ALMOND THURSDAY WORD
December 1, 2016

UPCOMING DATES TO REMEMBER

• Thursday, 12/1 - Kindergarten & New Family Information Night (7:00pm)
• Tuesday, 12/6 - Almond Singers Winter Concert (Multi, 7:00pm)
• Wednesday, 12/7 - PTA General Meeting (Multi, 8:30am)
• Friday, 12/9 - TK/K Holiday Concert (Multi, 1pm)
• Monday, 12/12 - Gr. 4-6 Holiday Concert (Multi, 1pm)
• Tuesday, 12/13 - Gr. 1-3 Holiday Concert (Multi, 1pm)
• Wednesday, 12/14 - School Site Council, SSC (Library, 3:05pm)
• Thursday, 12/15 - School Coffee (Library, 8:35am)
• 12/19 thru 1/2 - December Vacation
• Tuesday, 1/3/17 - School Resumes

SCHOOL MESSAGE
We hope that you had a wonderful Thanksgiving with family and/or friends.  

The Leadership Team would like to share the following highlights with you about the happening in your children’s instructional program.

• TK - Students are learning to color in the lines without “Peek a Boos”.  Tkers are also learning to consistently write their names  “the kindergarten way” - with a Capital Letter followed by lowercase letters.
• Kinder - Students are reading different version of Gingerbread stories, studying character traits, and analyzing the different endings of the stories to strengthen their abilities to compare and contrast.
• Gr. 1 - In science students are beginning a unit focused on plants and animals.  They will plant rye and alfalfa grass to observe the changes in their growth.  For language arts students are learning about holidays around the world to expand their knowledge about diverse celebrations.  They will focus on main ideas and key details.
• Gr. 2 - Students just finished writing paragraphs from the perspective of a turkey. Their aim was to try to convince people that they were dancers, knights, and more...but definitely not turkeys!  Perspective taking is a critical skill for children to practice.
• Gr. 3 - Students finished their integrated Space & Time unit that focused on blending information about the sun, moon, and stars with language arts.  The focus was on asking and answering questions, text features, and writing explanatory paragraphs.
• Gr. 4 - Students led very successful parent conferences using student reflections and data notebooks as a guide.  It’s so important that we cultivate the voices of our students and they were front and center during the conferences.  Students are now starting a focus on narrative writing in ELA, a unit on explorers in social studies, and will continue their reflective practices in their student data notebooks.
• Gr. 5 - Students had a fantastic week utilizing the Design Thinking process to become “Agents of Change” at Almond School.  They gained empathy for students and staff by making observations and interviewing others about problems they identified on campus, and then began iterating potential solutions.  At the end of the week, all 5th graders gathered together to share their ideas and many have continued with their thinking to transform our school into a more positive environment.
• Gr. 6 - Students are beginning a new, three-week unit on plot in their homeroom classes.  The learning goal for students is to master the five elements of plot:  introduction, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution.  They will also be analyzing how a character changes over the course of the plot’s development.
• STEM - Next week is Hour of Code! All schools in LASD are participating in this event. The STEM Lab will be open at lunch from 12:00-12:40 on Monday and Wednesday for parents, teachers and students to code together.

PTA & SCHOOL ANNOUNCEMENTS - NEW

Become a LIVING CLASSROOM docent... share your love of nature with kids!

• It's time to build bird nests, make yummy soup from the veggies we harvest from our school gardens, discover symmetry inside fruit, and make natural dyes from plants!  If you like all those things and more, please consider becoming a Living Classroom docent!  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 will take place at the LASD iLearn Studio on Monday mornings from 9 - Noon on 12/5, 12/12*, 1/9 and 1/23 (*the 12/12 training will take place at the Palo Alto School District Science Resource Center).  Please click here to view our Winter Training Flyer.  Apprentice-style training also available for those who can’t make our Monday morning trainings.
• Questions? Email us at livingclassroom@lasdschools.org or call (650) 947-1103.  For more information about Living Classroom, please visit our website at www.living-classroom.org.

BOOKWAVE

• Don't forget to encourage your children to work on their Bookwave books!!  The deadline for final submission is January 31st.  You will have the holiday break and MLK weekend to work on them but please start early so the children are not rushed.  If you need any extra pages or have questions, please contact Marissa Song at marissasong@gmail.com.
• For parents who did not order Bookwave packages for their kids, there is still time!  The program gives every child the chance to become a published author! Students from grades K-6 can experience the joy and satisfaction of creating their very own book and then seeing it printed and bound into a keepsake they’ll treasure forever. In the spring, after the books are printed, we’ll celebrate by displaying everyone’s work at a big party, complete with refreshments and prizes a. If you would like your child to participate, please provide a check for $10 made out to Almond PTA with your child's name, grade and teacher.  There will be a bin in the office for Bookwave checks.  Learn more about the program here: http://www.almondschool.org/Almondes/Portal/214-Bookwave

LAEF:  Winter Music Concerts & Computer Science Ed Week
We hope you enjoy the sounds of the season coming from our 4^th, 5^th and 6^th grade LASD Winter Music Concerts in addition to hearing inspiring stories of our K-8 students participating in “Hour of Code” during Computer Science Education Week.  Parent donations to LAEF have made these enriching educational experiences possible. That’s why we are requesting your support by donating at LAEFonline.org by 12/31.

LAEF:  Buy Your Holiday Cards from Tiny Prints & Support LAEF
By ordering your holiday cards from Tiny Prints (link here), you’ll save on your cards and LAEF will receive a donation from every order! It’s another easy way to support LAEF during this season of giving. Thank you!

Egan Holiday Craft Faire
Come shop for the holidays!  Egan School seventh and eighth grade students are busily making all kinds of homemade crafts and gift items to sell at their annual Holiday Craft Faire. Items for sale will include pillows, soaps, jewelry, clothing accessories, hats, candles, origami as well as ornaments, holiday crafts, decorations and food items.  The Holiday Craft Faire will take place on Friday, December 9 from 7:30a-12:30p at Egan School (100 West Portola Avenue).  Everyone is welcome!

Amond Community Services:  Family Giving Tree Wish Drive
Dear Almond Families,

• There is still time to sign up and make a child’s holiday wish come true this holiday season!  We’d like to thank all of the generous Almond Families who have signed up to help us reach our goal of making 125 wishes come true - we are getting close but  still have about 20 wishes to fulfill!  
• Here is how to help:
  • 1) Pick a gift from THIS spreadsheet and enter your name in Column B for any wish you would like to grant.  It's a great activity to look at the list with your child and go shopping together.  It is truly eye opening to see an 8 year old boy wishing for a soccer ball and a 14 year old girl wishing for twin size sheets or VTA tokens.
  • 2) If you prefer to give a cash donation (we will shop) - please paypal Seema (bhimsee@yahoo.com) or write a check made out to Seema Chavan.  Please email us and we will add your name to the spreadsheet so you can see the wish(s) you fulfilled.  
• Gifts are due to Seema or Polly by Wednesday, December 7th so we can have time to sort, tag and drive them over to the warehouse prior to our event.
• A few details:
  • Please label each gift with its corresponding ID # (column D) and name of child when dropping off.  
  • Gift should be unwrapped and the recommended value is between $20 and $40.  
  • You only need to purchase one gift for each child per row, either the 'Wish' or 'Alternate Wish' item.
  • Donations can be dropped off to one of our homes (address provided on wish list spreadsheet) or in the Almond office (box labeled Family Giving Tree)

Thank you so much for supporting this wonderful cause. Let’s all pitch in and do something GREAT together this holiday season!
Cheers,
Almond Community Service

PTA & SCHOOL ANNOUNCEMENTS - REPEATED

[none at this time]

COMMUNITY ANNOUNCEMENTS

Almond Brownie Girl Scout Troop 61070 Collects Coats for One Warm Coat

• Nearly 50 million Americans are currently living in poverty.  For these families and individuals, a warm coat is a budget extra they simply cannot afford. Almond Brownie Girl Scout Troop 61070 invites you to make a difference in your neighbors' lives by donating coats during our upcoming coat drive!
• Brownie Troop 61070 is working with One Warm Coat to collect clean, gently used warm coats from November 28 through December 16 in the Almond office. Our second grade Brownie troop will write loving notes to place in a pocket of each coat and deliver them to Ecumenical Hunger Program in East Palo Alto. All donated coats will be given to local children and adults in need.  Please consider making a difference in someone’s life by sharing your outgrown or unused (but in good condition!) coats!