Holiday Breakfast Party

Dear Families,

For our class holiday party on Friday the 19th, we have been invited by our 8th grade reading buddies to come and have breakfast with them. We will also be doing a fun holiday activity with them as well. In order to make this happen successfully we need every family to bring in just one item.

If your child's last name begins with a letter *A –M*, please bring in some kind of *breakfast item* that is not baked. (The 8th graders are taking care of all the baked goods.) This could be an egg dish, fruit plate, cheese plate or anything else you can thing of. Just one doz. servings of whatever you choose is fine. Please make sure it comes to school in single serving size or pre-cut and ready to go.

If your child’s last name ends in *N – Z*, please bring in. The *12 individual servings of any drink*. Bottles water, juice boxes or even chocolate milk would be fine.

We already have the drinks donated for our hot cocoa bar and the 8th graders will be taking care of the rest.

If you have any questions feel free to email me at lwloomis@ismonterey.org

Thanks for your help and have a great winter break,

Lisa Wichael-Loomis (Raven's Mom)

Short Day of Camp for Friday Dec. 19th

Friday, December 19th is a half-day at ISM.
After School International will be providing childcare for students on this day. Students coming to the program will have a fun filled afternoon of arts and activities. The cost for this one-day of care is $25.00 per student for the day and care will be available until 4:00 pm.

• A limited number of spaces are available.
• All students must pre-register.
• No sign ups will be accepted on the 19th.
• Regular ASI students need to sign up for this program as it is not a regularly scheduled day on your Parent Contract.

PLEASE MAKE SURE TO HAVE YOUR CHILD PACK A HEALTHY LUNCH.

All checks should be made payable to ISM and put in Miss Lisa's office box directly.

For questions please contact Lisa Wichael Loomis, ASI program coordinator, at lwloomis@ismonterey.org


Child's name________________________________________________

Parent's name_______________________________________________

Student's grade and teacher_________________________________

Parent's Contact number for that afternoon _________________

Check #__________ $___________.

Saturday Work Day for December 13, 2008, 9:30-12pm

Hello All!

This coming Saturday is the Saturday Work Day for December!

As it is the holiday season and we all have a "to do" list overflowing with
shopping, decorating, parties, etc., we will be modifying Saturday's event to end at 12 noon (versus 1:00 p.m.), so folks can leave earlier to attend to other priorities that Saturday.

The thrust of Saturday's work day will focus on preparing for Wednesday evening's Holiday concert (Wednesday, December 17th from 6:30 - 8:00 p.m., ISM multiuse room) and continuing to decorate the multiuse room for that event. A hardy group of parent volunteers, to include Janice Barker, Tim and Shuhui Berndt, Christine Reed, Socorro Venegas, and Natalie Webb took time out of their weekend last Sunday afternoon to decorate the multiuse room.

Tasks for Saturday, 12/13/08 will include:

* touching up decorations "off kilter" following the past week of school;

* hanging additional decorations;

* hanging Mr. Pearlstein's Dream Flags on the upper right wall of the
multiuse room;

* organizing the overflow of Lost and Found items in advance of Wednesday
evening.

We will be having a used uniform sale that evening, so if your children
need additional items, stop by that table in front of the multiuse room for
affordable, gently used items.

* and more!

Plan on stopping by at 9:30 a.m. (no earlier please!) on Saturday morning
for a few hours on Saturday morning, join together with other ISM members
to accomplish some needed tasks, make new friends, and earn several additional
hours of volunteer time.

If you have any questions, contact me at one of the numbers or email below.

Regards,

Lisa Griffin Burns
ISM Operations / HR Manager
Tel: 831-583-2165
Cell: 831-521-4900
Email: lburns@ismonterey.org

Parent Letter - 12/11/2008

Dear Parents,

I have not received any negative responses to the Secret Santa idea so, we will go ahead with it and choose names tomorrow. A possible place to buy a small gift for the last day is at the Book Fair.

The Earth's surface and People project description is available for download (pdf). Some of the sheets might not have made it home because we are doing most of the work in class. Your child will need support at home to finish the paragraphs. I am asking for five paragraphs. There can more, of course. I have pulled together some resources for the students to use but most of them will also need a trip to the library for another reference. I realize the students are also working on a Spanish project. I don't intend for this one to be daunting. Just a way to wrap up the unit and show understanding. Let me know if you have any questions.

The field trip forms for the Gateway Center visit next Tuesday went home today. Please return them as soon as possible to help me organize the trip. Thanks for your support with this.

The Lost and Found baskets in the library are overflowing. Check for the missing items before they head to Goodwill.

Lastly, thank you to all who have been able to contribute to the ISM Foundation fund drive. Every bit helps keep the programing we have worked so hard to build. The response has been great though we still have more to go. There will be donuts and people to collect your money Thursday and Friday in front of the school.

I promise no more updates at least for another day or so!!

With appreciation,
Mary Welsh

Parent Letter - 12/9/2008

Dear Parents,

Here is an update to the weekly update:

We are planning to visit the Gateway Center for developmentally disabled adults next Tuesday morning. Our plan is to leave school right after recess at 10:10 am. We would arrive at the Gateway Center in Pacific Grove at approximately 10:30 am. We will to sing one or two songs, present the residents with homemade ornaments and holiday cards the students make. We will also bring a few food items to either share or leave for them. We will load the cars to come back to school at 11:15 and should arrive back by 11:30 or so. I will send permission slips home tomorrow.

If anyone can spare a couple hours out of their Tuesday morning to drive, it would be most appreciated. We will need 24 seat belted seats and you need to have been finger printed and a copy of your car insurance left at the ISM office. Please let me know if you can help.

The students have one more writing project to complete by next Wednesday. It is on how a geologic event on Earth affects or has affected people. We are working on them in class as much as we can. You can support your child on this by helping them find information on their topic. They can use one internet site. They can use the online encyclopedia from the Monterey Library as another reference. They need to have 3 references in all. The result should be a 5 paragraph essay due December 17th. They will present their topic and paper in class.

I am thinking of having a "Secret Santa" sort of gift giving for the class. Though we have not talked about it as a class, Ms. Bene gave me an idea for making it fairly simple. The students would all choose a secret gift recipient from the class. Next week on Wed., Thursday and Friday we would give the gifts.

• Wednesday's gift would be a small treat.
• Thursday's gift would be something homemade.
• Friday's gift would be something under $5.

If this seems o.k. with everyone, we'll go ahead and choose names. I will try to have a couple of extra things in the class if anyone forgets their gift.

Best wishes,
Mary Welsh

Items of Note

1. Report cards will be sent home with your children tomorrow, Wednesday, December 10th so please ask your child about them when they arrive home.
   
   
2. Many parents have asked about help in setting up carpools, on the ISM website, at the following link, is full instructions about how to go about setting this up with ISM's carpool coordinator, Denise Wood: http://www.ismonterey.org/ISM_carpool.html All of this info and much more is located in the Parent Resources section of our website.
   
   
3. For those of you who are having difficulty with logging your volunteer hours on our new PTO Manager website, Natalie Webb, the PTO Manager will be here this Thursday, December 11th from 2:50-6:00pm to help guide you through the process. You can meet her by the mailboxes in the front admin office.

Thank you!

Grade 4 Update

Dear 4th grade families,

Did anyone meet up with Mr. Pearlstein this weekend? I hope some of you had a chance to. It was so beautiful on Saturday. I spent the day at Asilomar Conference Grounds at a math conference. It was inspiring and great seeing all those teachers together for math. I hope to add a few new ideas to our Everyday Math curriculum for the students.

Only two more weeks until the winter break. We have a lot going on in the classroom in the next two weeks. Here are some highlights:

Free dress is only on the last day before the break - December 19th. There was a little confusion about this from a couple of different school calendars out there. December 12th is NOT a free dress day.

The Book Fair is in full swing this week. Our class will be visiting the fair on Tuesday afternoon if you want to send in money for the students to purchase books. You can also visit before or after school too.

We are hoping to be able to pay a visit to Gateway Center or another location to sing a song to the residents and give them homemade ornaments. Room mom, Barbara Okamura, is looking into this. If it works out, we will need drivers for the trip. It will most likely be on Tuesday, Dec. 16th in the morning. Please let me know if you are interested in driving. It will be a short trip but, I think beneficial to all.

The class has started drama last week for the new trimester. They are already working on a short play which we are hoping they will perform at a 4th and 5th grade assembly on Thursday, Dec. 18th around 2:45. If you can, drop by to support the students in their efforts.

The Winter Holiday Performance for the whole school will be in the evening of Wednesday, December 17th. We will be singing a song with Ms. Arnow's class. I'll let you know more details on time as I learn them.

We will begin Unit 5 in math this week. Please read the Parent Letter in the Study Links book just before Unit 5. You can tuck the answers away so you can check your child's work later.

Homework this week:

Math: Monday: Study Links 5.1, Tuesday: 5.2, Wednesday: 5.3, Thursday 5.4

Spelling: Sort words and write them or work with them in some way each night

Reading: Read 20 minutes each day.