Smash Friday Letter

Dear SMASHing Families,
The PTSA meeting where we will start with a ½ hour family conversation is next week, Wednesday, October 12 at 6:30pm. Have you taken 20 minutes to go to http://www.storyofstuff.com/? Childcare will be provided for the business
part of the meeting that follows.

As Core 1 and 2 parents, I’d recommend viewing the video as adults then talking at a family dinner using some of Belinda Waymouth’s suggested questions: “Let’s think about our stuff, how can we get the maximum use out of it?” “Is there another family we could trade/swap stuff with?”

As Core 3 and 4 families, I’d recommend viewing this together and talking about: “What are the political messages of this video; which of these do we support in our family and want to get active about?” “What are things, the stuff, in our household we can reuse over and over? “ “Where do we feel pressure to keep buying the latest trends (electronics, fashion, games…)?”

I look forward to sharing thoughts and learning together at the PTSA Meeting.
Jessica
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SMASH RUMMAGE SALE - SATURDAY, OCTOBER 22
Be sure to look for the flyer and plastic bag that went to every student today!

Looking for a few good men AND women!
Can you help us receive Rummage Sale donations on the morning of Friday, October 21 from 8am to 10am? We need helpers out on 5th street to take donations from cars and bring them in to the cafeteria.
Are you or anyone you know MOVING?
Let us help you by taking some of those large boxes off your hands for sorting at the rummage sale.
Feel like a stroll down Main Street?
Can you ask vendors to put up posters between Pico and Ocean Park on Main Street
OR in downtown Santa Monica?
This can be done anytime during the week of October 10.
If you can help with any of the above, please contact Jamee (jameetenzer@gmail.com.)

DATES TO REMEMBER
Mon-Wed, Oct 10-12 - 6th grade Catalina trip
Wed, Oct 12 - NEW Bike It Day
Wed, Oct 12 - 6:00pm - PTSA meeting
Thu-Fri, Oct 13-14 - Core 2 Camp Josepho trip
Tues, Oct 18 - Lifetouch School Picture Day - Flyers will be sent home next week
Visit Lifetouch.com for clothing suggestions, online payment details & more.
Thu, Oct 20 “Great Shakeout” Full scale earthquake drill
Fri, Oct 21 - Catalina Assembly Rescheduled for November
Sat, Oct 22 - RUMMAGE SALE
Mon-Wed, Oct 24-26 8th grade trip to Hess Kramer
Mon, Oct 24 School Tour
Sun-Tues, Oct 30 to Nov 8 - SMASH hosts visiting principals from China
Fri, Oct 31 SMASH & John Muir Halloween Carnival
PICTURE DAY - TUESDAY, OCTOBER 18
ORDER FORMS WILL BE SENT HOME NEXT WEEK
YOU CAN ORDER ONLINE AT LIFETOUCH.COM
(You will need the flyer for ordering information)

SMASH Drama teacher, Kristy, would like to invite you and your family to join her for a special theatre field trip at the Morgan-Wixson Theatre, 2627 Pico Blvd. on Oct. 8 or 9 at 11am. Kristy will be there on both days ready to enjoy the magic of live theatre with you. is able to get SMASH families a special discounted rate of just $7 per person, including adults!!! show is "The Story of Frog Belly Rat Bone" it's based on a great book that was inspired by a
trip to Descanso Gardens in Pasadena.

The Santa Monica-Malibu Education Foundation’s Santa Monica 5000 race raised over $40,000 to help fund sports and athletic programs in our school district.

THE NEW WORLD F.E.S.T. - Festival of Eco-friendly Science & Technology
October 7-9
150 exhibits and 6 stages
Admission: $12 Adults, $8 Seniors 60+ and Kids 14 & under.
Infants & Toddlers Free Tickets available online or at the event.
Admission includes all concerts, speakers, demos, film screenings & access to all exhibits.
Food & beverages reasonably priced.
Santa Monica Beach (end of Ocean Park Blvd) at Beach Parking Lot #5
Fro more information: www.thenewworldfest.com

The UCLA Family Commons - Promenade Commons Kids Club
Drop your kids at the UCLA Family Commons for an afternoon of crafting, games and other activities while you relax and enjoy some time off. Saturday & Sunday afternoons from 1:00-7:00pm, $15/hr www.uclacommons.com

SANTA MONICA PLAYHOUSE
Fall Theatre Workshop - Adventures in Acting
Kids ages 7-13 - Enrollment is limited
1-310-394-9779 x 3 or education@SantaMonicaPlayhouse.com

SAVE THE DATE
Friday, October 28, 2011
1:30PM to 3:30PM
SMASH/Muir Halloween Carnival
Free Family Fun!
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ptsa news
president’s message
Dear SMASHing Parents,
This week were fall conferences. I hope everyone’s conference went well and that we all got a chance to meet with our child’s teacher, see our child’s work and find out how our kids are doing.
Also, this week was the start of SMASHbash sign-up for the 2011-2012 school year . As most of you know, a SMASHbash is a party, event or activity hosted by a SMASH family or group of families. Each SMASHbash has a limited number of people who can attend. The cost of the event is donated by the sponsoring SMASH family (or families) and participants pay a small fee to attend the event. SMASHbash has become a major fundraiser for the SMASH PTSA. SMASHbashes are a total blast to attend and a great way to bond with our community

Next week is our second PTSA meeting of the school year on Wednesday, October 12, 2011, at 6:00 p.m. PTSA meetings alternate monthly between morning and evening meetings so that those people who are unable to make a morning meeting have the opportunity to come in the evening. If you haven’t been to a meeting or you want to get more involved at SMASH, please come to the meeting next Wednesday, to see what PTSA is all about and find about opportunities to get involved.

The next major fundraiser at SMASH is the Rummage Sale on Saturday, October 22, 2011. If you can help, even if only for a short time, we need volunteers to help sort and arrange donated items on Friday and to help on Saturday to make sure this year’s rummage sale is a success. Please contact Jamee Tenzer (tenzer@lifeworks4coaching.com) or Kelly Lance (kebolance@yahoo.com) to volunteer for the Rummage Sale.
Thanks, Dan McGee

ptsa annual family investment drive
·Public school is free – a great education is not. Hence the SMASH Annual Family Investment Drive is the single most important fundraiser of the year. Your contribution pays for classroom teaching assistants, reading and math specialists, the SMASH fine arts program, science equipment, technology upgrades, professional development and so much more. Please
make your tax deductible contribution or commitment by October 1, 2011. We suggest an investment of $575/student, but no amount is too much or too little. We are aiming for 100% participation, so give what you can and give as soon as possible. Please check your first day packet for our Annual Family Investment Letter, the form and envelope. If you have
any questions, contact Marni Ayers Brady (marniayers@gmail.com) or Helga Schier (helgaschier@verizon.net). ptsa membership

·Don’t forget to turn in your completed PTSA membership envelope and check ($8 per membership, payable to SMASH PTSA). Membership buys you the invaluable SMASH Directory, which is your portal to the SMASH community.

SMASHbash sign-up
·This morning, Friday October 7, 2011, was the start of sign-up for a SMASHbash. If you didn’t get a chance to signup this morning, don’t fear, you can still sign-up. Please contact Marni Ayers Brady (marniayers@gmail.com) at your earliest convenience and let her know what events you want to attend. Don’t miss out on your chance to participate .

SMASHing meetings
·Our second PTSA meeting of the new school year is on Wednesday October 12, at 6:00 p.m. PTSA meetings are held once a month and alternate each month between morning and evening meetings to accommodate all schedules. We need your voice, your support, and your involvement. Look for flyers posted around campus announcing the location. Be there!
SMASH green tip
Recycle Your Athletic Shoes:Take your unwearable athletic shoes to recycle at the Santa Monica Place Nike store.Nike turns them into multipurpose sports courts.
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SMASH Site Council Minutes
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
In Attendance: Laura Sherman, Jessica Rishe, Nina Fresco, Malaika Boyer, Mimi Lichterman, Candis Berens, Elizabeth Kramer, Toby Romero, Nathan Goldenberg, Aurora Delaney, Shaquil Johnson, Izzy Strick
Absent: Graciela Barba-Castro, Chrysta Wyse, Jackie Boyd
Agenda Amended with addition of “School Climate goal review” to School Improvement Plan New Business : Moved by Laura Sherman. Seconded by Nina Fresco. Approved.
Agenda approval: Elizabeth Kramer moved. Toby Romero seconded. Agenda approved.
Approve Minutes of last meeting with one punctuation correction.
Moved by Mimi Lichterman : Seconded by Malaika Boyer. Approved
Community Participation: None
Reports and Announcements (regular agenda items)
Principal’s Report: Whole Child nutrition and fitness with A La Carte healthier choices, fewer Bake Sales since they are Fridays only not Wednesdays and Fridays,
Student Reports: Some students eat food with time still left before bell rings. Some girls want more time to eat and some boys want more time to play. There is trash left at the lunch benches that we need to clean up. It is hard if we are really hungry and need to go straight out to play. If a student has a lunch from home s/he can take a few bites to hold over before going onto the field but this won’t work if buying hot lunch.
Core 3: Memoir Writing Celebration was today. Do UCLA Royce Hall field trip every year. Catalina Trip for 6th graders is next week.
Griffith Observatory field trip is coming up. Taking JPL science field trip in November which ties with our studies about the solar system. 5th graders will go to Astrocamp in February.
Middle School band musicians would like to be able to do choir too and want more playing time, less time talking and putting roomback together. They don’t think it is fair winds get to work with String Project LA. Music Committee meeting with District schedulers, music teachers, and student musicians and parents will be happening this Fall.
Community Organization Reports
PTSA Meeting: 60 people signed up each night of the SMASH Camping trip and we got to do Archery this year. Rummage Sale, Halloween Carnival, and SMASH Bash sign ups are coming up.
Student Council: Community Group Morning Meeting will happen this Fri, October 7th.

New Business:
School Climate Counseling Services Site Improvement Plan Goal: Improve school climate through a counseling program that meets school stakeholder social and emotional needs.
Performance gains expected for these Student Groups: Students will use “CARES” more effectively (Cooperation, Assertion, Responsibility, Empathy, Self-control)
Means of evaluating progress toward this Goal:
OLWES survey results and SMMUSD Middle School survey
Middle School Initiative Student Survey Responses (SMASH Students)
N=70 6th/7th/8th graders April 2011
81.4% of middle school students say they can often or almost always manage stress at school.
81.4% of middle school students say they almost never or once in a while feel stress at school.
85.5% say they feel safe at school.
86.9% say they feel supported by classmates.
88.4% say students respect each other.
94.3% say teachers treat everyone fairly.
94.3% say they can go to at least one staff member on campus if they need help.
40.6% say almost never see bullying. 43.5% say once in a while. 11.6% say often. 4.3% say almost always.
Questions: Is there a survey given to student and parent participants in the counseling groups? No but staff looks at patterns of
office referrals. Will there be more staff “Creating Upstanders” training? Committee meets every other month and we will also do a parent event around February.
Old Business: None
Community Participation: Would a field trip to the LA County Fair be possible next year on a Wed TH or Fri?
Next meeting: Wednesday, December 7th 5:00pm. (1/4, 2/1, 3/7, 4/18, 5/23)
Adjourn: Malaika Boyer motioned and Elizabeth Kramer seconded. Adjourned.
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CORE 1 NEWS
THANK YOU FAMILIES for attending your conferences this week! What a great way to connect with every family, and celebrate the children’s growth/ address concerns in a quiet, focused space. Your dedication shows every day!!

Special appreciation to Jackie for volunteering her time and staying late on conference days to supervise the children. This is something extra Jackie does for our community – feel free to share your appreciations with her, too.

October Birthdays will be celebrated next Friday, October 14th. The ceremony will start around 11:45, immediately followed by lunch and birthday snacks in the Small Yard. Family and friends are welcome. Children celebrating their birthdays are invited to bring a healthy snack to share. A sign-up sheet will be hanging outside of the Magic Garden door.

Community Walks
Before our first community walk to Hotchkiss Park (4th & Hollister) with our circle groups, we discussed ways to be safe and considerate. Here are some of the highlights:
• Stay in the sandwich. The sandwich starts with an adult leader and ends with and adult leader. They represent the slices of bread in a sandwich. The children stay between the bread representing the veggies. Additional adults are spread out within the club sandwich. Staying in the sandwich helps us stay close to the group, so we won’t get lost. If you get separated from the group, stay where you are until they find you.
• Stay on the sidewalk. This keeps us safe from cars on the street and it helps us keep our shoes clean.
• Use quiet voices. One way to show consideration for our neighbors is to keep a quiet voice when walking on the street. If neighbors are sleeping, we won’t disturb them. Quiet voices help us hear traffic.
• Be safe around people and animals. We keep a safe distance from people and animals. Stay closer to your leaders than to anyone else. We let a leader know if a someone gets close to us.
• Leave things where you see them. The flowers we see belong in gardens. Things could have germs or poison.
It is important that the children remember these guidelines, as we hope to be able to extend our investigations outside of our school campus. Throughout the school year, we usually announce our walks ahead of time in the Friday Letter and encourage parents to come along.Our next Community Walk will probably be our Halloween Parade on Main Street. More details to come!
Note: Any medicine your child may need at school must be given to the school nurse with a doctor’s note (or copy). Cough drops are considered medicine, and students should not have them in their school bags.
Thanks!

Wishlist: Have a baby at home who eats baby food from a jar?? We would LOVE to collect the small jars for all kinds of activities. Please wash and collect them, and we’ll put them to great use!
Candis: cberens@smmusd.org
Chrysta: cwyse@smmusd.org
Graciela: gbarba-castro@smmusd.org

CORE 2 NEWS
Thank You to all the families for joining us at our Fall Family Conferences. It is always a pleasure to have that time together with you and your children. If you weren’t able to get in this week, please contact your child’s advisor.
Advisory News: As we wrap up the first six weeks of school, we realize there is still a lot to practice. In CARES— we’ve spent one week on each skill (Cooperation, Assertion, Responsibility, Empathy, and Self-control), and we will continue to practice, discuss, and focus on one CARES skill a week for the rest of the year. We are also in the process of nailing down our guidelines and logical consequences. We loved getting to know each other through our collections and look forward to sharing more about ourselves over the course of the year (baby pictures, career day, lovies, family history, food/recipes, etc.). Laura’s group is The Purple Pandas and Tamara’s group is The Awesome People.
Literacy: In Readers Workshop, we are still making sure we are always doing the optimal Just Right reading by bringing in/checking out/shopping for Just Right reading materials so we always have something good to read during reading time. We’re delving into character and setting study (how we relate to and think about the characters in our books), envisioning (how we make a movie in our mind of the characters within their worlds), predicting (using the
story and our book smarts to make guesses about what will happen next), and inferring (thinking about how and why characters change over the course of a story and examining what the story is really, really about). This is how we practice being thinking, analytical readers. In Writing Workshop, we just published our first writing assignment—
a Hopes & Dreams Paragraph—using the steps of the Core 2 Writing Process (collecting ideas, choosing one, planning and nurturing our idea, drafting, revising our work, editing for grammar, spelling, and/or punctuation, and publishing). Our next fiction/narrative writing unit will be a personal narrative: writing about a personal experience. And our next nonfiction/non-narrative writing unit will be a personal essay: using an idea or opinion as an angle to write about ourselves. The theme of these writing units will be memoir.
Math: Laura’s 3rd graders are wrapping up their first unit, Trading Stickers, Combining Coins, which we reviewed at conferences. Look for your child’s math packet, assessment, and Laura’s reflection in the Friday Papers. Next up for 3G Math is Stories, Tables, and Graphs and Surveys and Line Plots. In this unit, the students will learn how to use graphs and charts to represent information. Tamara’s 4th Graders just finished their first math unit, Factors,
Multiples, and Arrays, which we went over conferences. Please look for the math packet, the unit assessment, your child’s self-reflection, and Tamara’s feedback in the Friday Papers coming soon. Next up for the 4G Mathematicians is Describing the Shape of the Data—collecting, representing, and describing data.
Wednesday Drama with Kristy: Theater Arts with Kristy is going strong. Laura’s Advisory Group is making masks and doing Readers’ Theater based upon a couple of their favorite stories. Tamara’s Advisory is busy practicing puppetry and rehearsing movement using a couple of our favorite picture books as inspiration. Save the Date—We’ll be sharing our hard work with you on Literacy Night 12/14, 6:30 – 8:00.
Media Center: Both groups visit the Media Center twice a month (alternating weeks). Students may bring their library books home. Please help them be responsible for their books.
District Instrumental Music: The 4th graders do music on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 8:30 sharp! They store their instruments and music folders in the Surf Shack. Please help them be responsible for practicing and remembering their instruments for music class. We fought so hard to maintain and grow this program!
3rd grade Dance: The 3Gers have been learning some pretty slick moves. Monday, 10/17 at 8:40am is their last dance class and parents are invited to come see what they’ve learned, if you can make it. Please help your child get here with plenty of time to sign in and make it to their classes by 8:30 sharp!
Core 2 Overnight Field trip to Camp Josepho: Jayme, Laura, and Tamara are getting very excited. So are the kids. Please make sure you have turned in all paperwork and money! Look for a hard copy and an email about the packing list coming with this letter. We’re thrilled so many of you will be able to join us!
Laura: lsherman@smmusd.org
Tamara: tmugalian@smmusd.org
Jayme:j.wold@smmusd.org
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Thank you Yvonne, Allison, Cyndra and Kjersti for chaperoning our first field trip to see Contra-Tiempo! The kids were engaged, interested and sometimes confused. We hope you had a chance to ask your child what they thought of the dancing that was performed for them. We hope to get a student review of the performance in the up coming Student Council Newspaper.
6th Grade Math with Carrie: We continued our investigation of GCF and LCM by using "Lily's Method" and seeing how we can use it as a tool to help us solve real life math problems.We talked about how different mathematical strategies are tools that we can learn to use to solve problems but that we also need to use our logical reasoning to make them make sense.
6th Grade Math with Erin "Data About Us": What's the real story with height and arm span? This week our expert data collectors and graphers sought out the answer the question of whether these two are related. Students spent time measuring each others height and arm span and proceeded to learn to display distributions of these paired-data values on coordinate graphs. Ask your student how the two sets of data are related. Or are they?
5th grade Math Workshop with Genie: We've been looking at large number division problems thinking about different ways to solve, often starting with: ___x___ gets me close to the dividend. We are understanding that division takes a few more steps because there is multiplication/division and then subtraction to then determine a remainder or if more of the divisor can fit. It's complex!
Science with Carrie: Our planet experts are in the final stages of putting their teaching strategies together.Most of them have done their scale drawings of the planet as well as the larger, more detailed drawings.All of the groups are trying to find creative ways to teach us the most important facts about their planet.We have songs, skits, visuals, and other great
ideas brewing.Ask your child what s/he is doing and see if they can teach you the basics of their planet.We will be teaching each other what we know on 10/18.Carrie will video tape the presentations and put them on our website for all to enjoy!We also talked about how we can enter a contest to try to name the GRAIL satellites for JPL/NASA.Rough drafts of ideas and justifications are due on 10/17.This is voluntary.Finally, we talked about the Nobel prize winners in physics that were announced on Tuesday.Three astrophysicists were awarded for their findings that the speed in which the universe is expanding is increasing rather than staying the same or decreasing and that there is something called "dark energy" that is causing this increase.Pretty cool!
Social Studies and Geography with Erin: This week we continued our exploration of how groups have organized to obtain their human rights throughout history. We are keeping up our beginning focus on the Modern Civil Rights Movement with a lesson on Wednesday about Brown vs. Board of Education and the idea of desegregating "with all deliberate speed." On Thursday we were incredibly fortunate to have Ari's dad Mike come in and talk to the class about his experiences growing up in Georgia during this era. Mike was able to give the students personal examples of desegregation, relationships between races, and the action and inactions of those around him. Thank you Mike for coming in! The students will not forget it.
Reading and Writing Workshop with Genie: Amazing writers walk amongst us! We had a fabulous Memoir writing celebration. Please check out the photos and quotes on the Writing Workshop page of our website. We had our postunit assessment on memoir allowing the writers to experience quick writing (writing in 30 min) and are back in our notebooks. Look for your child collecting pages of entries in their notebooks in the next few weeks. Book clubs have been launched! Ask your child what book they are reading and who's in their club as well as what is their plan.
Homework:
6G math: Assignment #16 (front is required, back is E.C.).
5G math: packet #6. Due 10/14/11. Keep working on those multiplication facts!
RW: Read every day! How many pages have you read so far this school year?
WW: Collect 2 entries (15 minutes of writing or 1 full page entry) at home by Fri 10/14.
Genie: ghwang@smmusd.org
Carrie: cferguson@smmusd.org
Erin: ehaendel@smmusd.org

CORE 4 NEWS
Conference Notes: We have completed this week’s 7th grade conference period and what a joy these student led conversations have been. Thanks for trusting us with your precious kids. Also we have forged new working partnerships with parents who are new to the core four experience. If you missed either the 8th grade conference opportunity that started in mid Sept or the just passed 7th grade conference period of this last week please email Darwin or me and we shall work you into the schedule as time permits.

Special thanks to those parents who completed the personalized “Hopes and Dreams” essay assignment from Sept 16th’s Friday letter. These essays are of enormous value to teachers as we seek to serve, know, and guide your child. They are also super fun to read. Thanks again! If by chance you missed this opportunity prior to the conference, I would still love to read more of them. I’ve included the original announcement in the next paragraph.

From the Sept 16th Friday Letter: To help with our conference process, I would like parents to perform two small tasks that are normally a lot of fun. First: write an essay about your child and your hopes and dreams for them. Please, keep this under ten thousand words. My second mini-homework for you is to answer the question: What is the most important thing my child should be doing now? This question is intentionally open because what is most important may not be academic or even school related. Include it in the essay or separate it as you please. Thanks in advance for sharing this important information with me. Many past essays have been touching, inspirational, and fun to read; all will help me serve you and your child better. Have fun and please drop around to see us!

8th Grade Notes and Reminders: If you are considering private high schools it is absolutely imperative that we talk soon. There is a long critical pathway and several specific steps we need to take as a team to insure your child’s acceptance to these demanding schools. The Hess Kramer trip is coming along on Oct 24-26th. Please be sure you have paid us as we are obligated to pay the vendor. To remind you the cost is $350. and it was due last April/May. Once this trip is complete we shall begin the planning for our San Francisco graduation trip in June

Kurt Out Next Week: My sister is scheduled for breast cancer surgery next Wed and I must be at her side. Please be assured that the Core 4 Team has coordinated academic matters and your child’s education will go forward as planned with only minor adjustments to our learning activities. As many of you know, these matters are rarely simple or easy, but your positive energy is welcome and appreciated.

Drama Teacher Kristy Pace Invites Core 4 Parents’ Help on Oct 19, Oct 26, Nov 9, Nov 23, and Nov30
Kristy would love to have FOUR core 4 parents volunteer to be with us in class from 10:55am-12:25pm and 1:10pm-2:35pm, as adult supervisors during filming. These adults would allow us to have four groups out filming and leave Kristy free to travel between the groups to assist them, answer their questions and give recommendations and filming tips. you are interested/available, please email kvpsummer@yahoo.com
Kurt: kholland@smmusd.org Darwin: dmendinueto@smmusd.org