoy. (If you can’t make the share, this is also a great way to see what your child has been experiencing.) Extra order forms will go out in the 2/26 Friday Letter. Proceeds will go to support our upcoming SMASH Visual Arts Program. Mark your calendars for the morning of Wednesday, February 24! More detailed information to come!

Wishlist So many staplers…only ONE that works! When we participate in workshop-style teaching, we all use tools—one of which is a stapler. We have one working stapler left for both classes. They just don’t hold up. It is frustrating and slows down the flow of the room when one is needed. Making Friday Letter packets can also be a challenge. We have tried many types of staplers, but the only one that seems to hold up for us is the Swingline Optima PowerEase Stapler. We would love as many of these as possible.

Thank you so much for all you do to support Core 1!

HAVE A WONDERFUL 3-DAY WEEKEND!!
Happy Presidents’ Day & Valentine’s Day
Love, Candis, Chrysta and Jackie
Candis: cberens@smmusd.org;

Chrysta: cwyse@smmusd.org

CORE 2 NEWS
Dear Fantastic Core 2 Families and Friends,

Save the date! On Sunday, February 21, from 3 to 6 pm Core 2 and Core 3 students will be exhibiting their artwork in the Art of Ecology at reDiscover Center located at 12958 W. Washington Blvd. in Culver City. Each artist received postcards to share with family and friends.

Core 2 enjoyed The Amazing Bone at the Morgan-Wixson Theater. It is great for children to see other children on stage delivering a performance, bringing books to life.

We launched our new units of study in reading and writing. We will be focusing on reading and writing non-fiction works. This week we began studying features of non-fiction texts. The cars we drive come with standard and optional features to make driving easier; similarly, books have features that make it easy for us to access information.

In Math, 2nd grade mathematicians made big discoveries this week. One mathematician explained that while 8+2 is equal to 10, 88+22 is not equal to 100. Another mathematician discovered a relationship between 2+8=10 and 20+80=100. They played a game to find combinations of 10 or 100. The 3rd graders had to decide which is larger 1-1/4 or 1-1/3. They wrote their thinking in a convincing letter. They learned how to play a fraction card game. The directions were sent home on Thursday so they can practice at home.

Core 2 Science Mondays: “Look, one is crushing the others. They came together. I got it in the middle. I got it to make 3. A teenie bubble made that! I see how it is popping when it touches the paper towel.” We thank Majken for sending home science homework with provocations for children to discuss with their families.

Next week’s Stars of the Week are Isabel and Lily.

Dates to remember:
Monday, February 15—Presidents’ Day—School Closed
Wednesday, February 17—Last day of art with Julianna
Thursday, February 18 – 100th Day of School, celebrated in class
Sunday, February 21-the Art of Ecology, 3-6pm at reDiscover
Friday, February 26- Birthday Bash for January, February and March, see attached ½ sheet for info
Have a great 3-day weekend!
Laura & Graciela
lsherman@smmusd.org
gbarba-castro@smmusd.org








CORE 3 NEWS

Friendship is an integral part of growing and learning for all children. Navigating the ups and downs of “making new friends and keeping the old” and building memories with peers are important experiences during the elementary school years. The staff at SMASH has dedicated years of study to a researched-based approach to an effective social curriculum, Responsive Classroom. One important aspect of Responsive Classroom is creating a sense of Belonging, Significance, and Fun for every child. (There’s much more to Responsive Classroom--if you are interested, check out their website: responsiveclassroom.org.) Being part of a community offers a sense of belonging and significance, as do friendships. They fufill the fun part as well, most of the time. There are many ways to cultivate friendships. In Core 3, we offer many teacher-created small and large groupings, so the students have different opportunities to create bonds and relationships. In partner and group work, we learn how to communicate, cooperate, and compromise.

A child may find a level of respect and commonality with a rug partner because they share discussions about funny or important moments in a read aloud. This friendship might not lead to play dates and sleep overs, but could lead to sitting next to each other at snack or playing a game of handball at recess. Children gain respect for peers if they recognize something significant, like a talent or expertise. So we help highlight the great math strategies, ideas, artwork, musicianship, social skills (CARES), knowledge, sportsmanship, and kindness we see in different students. This has been especially important this year as we are getting to know and making a school-home for 17 new students. Occasionally, we allow the students to choose their own partners or groups, sometimes without guidelines and sometimes with guidelines (for example, you must have at least one 4th grader, one 5th grader, one boy or one girl). While this is fun for kids who have a variety of friends to choose from, it also often leads to discomfort--both for the students who have too many choices and for the students who are not chosen.

Friendships outside of school are important, too. Sometimes our life-long friends are family friends or a team mate or a cousin. They often give children more opportunity for unstructured interaction. More opportunity means more times to practice the art of communicating and getting along and building more complex friendships.

We found a related article on Yahoo News and are sharing parts with the students, which talks about the flipside of friendships—bullying. It's an interesting article and speaks to bullies and those that are bullied. Bullies do make lasting impressions on their victims. And kids who are at the other end are often kids who have not developed an ability to observe nonverbal cues. So in Core 3, we are carefully looking at both sides, so everyone is responsible and being mindful of the social cues we are putting out into the world and able to read social cues that are all around us. Bullying comes in many forms (not just the stereotypical stealing-lunch-money type) and we see some of the more subtle types in Core 3. The full article is up on our Core 3 Blog (SMASH website, Core 3, Genie), here is the lead:
Kids who get bullied and snubbed by peers may be more likely to have problems in other parts of their lives, past studies have shown. And now researchers have found at least three factors in a child's behavior that can lead to social rejection. The factors involve a child's inability to pick up on and respond to nonverbal cues from their pals. In the United States, 10 to 13 percent of school-age kids experience some form of rejection by their peers. In addition to causing mental health problems, bullying and social isolation can increase the likelihood a child will get poor grades, drop out of school, or develop substance abuse problems, the researchers say.
-Robin Nixon, LiveScience.com"Studies Reveal Why Kids Get Bullied and Rejected"

Talk to your kids about their friends, and kids they don’t really know or like in Core 3.

Tamara, Genie, and Malaika
tmugalian@smmusd.org
ghwang@smmusd.org

CORE 4 NEWS

Hello Core 4 Families
Narratives will be mailed home in the next few days. We worked diligently to reflect upon your child's progress, strengths and weaknesses so that these reports are a conversation starter! Please take the time to discuss school with your child. Ask questions about what is going well, what if difficult, where there is room for improvement and what matters most to your child. The comments provided by the teachers give feedback on academic skills, knowledge and community and classroom behavior. It seems that these midterm reports have helped students to focus.

Students are hard at work staying more organized, and producing quality and timely work. We are pushing for academic concentration before spring hits us hard and fast.

Lately, we are weathering the storms on rainy days with meetings, a game room, a hang-out space and a movie option.

In Humanities students need to finish their novels by Thursday Feb 18. An essay on the book is due Feb. 25. In Writer's workshop students are hard at work finishing a draft of their Personal Narrative. The Publishing Party is tentatively scheduled for Thursday March 4 of their pieces taken through the entire writing process.

I have started a GoCampaign Club on campus where students are working to raise money and send cards to Haiti and a slum project in Nairobi, Kenya. You can explore the projects by going to GoCampaign.org and looking at local fundraising pages. Smash has one for Kenya's "Hope in the Slums" project. Last fall, Agosto from Nairobi spent a day with Core 4 students.

PENNIES for PEACE: We are still collecting your pennies and spare change to buy school supplies and hire teachers for schools in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Building schools is one way to counter the negative impressions people in these countries develop about Americans from our military presence. It promotes positive relations and breaks down stereotypes as well as increases life expectancy for babies in these war torn countries. 1 penny buys a pencil. $1 buys a teacher's salary for a month for a class of students. We will culminate this campaign at the end of March at spring break. LOOK in your pockets, cars, couches, sidewalks etc for spare change!!! Have your student bring it in!

Enjoy a peaceful three days remembering our Presidents and our Valentines!

Thanks as always for your support and trust.
Bailey, Kurt & Kelly

Kurt: kholland@smmusd.org
Kelly: kkulsrud@smmusd.org
Bailey: baileyfield@gmail.com