Work Day: Sat., 1/10/09, 9:30 am - 1pm

Happy New Year everyone!

We are gearing up for our annual Open House this coming Saturday, January 10th from 2-4 p.m. This event is designed to provide an opportunity for prospective applicants for the coming 2009 - 2010 academic year to come to our campus, learn more about our unique public charter school, meet and greet administrators, teachers, and existing parents, and tour the ISM campus.

As such, one of the primary thrusts of this coming Saturday Work Day will be to finalize preparations for the Open House... from cleaning up / setting up the Multiuse room for the event to tidying up the campus, classrooms, and pod area.

In addition, the following tasks are also on the "to do" list:

1) assessing repair work done (or not) by MPUSD to ramps for Portables 1 - 4.
==> volunteers with construction knowledge, power tools, plywood, wood screws, etc. needed;

2) blowing or sweeping loose gravel and sand off the basketball blacktop courts in preparation for an ISM hosted JV basketball game on January 20th
==> volunteers with large push brooms and/or blowers needed;

3) moving a medium-sized plastic storage shed currently located by Room #4 over to the Kindergarten classrooms (Rooms #25 & #26)
==> volunteers with brawn, moving dollies, and/or trucks helpful;

4) packing up and storing holiday decorations from the MUR
==> volunteers with organizational skills / ladder skills for re-storing decoration boxes in AV closet needed

Please join us for the Saturday Work Day on Saturday, January 10th from 9:30 a.m. - 1 p.m. to assist with these tasks. This is a great way to meet your volunteer commitment and get to know other ISM parents and students, while greatly helping ISM maintain our facilities and keep costs down.

Regards,

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

Open House - January 19, 2009 1:30-4:30pm

Hey ISM Families,

You are receiving this email from me as it was suggested you might be a wonderful asset to the ISM Open House this Saturday. We are in need of families to help familiarize the potential incoming families next year with our amazing school. Children are welcome and can assist with helping the incoming students with getting to know our school too. Your role for the most part would be to mingle with the families and take them on tours. If you are at all interested and available please let me know as soon as possible so that I can ensure enough families are in attendance.

The open house is from 2 to 4, so your help is welcomed from about 1:30 to 4:30... we can do shifts too!

Thank you so much for being a part of the ISM Community and for your support.

Best Regards,

Wendy Bluhm
ISM Family Association

Half Day ASI Care at ISM For January 14th, 2009

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 14TH, 2009 IS A HALF-DAY AT ISM.
After School International will be providing childcare for students on this day. Students will be able to come to the program and have pizza lunch and a fun filled afternoon. The cost for this one-day of care is $35.00 per student for the day and care will be available until 6:00 pm.

All students must pre-register.
No sign ups will be accepted on the 14th.

Regular ASI students need to sign up for this program as it is not a regularly scheduled day on your Parent Contract.

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

Spanish Project

Hello, Parents,

There have been several families and students asking when the Spanish country project is due. I checked with Senora Wright this afternoon and she told me both her class and Sr. Candia's projects are due on Monday, January 12th. The students should all have the description of the project which was given to them by their Spanish teacher.

I hope this helps.
Mary Welsh

Afterschool Programming: Chess and Chinese

Dear Parents

Welcome back! I hope your holiday break was restful and full of great moments!

For those of you who rely on the variety of afterschool programming we have on campus, please note the following two contractual programs resuming the week:

1) Chess for Fun & Success lessons: Wednesdays, 3:45 - 4:45 P.M., Room #1
==> resuming Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2009

2) Mandarin Chinese lessons: Tuesdays and Thursdays, 3:45 - 4:45 P.M., Room #5
==> resuming Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2009

For your convenience, we have attached electronic registration forms for both of these classes. Please pre-register for either of these classes and submit payment with a completed registration form into the front office. Checks are made payable to "ISM".

Please note that students participating in these and other contractual afterschool programming are to accompany their homeroom classes down to the front lawn each applicable afternoon. The contractor will then pick them up from this location. Students are NOT to proceed directly to the classrooms at 3:20 p.m. as we cannot account for their safety.

Thank you!

Regards,

Lisa Griffin Burns
ISM Operations / HR Manager

Parent Update - 1/4/2009

Dear Parents,

Happy New Year to all of you! I hope you all had a wonderful break and were able to enjoy the holidays with family and friends.

This week, we will start right where we left off. Students who have not yet presented their Earth and People project/report will be present them starting Monday. I hope to get through all of them by Tuesday so we can move on to our new unit on Coastal Ecosystems.

Book Clubs will continue with the same books the students have been working on. Math will continue in Unit 5. We will have an assessment for Unit 5 on Tuesday (1/13) of next week. Spelling will pick up again this week. Some students have changed spelling groups after our assessment before we left for winter break. Most everyone is improving in their spelling quite well.

I may have to be out for Jury Duty this Wednesday. I am keeping my fingers crossed that I will be canceled.

We are planning a field trip to the Monterey Bay Aquarium on Thursday, January 22nd. There is "no cost" for the aquarium but I am asking for $2.00 to pay for parking to help the chaperones with the parking fees. I will have the permission slips out to you before the end of the week. I am also hoping to arrange a tidepooling and beach study day on Wed. February 4th. This will also be a "no cost" field trip.

Due to the financial situation at ISM, we have been asked not to have overnight field trips at this time. We had been trying to arrange a Gold Rush study field trip and had also looked into a overnight possibility for studying the ocean and ecosystems but, have had to reverse those efforts. So, at this point and most likely for the rest of the year, there will not be overnight field trips or ones that cost much money.

Homework will be:
Math - Monday Study Links 5.8, Tuesday 5.9, Wed. 5.10, Thursday 5.11
Spelling - sort and work with words (I may add something to this during the week)
Reading - Read 20 minutes (make sure you are keeping up with your book club reading)


Best wishes to all of you,
Mary Welsh