Drivers for Wednesday 9/24 Field Trip

Here is the list of drivers I have for the field trip on Wednesday, Sept. 24th to the Monterey State Historic Parks for the Native American program:

- Barbara Okamura
- Kathleen Hill
- Sonia Perez
- Debra Istenes
- Ming-Chiann Chou
- Therese Mayone (maybe)

If there is someone I missed that can drive, please let me know. Mrs. Mayone has another commitment and driving for the field trip would be difficult on Wednesday. We plan to leave school around 8:30am to be at the Pacific House by 9:00am for our program. We will be leaving Monterey around 2:30pm to come back to school.

Remember, if you can make it to the beach clean-up tomorrow morning, we will meet at Del Monte Beach near Wharf #2 (where people fish) at about 9:00am. After the clean-up we will hang out at the beach to build sand castles and eat. Bring hats, sunscreen, food for yourselves and some food to share (if you can). We should be around until about 12 unless the turn out is low.

Have a great weekend,

Mary Welsh

100% Participation Goal in Ms.Welsh's Class

As you may recall from the Foundation Newsletter mailed out last month, ISM has begun a 100% Financial Participation Campaign.

Back to School Night was the kick-off to having EVERY family contribute financially to ISM to the extent that you possibly can. I will be sending regular updates on our class progress.

The thermometer on Ms. Welsh's door also will keep you informed of our class progress. Our thermometer has currently reached the 36% mark. This means that 9 of our 25 families have already made a financial contribution to the school for this year! (Thank you to those families!)

I think that's a good start for the first month of school. I know most of you have been dedicated contributors in the past, so we should make quick progress on accomplishing a classroom goal of 100% support.

Why 100% Participation?

Did you know that: we have a single donor who has indicated that they will withdraw their $200,000 annual donation if ISM families don't all demonstrate that they are as committed to ISM as they are? If you weren't committed, you wouldn't have elected to send your child to ISM.

Did you know that: foundations that we apply to for grants look at the number of families who contribute financially? If they see that 100% or our families are supportive, they too will support ISM programming.

Did you know that: families need give only what they can afford. If your family cannot afford the $1,500 actual funding gap per student, please contribute whatever you can whether it is $150 or $15.00 a month. This flyer (PDF) outlines EASY ways to show you value your child's education.

Let's see the thermometer rise to 100%!

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me at 393-1798 or lisa@landolinks.com. Thank you in advance!

Lisa Moberg (Austin Moberg's mom)

Coastal Clean-up Day and the 4th Grade

Hello parents,

If you don't have plans this Saturday, please think about joining us at the beach for Coastal Clean-up Day, Sand castle building and fun.

Ms. Welsh

Dear Grade 4 Parents:

Here is a great opportunity for us to have a fun get-together and do a quick service learning project at the same time. It is very short notice, so don't worry if it won't work out for you and your family, but we thought it would be fun for those who can make it.

This Saturday is California Coastal Cleanup Day. It's a day when communities up and down the coast get together to clean our beaches. You can check out the Monterey County Coastal Cleanup website at

http://www.parks.ca.gov/montereycoastalcleanup

We are planning to be at the Del Monte beach site from 9 to 12. Afterwards, let's have a potluck lunch and build some sandcastles! If you are planning to join us, please fill out the waiver (PDF) and send it back to school. (It's okay to just show up, too.)

Looking forward to doing the right thing and having fun, too!

Laura and Mary

Big Saturday Work Day Thank You!

Good Morning Saturday Work Day volunteers!

I wanted to extend to each of you a sincere thank you for your efforts in making this past September Saturday Work Day a genuine success!

It started early with a Friday afternoon visit by parent and electrician, Mr. Cabanilla, who was not going to be available for the Work Day on Saturday as he was working. So, instead, he came by Friday to replace a cracked electrical outlet in Portable 3!

Noticeable improvements were made throughout the campus on Saturday, to include important several other safety-related tasks. Hours were spent shoveling sand from the lower blacktop and this was arduous work. Thank you to those of you who took on this challenging task and improved the safety of the blacktop for all of our students and staff. In addition, safety assessments were also done on the ramps for Portables 3 & 4.

Thanks, too, to the painting crew who greatly improved the attractiveness of the admin building by scraping, priming, and painting the wooden panels beneath the windows on the south side of the building. It looks super!

We do indeed have a great parent community here at ISM and the fourteen of you who took time out of your Saturday to volunteer your time are a prime example of that!

I would also like to express a special "thank you" to Bob Brown for serving as this month's event chair. He accepted the role willingly in early August and will be returning to host at least one more Saturday Work Day this school year! Thanks again, Bob!


Regards,

Lisa Griffin Burns
ISM Operations / HR Manager

Parent Update 8/14/2008

Dear Parents,

I hope you all were able to enjoy some time together this weekend. What beautiful weather we had on the Central Coast!

Here's where we are at:

Writing: All students should be finishing their final draft of their name stories and working on their name poem. By mid-week they will start on their birth story for their autobiographies.

Math: Continuing place value work. You can help by having your child say numbers that you write up into the millions. We are starting to collect and analyze data. We will use the book, Martha Blah Blah to work on data collection.

Reading: Continue book clubs and learning the roles of the group members.

Spelling: Everyone will be getting a new word list on Monday.

Social Studies: We will add the California map to our atlases and begin learning about native Californians.

Science: Groups will experiment with gravity as a precursor to our unit on Earth's Changing Surface.

Reading Buddies with the kindergartners is going well. I heard one of the kindergartners say as he walked out the door, "That boy is my best friend!" (speaking of one of our 4th graders). We are all enjoying the time together.

Here are a few things for the week:

In writing, the students should be finishing their final draft of their name story by Tuesday. They will then be writing a name poem and begin work on their birth stories for their autobiographies. In math, we continue work on place value and begin working on data collection and analysis. In reading we will be working on our book club roles with the book, "Fourth Grade Rats". The students will be creating small experiments with gravity as we begin work on our science unit, "Earth's Changing Surfaces". Everyone will have a new list of spelling words on Monday. In social studies, we are working on our maps of California and learning about the native Californians.

Other news from the classroom:

With the help of students Alexander Myers, Scott Brown and Kevin Harrell and the great assistance of Alex's mom, Bene Milling, we "installed" some carpet in our classroom on Saturday. The carpet only covers the area beneath the students' desks but the hope is it will soften the sounds in the room. Starting Monday, we will have a "NO SHOES" policy in the classroom to help keep the sand out of the carpet. Students should be prepared to take their shoes off at the door and put them on again when they leave. The shoes can be stored in the students' cubbies. I would like each student to bring an old shoe box for their cubbies to put their shoes in which should help keep sand and dirt from filtering down to the next cubby or floor.

Thanks to parent, James Moberg, for setting up our class blog. It is now also a link on the school website. I hope all of these forms of communication help you all stay in touch with what is going on in class.

Monday begins the "Read-a-Thon" for the school. I am awaiting details of this event to pass on to the students. It is a fundraiser for the library and classroom books so, I hope we can have all students participate.

Book orders for Scholastic are due on Tuesday, Sept. 16th. I am not certain that the online ordering is up and running yet so, if you haven't ordered, you can send in the order with your child. The more points we earn, the more books we can get for our class library. Please get those orders in.

Forms for our upcoming fieldtrip to the Monterey State Parks have been coming in. I have about half of the forms so far. Please send them in with your student. There is a $10 fee for the trip. Please let me know if there is a problem with payment for this. It looks like we will have enough drivers. I will update you with a list of drivers by the end of the week so you can plan ahead.

The school picture photographer will be back on Monday, Sept. 15 to take pictures of absent students and also take sibling pictures.

The Friday SEM (Schoolwide Enrichment Model) classes start on Friday. I will be leading a class on gardening to help spruce up the school garden. If anyone has time and interest in joining us in the garden, you are more than welcome.

Wish list: paper cups

Thank you,

Ms.Welsh