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Buzz Newsletter, 09/26/2014, page 1
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September 26, 2014 |
The Springer Buzz
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In This Issue:
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Quick Dates for your Calendar:
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Principal’s Message |
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Time Well Spent Over the course of a 20 year career in education, I’ve been to my fair share of conferences and workshops. I can honestly say one of the best conferences I have ever attended occurred last Friday at Covington. Put on by Los Altos School District, EdSummit featured a multitude of topics, many of them presented by our own LASD teachers (3 Springer teachers were presenters!). A highlight of the day for me was Dave Burgess presentation on “Teach Like A Pirate”. In an inspiring and entertaining way, Dave gave the message that teaching with PASSION is vital in order to engage students. He was honest with the audience when he said he doesn’t love all the content he has to teach, but in everything he teaches he finds the connection for his students. In this way, he makes his instruction meaningful and powerful for his students. While Dave was clearly talented at presenting, his message at the end was that creativity, creating moments of impact, and delivery are hard work, but it’s very much worth the effort. In the afternoon, I was blown away at a session called “Mindfulness and Happiness in the Classroom. Because that’s what it is all about.” Presenter Ronni Habibi, teacher at Gunn High School, began by taking participants through a series of fun “ice breakers”. The idea of doing silly tasks with a partner (like create a secret hand-shake) was really about making connections with people in the room; of creating an environment where one feels safe. The discussion then lead to the importance of mindfulness in a person- or simply, being present at that moment. The ability to be present and attentive to those around you, at the moment, is not just connecting with others, but leads to being attentive to your own feelings. Ronni talked about how suppressing our feelings lead to potentially more negative emotions later. By creating classrooms where students feel safe, giving them permission to be in the moment and express themselves, we are creating healthier learning environments. I encourage you to talk to your child’s teacher about what made an impact on her at EdSummit. As a staff, even a week later, we continue to talk about some of the valuable lessons we pulled from it. I found my time at Ed Summit time well spent. Please enjoy your time well spent this weekend. Wade Spenader |
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Walk-a-thon/Rock-a-thon is October 11! |
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All the rockin’ details! Click here. Be a Walk-a-thon rock star! Click here. |
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International Walk-to-School Day! |
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International Walk to School Day - October 8th Meet up at Varsity Park on October 8th at 8am or arrange your own walking school bus from your neighborhood. Traditional donut holes will be served upon arrival at school. International Walk to School Day is a global event that involves communities from more than 40 countries walking and biking to school on the same day. The event has become part of a movement for year-round safe routes to school, with record-breaking participation. Springer will participate with thousands of schools across America! Shout Out! We are seeking volunteers to hand out donuts and chaperone the walk from Varsity Park. We also need a volunteer to lead and continue this fun event next year! Please contact Stacy Rademacher stacy0228[at]yahoo.com. |
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Springer Directory Update |
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SPRINGER DIRECTORY IS NEARLY COMPLETE The online Springer Directory at www.DirectoryBurst.com is up and running. The printed student directory will be distributed soon. There is a draft available in the office. Please stop in and check the contact information for your family before Wednesday October 1st. If you have any questions, send a message to SpringerDirectory@gmail.com. |
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Back-To-School Order Form |
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A HUGE THANK YOU to all of you that placed orders and made donations to the Springer PTA using the online BTS Form! Payments were due today (Sept 26). If you haven’t already, please bring your payment to the office (or send an e-check) as soon as possible. We can’t place your orders for Walk-a-thon Food and Extra t-shirts, Spirit Wear and Birthday Books until we’ve received payment. It’s not too late to join the PTA, order a Birthday Book or make a donation. There are paper order forms in the office, in the "PTA Membership" cubby. An additional opportunity to purchase Auction tickets and Yearbooks will be offered later in the year. Thanks for your support of the Springer PTA! |
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LAEF Phon-a-thon: DONATE TODAY & SAVE US A CALL! |
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We all do it. Donating to LAEF is on our “to do” list… until we get the Phonathon call. Not this year! Save us a call next week by making your tax-deductible donation before September 26. The Phonathon volunteer team will promptly remove your name from our calling list. LAEF already committed to raising $3.3 million for enrichment staff and improving the student to teacher ratio for the 2014-15 school year. Since August, your child is already benefiting from the smaller classes, electives, library, STEM, art, music, PE and so much more made possible thanks to THIS year’s grant. Every K-8 student benefits from LAEF's grant, and that’s why our goal is 100% parent participation. Requested donation per student is $1,000 (or $100 per month for 10 months). Every gift in every amount is appreciated. Any NEW and INCREASED donations made by October 8th will be matched dollar for dollar, up to $100,000, by DeLeon Realty and a group of private donors. Save us a call by making your tax-deductible donation today: www.laefonline.net (or bring a check to the school office). Need Phonathon Volunteers We need parent helpers for our upcoming Phonathon from Monday Sept 29 to Thursday Oct 2 from 6-9pm. Sign up here. LAEF Questions? Contact the LAEF Office at 650.559.0445 or email to admin@laefonline.org. Thanks in advance for becoming an active participant in your child's education! |
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Classroom Yahoo Groups |
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Each class at Springer has a Yahoo Group, used for communications from the PTA, the room parents and/or teacher, and for discussions between the parents. It is very important that at least one parent from each family join the Class Group, as otherwise you will miss communications about activities in your classroom, special events at Springer, etc. All parents listed in the Springer Directory have been sent an invitation to join your Class Group(s). If you haven’t already joined your Class Group, please click here for instructions on how to join. Questions? Contact: SpringerClassLists[at]gmail[dot]com. |
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Announcement From The Nurse Staff |
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Los Altos School District Health Services Department: When to Keep Your Child Home From School Sometimes it is difficult, especially early in the morning, to know whether or not to send your child to school. Please click here to go to the LASD website for guidelines on when you should keep your child home. For information about the Flu/Influenza please click here. You may always call the Springer School Office if you have any questions or concerns. |
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Lost And Found Reminders |
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Please Label Your Kids Stuff! This is the time of year when many coats, sweaters, and sweatshirts will be coming to school, and hopefully going home with the correct owner at the end of the day. Please help your child by labeling their clothing. Last year we donated over 250 items of clothing that were not labeled! If there is a name on the item, we will do our best to return it to its proper owner. Thank you!
Kathleen Feigelman PS: A big “thank you” to who ever donated the plastic hangers! They are a big help! |
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Please Complete Lice Permission Form |
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So far, we have had only 25% of Springer families return the Lice Permission Form. Periodic lice checks can greatly reduce lice outbreaks, but schoolwide checks are not possible without the help of volunteer parents. Please help us by signing and returning the permission slip to the school office or your child’s teacher. Click here for the form. And please sign-up as a volunteer too--we would love to have you on the Springer Lice Squad! |
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Save Money on Your Energy Bill and Donate to Springer |
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Do you want to save money on your electricity and donate to Springer at the same time? Then click here to check out Ohmconnect. What is Ohmconnect? Ohmconnect is a home energy tool that combines the energy reductions of a community and sells that reduction back into the grid. We can generate an estimated $5k to $10k across a school's community, which is then donated to Springer Elementary School. How do users sign up? 1. Sign up at www.ohmconnect.com/springer 2. Connect your utility account to Ohmconnect 3. If you have a central AC or electric car, send an email talk@ohmconnect.com to receive a free electric car charger and/or wifi thermostat to automate your reductions and donations. Questions? |
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Become a LIVING CLASSROOM docent... share your love of nature with kids! |
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The Living Classroom is looking for docents to help deliver hands-on garden-based lessons to the students of the Los Altos School District. No experience necessary as we provide all the training needed! Our Fall docent training session will take place on Monday mornings from 9 - Noon on September 8th through October 13th. Please click here for more details. Questions? Please contact the Living Classroom at livingclassroom@lasdschools.org or visit our website: www.living-classroom.org. |
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Update on Fun!Visor Lunch Time Activities |
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We are so grateful to all of our Fun!visor Leaders who are providing unique and stimulating activities for students to participate in at lunch! All of these programs are going strong in attendance and volunteers. The average of students at most of these activities is over sixty attendees. Here is an update from each club. Mondays students are very busy building with LEGO at LEGO Club. Our guitar estimation contest winners will be announced the week of the walkathon so have your child get his/her estimations in! Donations of LEGO, especially LEGO figures, is always greatly appreciated. Students do week-over-week LEGO builds and appreciate additional pieces. Last Tuesday Springer had our very first YOGA Class taught by Reena Vokoun and it was a huge success. Our next YOGA Class will be Tuesday October 21. Any extra yoga mats laying around--we can use them! Please just bring them to the office. Tuesdays and Thursdays we are also very fortunate to have Ms. Craddock running STEMTASTIC Tuesdays and Thursdays in the STEM Lab! Wednesdays in Arts and Games we are fortunate also to have the help of over 60 student volunteers. This week we had an student volunteer for nearly every attendee who helped the younger grades with games including Connect4, JENGA, Boggle, UNO, and Mastermind. Our running competition has begun and we have defenders of championship titles for these games listed on the Fun!visor Board. Check it out! Fridays we have three fantastic programs Run4YourLife (weekly), GardenZone (biweekly) and Volleyball for Grades 3-6 (biweekly). Run4YourLife lead by Jenni Tellefsen has over sixty student runners making their way to famous rock-n-roll locations including Radio City Music Hall in New York, Bruce Springsteen's hometown in New Jersey, and RocknRoll Hall of Fame in Ohio. In our first NatureZone run by volunteer parent Jeff Fixler, last Friday in the Springer Garden students put in new plantings, picked grapes to put into the greenhouse to make raisins, had an apple tasting, and put up a makeshift fence to protect the pumpkins from the squirrels. This Friday yet another wonderful program begins--volleyball for grades 3rd through 6th lead by Melissa Welsch. Ms. Alison Mort, our Sixth Grade teacher, was our guest coach today! Everyone is very excited to have this club! Questions about Springer's Fun!visor Program please contact Laurie Pasmooij (laurie.pasmooij[at]mac.com). |
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7/23/25 10:30 AM