Smash Friday Letter

View a great video of SuperSMASH on the Santa Monica Mirror website
http://smmirror.com/#mode=single&view=32353
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8th Grade Graduation
& All-School Luncheon
Tuesday, June 21
Graduation at 10am, Lunch to follow
This year, we are requesting that all families contribute cash ($10 donation suggested) or
bring a fruit or dessert dish (enough to serve at least 10 people) for our all-school graduation
party. The SMASH PTSA will provide the cake, drinks and paper goods.
Please bring your cash donation to Janice or Wende in the SMASH office any time.
If you are bringing a fruit or dessert dish, please bring it the day of the graduation, pre-cut and ready to serve (including utensil).
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ORDER YOUR SMASH YEARBOOK TODAY! - $20 Each
Please bring your cash or check to Janice or Wende in the SMASH Office
The $20 is due when the order is placed.
Purchase with cash or check payable to SMASH PTSA
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Dear SMASHing Families,
It’s almost time for Tuesday’s graduation, a special time for the whole school to get together and celebrate the way our students have grown over the years. In my speech I will remind our graduates to keep following their passions and aim high but remember that “To accomplish great things we must dream as well as act” (Anatole France). I hope all of us will spend the summer and beyond going out there, to DREAM and ACT! Thank you all for your continued support of your child and of SMASH.
Have a great summer, see you when we return August 30th.
Jessica
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SUMMER READING AT SANTA MONICA PUBLIC LIBRARIES
Encourage your children to read this summer.
Summer reading lists can be found at http://www.smmusd.org/reading/.
The Santa Monica Public library will have all these books available at their branches, and will also provide wonderful children's programs for summer reading with the theme "One World, Many Stories."
A list of the library's summer programs for kids can be found here: http://smpl.org/uploadedFiles/Library/
Kids_and_Parents/Programs_and_Events/SUMMER%202011%20KIDS_programs.pdf
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Special Thanks to Violet Varner (as Janice) for formatting today’s Friday Letter,
Luca Trevellin (as Wende) for copying this letter
and Lilly Chertock (as Jessica) for being the big boss today
and to all three of them for keeping the school running smoothly today.
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DATES TO REMEMBER
Mon, Jun 20 - Student Council Field Day, 10:30-12:30
Mon, Jun 20 - Minimum Day - 1:30 dismissal
Tues, Jun 21 - 8TH GRADE GRADUATION 10:00am & all-school luncheon
$10 donations suggested, or bring a fruit or dessert dish (ready to serve)
Tues, June 21 - Minimum Day - 1:30 dismissal
Wed, Jun 22 - All School Beach Day. Minimum day - 1:30 pm LAST DAY OF SCHOOL!
Tues, Aug 30 - School resumes
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Santa Monica 5th Annual Main Street 4th of July Parade (starts at 9:30am)
Honoring the Ocean Lifeguards as Grand Marshal
Questions? parade@opa-sm.org; Volunteer at volunteers@opa-sm.org; Join the parade at entry@opa-sm.org
Continue the celebration at the Heritage Square after-party immediately following the parade at 2612 Main Street (at Ocean Park Blvd)
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FROM THE MUIR/SMASH LIBRARY
All borrowed books are due back to the library. Our school library has very limited funds to purchase books so please help your child look for and return these items. Narratives will not be issued until all books are returned or paid for if lost. Thanks for your help
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IMPORTANT NOTICE FROM NURSE SANDY
All students entering 7th though 12th grade next school year must have their Tdap booster immunization before the first day of school (August 30).
Proof of vaccination (or the appropriate waiver) is to be turned in to the school the child will be attending in August.
If you have an appointment set up for the summer, bring in the paperwork to Janice (who will be back in the office on Aug. 18), or to the SAMOHI health office on that same date if your child is entering 9th grade .You may also mail it to the specific school with attention to the "health office."
SAMOHI will not give students their schedule without proof of immunization or waiver.
If you want to sign a waiver it can be done by coming by the office before the last day of school (June 22).
Both Venice Family clinic and Westside Family Health Center have free shots available to qualified students. Also Rite Aid is offering the shots for $55.00 on a walk in basis.

Your child will not be admitted to class
without the Tdap immunization or waiver.
Thank you, Sandra Cano, School Nurse
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SANTA MONICA CELEBRATES JULY 4TH ON JUNE 25
Corsair Field at Santa Monica College. Gates open at 5:00pm - Fireworks at 9:00pm Free admission - $5.00 parking.
Alcoholic beverages, glass containers, barbeques, fireworks and chairs with pointed legs are prohibited. Live entertainment, community service booths, beach balls, food and a live auction!
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TEENY FILM FEST
Theme: What I love - Deadline: July 8
Documentary, fiction, music or experimental of 2 minutes and under
Festival Dates: August 13 & 14 - 7:00pm at VIDIOTS ANNEX 302 Pico Blvd (at 3rd Street)
email teenyfilmfest@gmail.com for an application www.vidiotsvideo.com


SMASH Beach Day Guidelines for Wednesday, June 22
Students may not stay at the beach
with anyone other than a parent/guardian without a written note!
We will not take a phone call while on the beach as permission.
This will be strictly enforced!

Each student needs to come to school wearing sunscreen and a swimsuit under their clothing, with a backpack filled with food, water, a towel, sunscreen and a sweatshirt and/or a change of clothes. Please make sure your child's backpack and towel is labeled with their name! Wear good shoes for walking! You may bring sand toys.

· Core 3 and Core 4 may bring Boogie Boards—NO SURFBOARDS.

· Core 4 students MAY go get food at Perrys - go in pairs or groups and eat there -
they may not bring the food back to the beach!

· We will be leaving SMASH for Life Guard Station #26 (at the end of Ocean Park Blvd.) beginning at 8:45 a.m. Stay together on the walk down to the beach.

· Cores will “camp” on the sand—sit together, please, and take care of your stuff!

· No going in the water until the lifeguard tells us about water conditions and the boundaries. In the water, stay between the cones and only go in as far as the lifeguard allows (knees, waist, and chest). Stay with friends!

· Go to the bathroom in pairs or groups tell an adult before you go and tell that same
adult when you return.

· Play safely and respectfully respond to all/any adults.

· We will leave the beach at 1:00 to return to school by 1:30.

· Follow these guidelines or get escorted back to school.

PARENTS ARE ENCOURAGED TO JOIN IN THE FUN!

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CORE 1 NEWS

THANK YOU TO ALL CORE 1 FAMILIES FOR A MAGNIFICENT YEAR!!

BEST WISHES TO THE MENTORS WHO ARE MOVING-UP TO CORE 2!

We look forward to ending the year with many opportunities to celebrate and honor our friendships and learning from this year.

Jackets, Sweaters, and Shirts, Oh My!!
Please take time to double-check your child’s cubby AND the coat hooks in the small yard before the end of the school year. All of the clothes left in Core 1 will be donated to Goodwill after Wednesday.

Santa Monica Summer Reading Program…
Olivia Narin, librarian from the newly-renovated Ocean Park Library, got us SO excited about the Summer Reading program. The fun starts on Saturday, June 18 at all library sites. Signups are in person so that participants can receive their reading logs and book bags. They will also be at Virginia Avenue Park for the Juneteenth Festival on June 18 with signups at our library booth. As the children read throughout the summer, they’ll receive prizes at hourly levels (the levels are different for each club) ending with a book prize. Signups will continue through Saturday, August 27.

Dates to Remember:
Monday, June 20th – All-School Field Day
1:30 Dismissal

Tuesday, June 21st –
9:00 – Core 1 End-of-the-Year Celebration – Children will be sharing their Portfolios and final
Published Books. Family and friends are welcome.
10:00 – 8th Grade Graduation
12:00ish – All–School Potluck – Have you turned in your donation???

Wednesday, June 22nd – All-School Beach Day / Last Day of School
Please refer to the enclosed information.

Over the summer, information will be sent out regarding Core 1 summer events.

TUESDAY, AUGUST 30TH – 1ST DAY OF SCHOOL

HOPE YOUR SUMMER IS FULL OF REST AND SPRINKLED WITH ADVENTURE!!

Candis, Chrysta, Graciela, Karin, and Jackie
Candis: cberens@smmusd.org Chrysta: cwyse@smmusd.org
Graciela:gbarba-castro@smmusd.org

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CORE 2 NEWS
Week in Review
Advisory: Can you believe this was the last full week of school! The year flew by, the kids worked hard and learned a lot, and everyone is ready for summer vacation. Ask your child about their favorite Core 2 memories. They are bringing home lots of memories to share with you.

Theme: Laura’s group wrapped up their unit on community, statehood, Santa Monica, and California.
Tamara’s group wrapped up their unit on energy, matter, and physical and chemical changes. During theme this year we focused on “multiple ways of knowing (how you learn about things) and multiple ways of showing (how you demonstrate what you learned).” Ask your child about their favorite way to learn new information and their favorite way to show what they learned. They are bringing home lots of Theme work in their yellow folders to share with you.

Literacy: in RW we finished Hate That Cat. Ask your child how and why the main character changed during the story.
In WW the Meatball Heads had an informal poetry slam—they shared one original poem, one “inspired by” poem, and one poem from their new poetry booklet (Tamara’s year-end gift to them). Moo continued their mini-comics unit (Laura’s year-end gift to them)—ask them to share the cool comics they created. Both groups listened to an intense read aloud, Fox, and practiced taking notes on their ideas about the book. Then they practiced turning those ideas into thesis statements for literary essays, supporting their ideas with reasons/evidence from the book. They are bringing home lots of RW work in their blue folders and WW work in their red folders to share with you.

Math: Laura’s 3rd graders continued investigating the strategies to add and subtract 3 digit numbers. Attached to this Friday letter are some suggestions to practice your math over the summer. Also see things to do below.
Tamara’s 4th graders took a “final exam” that listed the benchmarks from each unit (as found on the 4G math narratives) with an example of a problem that demonstrates that skill. They are also bringing home lots of Math work in their green folders to share with you.
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Things to do:
*RW Summer HW: you should read and discuss books almost every day!
*WW Summer HW: keep writing —a diary/journal, creative stories, scripts, your life story…
*Word Work HW: if we told you to practice long vowel word families on the narrative, do it!!!
*3G Math Summer HW: play all the math activities that have been sent home this year, practice your multiplication facts with product of 50 or below. Check you math narrative for more ideas!
*4G Math Summer HW: Please look at the 4G math assessment and compare it to your child’s narrative for a better understanding of the math they learned and the math they still need to practice. The types of problems on this assessment, along with specific notes to your child in the narrative, give you all the info you need for math practice for the summer.
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Dates for you:
Monday, June 20, 10:30 – 12:30 Field Day—come join the fun, 1:30 dismissal
Tuesday, June 21, 10:00 8th Grade Graduation, 1:30 dismissal
Wednesday, June 22 – Beach Day, 1:30 dismissal & last day of this school year!
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A special note, too: Working with your kids at a school like SMASH is a gift. They are bringing home an amazing gift in a blue folder to share with you. We know you will treasure it always! Shout out to Kelly and her mom!

Laura is off to visit grandchildren back east, read lots of mysteries, continue doing yoga with her best friend, visiting her mommy, hanging with her local daughter, and enjoying her condo this summer.

Tamara is happy to report stable health, a trip to Europe with her oldest son, lots of Mugalian Family Snuggle-Fest Movie Nights, lots of fresh fruits & veggies, and not driving her car!

Happy Summer—make the most of your time and create memories along the way!
Laura: lsherman@smmusd.org;
Tamara: tmugalian@smmusd.org
Jayme: j.wold@smmusd.org

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CORE 3 NEWS

Thank you, SMASHing Core 3 Families! This past year has been an amazing year of transitioning into the new core structure, moving upstairs, overnight field trips to Catalina and Astrocamp, working with 3 teachers, themes around Building/Power/Systems and incredible growth. We hope you take some time with your child to reflect on the year.

Thanks to everyone who turned in their Core 3 Fun Day money and brought fun day items, the student committees for organizing the event, and all the parents who were able to help chaperone our community and referee our competitive spirits! It was a fun day!

6th gr Math w/ Carrie: Congratulations to our fraction, decimal, and percent conquerors! We covered A LOT in just two days a week and I am extremely proud of the 6th graders for pushing themselves. Keep sharpening your skills over the summer so you can enter Core 4 with as much confidence as you're leaving Core 3 with! It has been a pleasure figuring out fractions with you!

5th gr Math w/ Genie: The 5th grade mathematicians have grown! They have matured and worked on being serious learners and should continue to work on their work habits. Many have memorized their multiplication and division facts, which only makes all other math easier to conquer. They have learned new strategies, algorithms and math concepts. Summer is such a long break, I hope families know it is important to practice all skills on a regular basis, so
while you are on that car trip, laying on the beach, or waiting for instructions from a camp counselor, I hope you give yourself a math problem to solve or go through some math facts so you are ready for 6th grade math.

Science: Wow! What a way to end the year! Our doctors presented their patients symptoms, diagnoses, and treatment plans. The clinics did a great job figuring out what was going on with each individual patient and they gave fabulous recommendations for their patients. We had some really complicated situations including: diabetes, depression, anemia, blood poisoning, mercury poisoning, skin cancer, pregnancy, and lung cancer. The students took their roles incredibly seriously and were very thorough, I was quite impressed. Thank you for a fabulous year of scientific exploration!

Reading Workshop: We are readers! After another year of lots of reading, more of us officially became life-long readers. I can't wait to hear all the amazing books that captivated us and gave us lots to think about over the summer. I am making my summer reading plans. Along with some teacher professional books and my New Yorker subscription (I'm backed up a few issues), The Hunger Games is on my list, because many kids have been buzzing about it all year.
Does your child have a summer reading plan? Plans help in making ourselves accountable, organized, and rigorous. The library is a great resource for reading support, as is readkiddoread.com. Have a glorious summer of reading!

Writing Workshop: Our Historical Fiction and Poetry writing celebration today was amazing. It was amazing because of the writing that was produced. And the most amazing part of it all is I taught very few lessons and observed more than conferred with the writers at work. It is the goal of any writing workshop teacher to have independence in the classroom. Where writers know a writing process that works for them, where writers know the resources they need to support them in their writing, and to use their workshop community to help them. Your writers know the essence of a good story and the structure of an essay. And to top it off, they know how to write to interest the reader so they aren't bored. I'm amazed. I am honored to have known these writers. Keep writing!

Homework:
Make sure your child remembers to bring their backpacks filled with their notebooks, pencils, and just right reading book on Monday and Tuesday. Even with the exciting activities of field day and graduation, we will still be doing some work.

Genie: ghwang@smmusd.org
Carrie: cferguson@smmusd.org
Erin: ehaendel@smmusd.org

* All students entering 7th through 12th grade MUST have proof of a Tdap booster immunization or have signed a waiver BEFORE entering school on August 30, 2011. See Nurse Sandy’s note in today’s Friday Letter
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CORE 4 NEWS

SUMMER READING 2011
Dear Parents,
Over the summer, Samohi students are required to read two books—three for HP/AP. Please help get the books from a library or bookstore. (Santa Monica Public Library branches will have many copies.) Then help your child make time to read them—a daily half-hour is perfect—and ask your child regularly about what’s happening. Parents, if you too read the assigned books, the experience will be especially rewarding—for both of you!

Reading the two or three summer books will make your child a better reader, a better writer, and a better thinker; enlarge his or her understanding of people and the world; and help him or her start strongly in English in the fall. And, of course, there are the adventures, discoveries, shocks, laughs, tears, terrors, victories!

Reading is sweet and intense. In order to remember each book, your child should recor passages, with page number, followed by comments or questions, for: important events and changes parts that show why things happen, why characters do what they do favorite passages and scenes
parts that are confusing or puzzling

Students may write these comments on paper, on Post-It notes stuck to the pages, or in the book’s margins (if you own the book).

We wish you a sweet, intense summer!
The Santa Monica High School English Department


ALL STUDENTS READ THESE TWO
ALL-SAMO BOOK
Zeitoun by Dave Eggers
The true story of one family, caught between America’s two biggest policy disasters: the war on terror and the response to Hurricane Katrina.

FREE CHOICE
Any book you’d like to read! Ask your friends, favorite teachers, and staff members for recommendations.

HP/AP ALSO READ ONE MORE
Incoming 9HP: Kindred by Octavia E. Butler

Dates for you:
Monday, June 20, 10:30 – 12:30 Field Day—come join the fun, 1:30 dismissal
Tuesday, June 21, 10:00 8th Grade Graduation, 1:30 dismissal
Wednesday, June 22 – Beach Day - Please read the rules in today’s Friday Letter
1:30 dismissal & last day of this school year!

Kurt: kholland@smmusd.org
Darwin: dmendinueto@smmusd.org

* All students entering 7th through 12th grade MUST have proof of a Tdap booster immunization or have signed a waiver BEFORE entering school on August 30, 2011. See Nurse Sandy’s note in today’s Friday Letter