Dear SMASH Families, Let's Combine Our Commitment to Helping Those

smash@smmusd.org November 1, 2019

Dear SMASH Families,

Let’s combine our commitment to helping those impacted by the fires with our commitment to gath- ering together as a SMASH community to appreciate the practice stamina, stage presence bravery and talents of our students.

The Fire Relief Benefit - SMASH Student Talent Show will be Thursday, November 14 6-7:30pm in the Cafetorium.

Students will be collecting donations towards a PTSA selected fire relief fund.

Thank you to Teagan’s Derek for donating his time and talent as the DJ of the night!

Entrance to the event is free. Talent act sign-ups begin November 4, come in, call or email Ania in the office. Open to SMASH students. Performances are limited to 3 minutes. Students can sign up for only 1 performance (individual or group - not both). Sign-ups are for the first 20 acts. Names of alternates will be taken.

Don’t wait to sign up. No sign ups the night of the show. Jessica DATES TO REMEMBER!

Monday, Nov 4 SMASH Family Conferences 1:30pm Dismissal K-8

Tuesday, Nov 5 SMASH Family Conferences 1:30pm Dismissal K-8

Wednesday, Nov 6 PTSA Executive Board Meeting 8am PTSA General Meeting 8:30am Site Council in Annes’s room 12:30pm SMASH Family Conferences 1:30pm Dismissal K-8

Thursday, Nov 7 SMASH Family Conference 1:30pm Dismissal K-8

Friday, Nov 8 SMASH Family Conferences 1:30pm Dismissal K-8

Monday, Nov 11 Veteran’s Day Holiday NO SCHOOL

Thursday, Nov 14 Talent Show 6-7:30pm

CORE 1 NEWS PARENT-TEACHER CONFERENCES ARE HAPPENING NEXT WEEK. PLEASE SIGN UP FOR A PARENT TEACHER CONFERENCE IN THE OFFICE.

Partners - Graciela’s Workshop Group This week we borrowed books from the SMASH & Muir Library. We enjoyed a read aloud, learned how to use shelf markers, and check out our books. Please return the books next Wednesday. An- other special activity that happened this week was Apple-Tasting with Core parent, Nina Furakawa. We invited the Muir preschoolers to share this experience with us. We noticed different apple varie- ties have taste different tastes. Some children sampled so many apples that they didn’t need a snack at snacktime! Thank you to Emily and Caché for volunteering. We will have a casual Reading Morning Meeting share on Monday from 8:30-8:50. Please join us if you can.

Bigs - Chrysta’s Workshop Group Looking forward to (really) celebrating our writers from 8:30am - 9:00am on Monday. We invite you to join us as we highlight the writing process as well as the published pieces. Our next Unit of Study is All About Books. We have been gearing up for this this week by learning all about Día de Muertos and apples (preparing for apple tasting today). Speaking of apple tasting... thank you Nina for or- ganizing apple tasting, the parents who came to help, the John Muir first graders for joining us, and Diane in the library for sharing her space. Finally, I’d like to thank all the children who contributed to the Cozy Corner turned Haunted House that was created in our room. Today, with the help of Jen Mack and the students, it was deconstructed and cleaned up. We had so much FUN with it this sea- son! Onto the next!

Mentors - Ale’s Workshop Group This week the Mentors have been busy authors and illustrators. We can’t wait for you to see their hard work at our publishing celebration on Monday, November 4, from 8:30 - 9:00am. Next week, I look forward to meeting with you for a conference. If you still need to sign up please email me or come in to see me to arrange a time. During this conference I’d like to set some goals for the year and celebrate the growth of your child. I look forward to our time together! Reminder! The week of conferences the children’s school day ends at 1:30 every day.

Upcoming Events:

Monday, Nov 4 - Friday, Nov 8 Early Dismissal for Bigs and Mentors all week & Parent Teacher Conferences Week

Monday, Nov 4, 8:30am In Graciela’s room Partner Reading Share In Chrysta’s room Bigs Writing Share In Ale’s room Mentors Publishing Celebration

Monday, November 11 School Closed for Veteran’s Day

Thursday-Friday, November 28 & 29 Thanksgiving Holiday - School is closed

Core 1 Team Graciela, Nadja, Chrysta, Lydia, Alejandra, Juana, Marcus, Anne, Coach Angel Graciela: [email protected] Chrysta: [email protected] Alejandra: [email protected]

We all love and use Common Sense Media!!!! It would be great to have parents attend the District Sponsored Common Sense Media Parent Workshop Nov 11, 8:30-10:30 at PDLC building, 2802 Fourth Street, Santa Monica CORE 2 NEWS Upcoming Events: • WALKING FIELD TRIP:  Takes place next Monday, 11/4/19  9:30 - 10:15 a.m. for Christian’s Advisory  10:30-11:15 a.m. for Sarah’s Advisory  Chaperones welcome! Please contact your child’s advisor.  We will be taking photos for our final script inspiration projects.  Core 2 Math Interim Assessment takes place on Nov. 5th. • CONFERENCES:  We are excited to meet with you next week to share what we are observing in class.  EARLY DISMISSAL - 1:30 p.m. every day next week  The sign-up sheets are in the office.  You will be meeting for twenty minutes.  Please sign up with your child’s advisor. • No school on Nov. 11th. • Field Trip to USC’s Pacific Asia Museum:  On 11/21 from 8:30 - 2:00 p.m.  We will be visiting the exhibit “Following the Box” as it connects to our PS Arts Mystery Unit called “Can a Picture Tell a Story: Building a Mystery.”  Be on the lookout for permission slips and more info. in the next letter. REQUESTS:  If there are any parents who know ANYTHING about photography and would like to share their knowledge, we’d love to have you in! Please let us know!  Any magazines lying around? If so, please send them in with your child by next Tuesday.

Social & Emotional Learning: This week, Rebecca & Ashely introduced Zones of Regulation and Social Detectives!

Zones of Regulation: Modeling with a color wheel, they shared how colors can correspond to feelings. The intensity of a color can correspond to the intensity of a feeling (Darker colors = really intense, while lighter colors = little bit).

Green: Pleasant, in control, ready to learn, proud Blue: Sad, sick, worry, hurt, tired, bored, scared, confused Red: Angry, stressed, mad Yellow: Wired, hyper, silly Purple: Mixed emotions

Social Detectives vs. Social Judges: Social Detectives ask questions while Social Judges make judgements. When Rebecca got upset, Ashley modeled how SOCIAL DETECTIVES asks questions: who, what, where, when, why - I wonder if Rebecca is hungry. . . . Maybe she’s stressed out about . . . as opposed to SOCIAL JUDGES who make immediate judgements - Rebecca always freaks out! They shared how we need to approach situations as Social Detectives who recognize, understand, and label our feelings.

Continued... CORE 2 NEWS Core 2 Continued.

MINDFULNESS This week in Core 2 we are continuing to work with emotions while also bringing in the concepts of compassion and empathy through role play exercises. Students are deepening their exploration of the emotions may be "under the surface" of an angry reaction. Students are also working with the concept of "Put-Ups" as opposed to "Put Downs" and are brainstorming Put Ups for their role play performances next week.

Warmly, Carly, Chrisauna, Christian, and Sarah

Christian:[email protected] Sarah: [email protected]

5th Grade Math This week, mathematicians continued to explore volume and determined that three dimensional ob- jects have three dimensions-length, width, and height, which lead them to realize that the formula for the volume of a rectangular prism is L x W x H. We also began to learn how the dimensions change if we want to find double, half, and triple the volume of a rectangular prism.

6th Grade Math This week in sixth grade math we worked on adding, subtracting, and multiplying fractions in both numeric and story problems. Next week we will work on dividing fractions as well.

6th Grade Family Math Homework Monday, November 4th - Page 37, #2 Tuesday, November 5th - Page 38, #10 Wednesday, November 6th - Page 55, #3 Thursday, November 7th - Page 57, #14

Writing Writers are hard at work in drafting their Personal Narrative stories. In addition to adding sensory details and sentence variety, writers are now using transitional words and phrases to show passage of time or change of location to ensure their audience understands the flow of the story from scene to scene. By Monday, November 4, students should have completed the following writing goals: scene one typed, transition phrases planned for each scene, and scene two drafted on the comput- er.

Social Studies/Current Events/Reading This week students worked on taking notes on their Native American mapping project. We also discussed the California fires. On Thursday we had an author visit from Cathleen Young, who did an activity to go with her middle grade novel, The Pumpkin Wars. Thank you for visiting Cathleen!

Reminder: Sign up for a conference ASAP! 1:30 Dismissal ALL of next week!

Jayme: [email protected] Erin: [email protected]

Announcements

We all love and use Common Sense Media!!!! It would be great to have parents attend the Dis- trict Sponsored Common Sense Media Parent Workshop Nov 11, 8:30-10:30 at PDLC building, 2802 Fourth Street, Santa Monica

Core 4 uses Sign Up Genius software to schedule conferences. 1:30 Dismissal for the whole week of Nov 4-8. If there isn't an ideal time for your family, please email the teacher whom you will be having a conference with.

7G families, please sign up with Genie: https://www.signupgenius.com/go/30e0a4caeac2ba7f94-7thgrade5

8G families, please sign up with Darwin: https://www.signupgenius.com/go/30e0a4caeac2ba7f94-8thgrade3

We are remixing advisories for Monday 11/4.

November 4 - The Salva Group is going to Malibu Lagoon November 8 - The Nya Group is going to Heal the Bay November 20 - Yosemite Parent Meeting at 6pm

Math 8th Grade Math: This week, we started our section on Inverse Variation. Topics include: rectangles with fixed area, distance, speed, and time, finding individual cost, and modeling data patterns.

Algebra: This week, we started our section on Introduction to Coordinates, Chapter 3A. Topics include: transformations, distance and absolute value, and graphing related quantities.

7th Grade Math: We took another Negatives test to see how much we’ve remembered! And we began our next unit on linear equations, Moving Straight Ahead. Please continue to practice and re- view negative numbers.

Humanities - Along with studying The Early Kingdoms of West Africa in history, we will be using the Millenium Village Project curriculum. http://www.generationhumanrights.org/mvp-curriculum We will also begin a new book called A Long Walk to Water by Linda Sue Park. We had our Medieval Islam test and a speaker from the Muslim Speakers Network. And our Breadwinner essay test will be on Monday for Nya Advisory and on Friday for Salva Advisory.

Science - We are finishing our unit on “The Nature of Science.” This week we practiced how to cre- ate graphs and analyze data. We also learned how to write a science report.

Continued... CORE 4 NEWS

Core 4 Continued.

MINDFULNESS: This week in Mindfulness we explored the difference between sympathy, empathy and compassion. Stefanie led the students in a "Just Like Me" practice where they had to imagine a person they had minor issues with and think about all the ways this person has struggled, been hurt, and been lonely just like themselves in order to touch into a place of compassion for the other person. Some of the students found it difficult to do this but were able to work with themselves and soften to the practice. She also showed a video of someone showing fierce forgiveness in the face of terrible tragedy and discussed the complexities of forgiveness and compassion.

Darwin Mendinueto - [email protected] Genie Hwang - [email protected]

The district has been working hard to get freshly made lunches into our schools and Octo- ber has a made-from-scratch meal each Tuesday (and one Monday)! Mark your calendar and have your kids try these delicious meals:

Oct 28 - Mac and Cheese Au Gratin Oct 29 – Roasted Chicken

All made-from scratch meals are made at SaMoHi and delivered to our SMASH cafeteria in the morning.

MINDFULNESS PARENT VIDEOS

In this week's Mindful Moment Parenting video Stefanie leads us through the STOP Practice.

STOP PRACTICE: Stop Take some breaths Observe your Thoughts, Emotions and Physical Sensations Proceed from a more grounded thoughtful place with a greater awareness of where your at- tention needs to go

Make sure to check out this video series. All videos are only around 5min and give you sense of what the students are learning and they are filled with helpful information and practices. Check out the STOP Practice: https://vimeo.com/369987383/0ead2e2746

In case you missed the last two Mindful Moment Parenting videos: 1) What is Mindfulness: https://vimeo.com/362918114/324cc87b73 2) The Triangle of Awareness: https://vimeo.com/366787186/8b9b41d1b1

SMASH Bash On Sale Now!

The SMASH Bash Sale is now LIVE as of Friday at 8am! Check out the catalog SMASHBash.OnlinePartyBook.com There is something for the whole family. We have to wipe the slate clean over the summer so make sure to take a second to register in advance. These parties will fill up fast. You don't want to miss out. A big thank you to the families hosting Bashes this fall. Thank you for supporting our kid's classrooms.

Meredith McCarthy [email protected] Bring a Book Club to your class!

Junior Great Books clubs are a fun way for kids to discuss great literature and to make new friends. Parent- facilitated groups meet six times and help children gain the confidence to discuss and share their opinions about books in a small group of their peers.

Could you help bring a book club to your class? Parents choose the day and time they are available to meet for a 45 min or 1 hour, six week session (depending on their availability), and we'll provide the materials and the training. No experience is required, and parents can team up and work together. If you are interested in volunteering, please email [email protected]. Upcoming Training Meeting: Tuesday, November 5th at 8pm. Please email Peter Kovac for details.

TERRACYCLE Things we normally throw away are recycled and upcycled through Terracycle. Toothpaste tubes, tooth- brushes, cosmetics, lotion tubes, deodorant sticks, chips bags, granola bar wrappers, markers,... Families can collect empty,Terracyclable packaging at home and bring them to school in a bag. There is a purple Terracy- cle bin in the breezeway leading to the small yard. For more info or to obtain a complete chart of acceptable Terracycle packaging, please email Mimi Lichterman [email protected]. Also looking for someone to take over the Terracycle collection for SMASH.