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Buzz Newsletter, 12/05/2014
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The Springer Buzz December 5, 2014 |
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In This Issue:
Quick Dates for your Calendar:
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Principal’s Message |
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Technology, Music, and Empathy- They all come together next week. Hour of Code If you scan down further you’ll find Ms. Craddock’s article on The Hour of Code that Springer, and all LASD schools, will participate in next week. Not only is this a great way to emphasize computer programming- at all grade levels- but there are also multiple avenues for which you and your child can get involved next week. Please check out the article below entitled: Participate in the Hour of Code! Everyone Deserves Music, Sweet Music! If you have an upper grade student, we’d love for you to attend the annual Winter Concert on Friday, Dec. 12th at 1:00pm in the multi. This concert allows our students to showcase their musical talents- a true performance task! The order of performances are as follows: 4th grade vocal 5th/6th grade chorus 6th grade Orchestra 6th grade Band Thank you LAEF for making STEM possible- which helps us with the Hour of Code and Upper Grade Music happen for our students! Springer Gives Back On Thursday, December 11th, from 10:30 to noon, the entire school will go into “workshop mode”. Working with their buddy classmates, students will make crafts that will be donated to local charities throughout the South Bay region. Last year was the first time we participated in Springer Gives Back and it was enormously successful; in this case, success measured by student pride in their work, empathy towards those who are less fortunate, and the gratitude of those who received the crafts made by our students. Rain, Yes! Bad Driving, NO! What a welcome sight it was to have a significant amount of rainfall this week. Our reservoirs and aquifers can use all the water mother nature is willing to give us. Rain also brings with it more traffic on our streets and in the Springer parking lot. Now is a good time to remind you to be ever so careful when driving. In particular, pay attention to the following:
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Springer Book Fair Was a Rock’n Success! |
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Dear Springer Families, The Rock ‘n Read Book Fair was a huge success! We would like to begin by thanking the incredibly creative members of the Walkathon Committee for sharing their wonderful artwork with us and Amy Zuccaro for creating a custom logo for the fair. Thank you also to the Springer Student Council and their advisors, for promoting an entire Spirit Week and to our Teachers and Staff for helping get the word out and sharing your excitement with the children. And of course, to Mr. Spenader and the Educators for their wonderful performance! Despite the rain, the Family Night was a great success. Thanks to the Community Building Committee, especially Anne Hartman and Juli Eger, for ensuring our food trucks and families were well taken care of and to the Springer Singers for their special performance. We also appreciate the generosity of Gold Rush and Waffle Amore food trucks, who donated a 10% of their profits to the Springer PTA! Of course, none of this would have been possible without the dedication of every one of our amazing volunteer families who gave their time, passion, and energy to help setup and run the Book Fair. A very special thank you to all the students who reviewed books and to Tila Enser, Gail Roosakos, Elodie Laplace-Grangier, Sue Longyear, Bruce Yang and Sharon Tan for their many, many hours of help. And last, but certainly not least, to YOU, the Springer Community, for your support, enthusiasm and participation. Because of your incredible generosity, we got 2,500 books in kids’ hands and we will be donating close to 100 books to the UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital and raised over $7,300 for Springer School! Thank you all again, we look forward to seeing you at the next Springer Book Fair! |
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Springer Gives Back - Update |
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Donate Your Travel Size Toiletries to Springer Gives Back! Thank you for donating your travel size toiletries!! We are almost there and have about 75% of what we need. Springer Gives Back is collecting travel size toiletries as part of this year’s community service project. Please bring new and unused travel size toiletries to the bin in the Springer Office. We are grateful for all of your donations, but as a reminder, we can only accept new, unused, and full toiletries. We are also collecting the cardboard bases from the Google Shopping bags if you have those piling up at home. If you would like to donate over the Thanksgiving break, please contact Renee for delivery address. Thanks! Contact Renee Johnsen chefskate@gmail.com with questions. |
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Food Drive |
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Please join Brownie Troop 61166 in donating non-perishable foods (canned, boxed, bagged) to our box in the office through Friday, December 12th. All collected foods will be donated to Community Services Agency in Mountain View, which serves families in our community. Most needed items are canned tomato products/spaghetti sauces, brown or white grain rice, whole wheat pasta, and canned meats. See www.csacares.org for other donation needs. Thank you for considering a donation. Happy holidays! |
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Participate in The Hour of Code! |
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This upcoming week (December 8th-12th) is Computer Science Education Week, a week dedicated to showing students K-12 the importance of computer science education. The Hour of Code is organized by code.org with the goal to get 10 million students of all ages (and adults) to participate in the hour of code.
According to code.org, "90% of K-12 schools in the U.S. do not teach computer science." Los Altos School District, thanks to funding from LAEF, is fortunate enough to be in the 10% of U.S. Schools that are offering every student the opportunity to learn computational thinking through the STEM and C-STEM program.
During this week, students at Springer and throughout LASD will be participating in a computational thinking/coding lesson. How can you help? 1. Come to the STEM lab with your child before school on Monday, Wednesday, or Friday for a coding activity. The lab will be open from 8:00 to 8:30. 2. Come help out in the computer lab during lunch for STEM-tastic Tuesdays and Thursdays. Activities will all be focused this week on computational thinking. 3. Continue to reinforce these computational thinking skills at home. Grade Level Lessons During Computer Science Education Week Kinder- Bee bots and the bee bot app: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/bee-bot/id500131639?mt=8 1st and 2nd grade: Daisy the Dinosaur: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/daisy-the-dinosaur/id490514278 OR Hopscotch: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/hopscotch-coding-for-kids/id617098629?mt=8 3rd-5th grade: Scratch: http://scratch.mit.edu/ 6th grade: Will continue with CSTEM curriculum All grades can check out ideas on Code.org. "Everybody in this country should learn how to program a computer…because it teaches you how to think."- Steve Jobs Joanie Craddock Springer STEM Teacher Los Altos, CA JCraddock@lasdschools.org Twitter: @SpringerSTEM |
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LASD Ed Talk |
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STEM & CSTEM |
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Become a Living Classroom Docent! |
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Become a LIVING CLASSROOM docent... share your love of nature with kids! 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 Winter Docent Training Session will take place on Monday mornings from 9 - Noon on December 8th & 15th and January 12th & 26th. 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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Mighty Youth Runners (4th, 5th and 6th graders) - Winter After School Program |
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Kids! Interested in running, preparing for Jr. Olympics, or working on your personal best? The Mighty Youth Runners is an all inclusive, after school running program for 4th, 5th and 6th graders. The program will meet twice per week and run from January 6th to March 5th. Maximum enrollment is 16 runners. Must have at least 10 students signed up for program to take place. Sign up now. For more information click here: http://www.mightyyouthrunners.com or email Jenni Tellefsen at: mightyyouthrunners[at]gmail.com |
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Girls-on-the Run 2015 Season Registration |
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Online Registration opens at 8:00 am on Saturday, December 13, 2014! |
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Fun!visor--Springer Scribes |
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Even a little thunderstorm didn't deter our fearless student writers who showed up at this week's Springer Scribes Fun!visor meeting in the library at lunch. Once every five weeks students can come to work on their stories at lunch or turn in stories or poems written at home to Springer Scribe Fun!visor lead Kathy Thompson. By the end of the year, we hope to have enough submissions to publish a literary journal. Springer Scribes is one in a number of Fun!visor Programs offered to students at lunch and led by parent volunteers. |
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The Springer Juggling Club |
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The Juggling Club is a club that meets every Wednesday from 7:30 AM to 8:25 AM in the multi. Anyone in grades four and above can join for free, any time of the year. It's actually not that hard to start juggling, and should you encounter any problems, the juggling teachers and some helpful jugglers can get you through the bumps on the road. It can take only one year of being in this club for you to be able to learn several techniques, and even a few fancy tricks. Once you get juggling three balls down (and it's actually not that hard) you can spend the last 5 to 10 minutes of the class juggling with some cool objects including chinese yo-yos, rings, clubs... The Juggling Club is a really fun club to at least try, and before you know it, you'll be juggling 3-4 balls at a time! |
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Winter Session of After-School Clubs |
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Lego Robotics -- Winter Session is starting January 14th! Click here for details.
Our after-school Art Club for Grades K - 2 is now enrolling. Click here for info on class dates, location and time. |
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Student Extracurricular Activities: |
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5/9/25 3:57 AM |