September 26, 2007 

IMPORTANT CALENDAR DATES

If you have items to add to the calendar, please e-mail the date and time along with a description to calendar@pacificaschool.org  

FIRST MONTHLY COMMUNITY GATHERING, OCTOBER 4TH

The Community Affairs Committee is sponsoring the first monthly Pacifica School Community Gathering on Thursday, October 4th,  from 5:30 till 7:00 pm. Come to celebrate the new school year, welcome our new students, families, teachers and director, and hang out with returning community members. Bring finger foods and drinks to share (please bring individual size juices/water). For more information, contact communityaffairs@pacificaschool.org. 

WORK DAY, SEPTEMBER 29TH

Please join the Site Committee for a work day this Saturday, 9/29 from 9:30 am till 3:00 pm. There’s a lot to do, especially for the 6/7/8 group! Work days are FUN! And, as a bonus, they count toward your parent participation commitment! 

HELP STUDENTS FORM A STUDENT COUNCIL

There are three councils that make up Pacifica’s governance: Organization Council, Staff Council and Student Council. We’re looking for some adults to help our students develop and organize their Council. The Student Council could be a valuable learning experience for our kids, where they can have a real voice and participate in the democratic structure of our school. If you are interested in guiding students in this endeavor, please contact sahira@pacificaschool.org. 

COMMUNICATIONS COMMITTEE NOW FORMING

The Communications Committee will hold their first meeting of the school year on campus this Saturday, 9/29 at noon. If you have any of the following interests, WE NEED YOU: you want a voice in forming the “voice” of Pacifica; you have experience with publicity, media, news releases, or public relations (or want to GET experience with them); you have technical skills and want to help with Pacifica’s computer network and/or phone system; you have experience designing websites; or you have writing, journalism, graphics or publishing skills and want to use them to help design fliers, our newsletter and/or other publicity materials for our school. 

KNOW YOUR COUNCIL!

Over the coming weeks, your Wednesday Weekly will introduce you to members of Pacifica’s Organization Council. These folks are your representatives who deal with the business end of the school. This week, we’re introducing our Site Chairperson: 

Darby Bayliss

Darby says: “As a kid I went to a ‘free’ school (as it was called in the 60's) in New York City, which was kind of like Pacifica, and I have been hooked ever since on child-centered humanistic education. When I grew up, I went to Smith College and then to University of Michigan Law School. After practicing law for a while I married Eric Bronson and we took a three-year honeymoon, backpacking around the world. That was fun! We have three kids, Brenna (11), Maeve (8), and Eamon (5).” 

AMAZON.COM MAKES PACIFICA $$$

Pacifica’s programs are expensive, and we’re always looking for unobtrusive ways to help raise funds for them. A very easy way to potentially generate significant funds is to get folks who already use Amazon.com to use the links on our website (they’re at the bottom of every page on www.pacificaschool.org), when they make their purchases. Amazon pays Pacifica 6% or more of your purchases of virtually ANY product they sell! Tell your family and friends! NOTE: Be sure to use the links on our website when making your purchases or Pacifica won’t get credit! 

COMMUNITY FORUM 

Carpooling Request

Buz Alexander(Claire Desmula's dad) is looking for families interested in carpooling who live in the Venice area. Please call 310-968-3115. Thanks! 

CLASSROOM UPDATES 

K-1 Group:

Hello K-1 parents!

This year has started with full blast and a lot of energy! We have had lots of fun getting to know the students and how they navigate the classroom. We would like to thank the many parents who have helped out in one way or another. Your help is always needed and greatly appreciated!. Right now, K-1 is busy exploring math manipulatives and will begin a patterns unit within a few weeks. We have also been enjoying big books as part of our project and literacy time. We have been working with our tribes and learning things about our fellow members. Come and check out our "What's been happening" wall and our amazing art book.

K-1 is having a community breakfast on Friday- please sign up what you can bring for this event

During the morning (8.55-9.10) we have family literacy time. Please come in and spend these precious moments with your child and their friends and read to them. We need some more support from parents.

Don't forget to bring in your emergency kits!! We need them

If you have old spare keys, jars, buttons, bottle caps, shells, string, mirrors, rubber bands (colored please) - WE NEED THEM!!!!!

We still need a lot of help from our parents. Please see the brief list below and see if you can help us in any way. We really need your support in these endeavors. See Ramiza.

1. A parent to commit to taking ongoing photographs of students while they are learning
2. A parent to organize and label our library - it's in shambles =(
3. A parent to label all of our manipulatives with pictures and text (and label the shelves with the same labels) so students know where to put the items
4. A parent to help create our word wall
5. A parent who can help label portfolios and file pages
6. We need someone to sew a curtain along our window cubbies
7. We need more markers, pencils, erasers and pencil sharpeners
8. A parent to commit to sharpening our pencils every morning

We thank you once again for your help.

K-1 team 

1–2 Group:

Hello 1-2 parents! 

We hope everyone is well and safe. This year has started with full throttle and it seems like it has already been a year! Right now the 1-2 class is working on creating and maintaining tribes. The students are enjoying working as part of a tribe and all the different roles each member plays. The class is also exploring math manipulatives and the concept of patterns and multiplication. We have also started our "Tangata Whenua" project- which is going to look at the natural and social aspects of human, animal and plant communities. We will also be using this project to examine the Native American Indians. The Writing Project has been launched, and the students are really enjoying the process it provides and scaffolds. I (Ramiza) ask that parents have continuous dialogue with their child about the things they write about and help them record any exciting experiences they have out of school, which they can bring to help them during the workshop. I also wanted to tell/remind parents that this year we will be creating and using personal "life books"- where students will record, draw and or write any exciting and meaningful experiences that they have. They will be able to take the book home and use it when they want to. We won't start the life books until next month. Just a heads up that parents will need to purchase a composition book (with lines) next month.

Reminder: Community breakfast is on Friday

We still need a lot of support from our parents. If you can help with any of the endeavors at home, please see Ramiza ASAP.

1. We need someone to label and file student work in portfolios
2. We need someone to help find/make/donate a smaller cubby-type shelf for our classroom
3. We need someone to sew a curtain along our window cubbies
4. We need an artist to help us draw our classroom agreements on canvas
5. We need parents to donate plants, gardening tools, soil, spray bottles, containers for our plant project
6. We need someone to bind our alphabet letter book

Thanks for all your love and support

1-2 Team 

2/3 Weekly 

Things are coming together in the 2/3 pod.  Two weeks ago students began to create paper mache globes to see where they fit in within the world.  They then created a bird’s eye view map of Pacifica.  To further elaborate on where they fit in within the world and school, they began creating 3-D models of their Pacifica maps.  Both activities were used to build a more cohesive learning community while tying in the state standards on using map-making skills.  In Language arts we have been reading “ Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”, which the students really seem to like and fills their heads with imaginative and tasty adjectives.  We have also begun our poetry unit within our “Writers workshop”.  Come check out your child’s journal to see their progression into the world of poetry.  As we begin a journey with the poet Shel Silverstein, be ware of our poetry boa constructor!  In math we are discovering how geometry affects our everyday lives and covering number sense.  We are learning the place value of numbers and comparing them with our classmates.  During science we have experimented and discovered how to make an egg bounce and how to protect it from cracking like Humpty Dumpty.  The class has discovered what is attracted to magnets and which direction a compass mainly points in.  Now that we are transforming into inquisitive scientists, we continue to hypothesis on the world around us.  We are looking forward to the upcoming weeks as wee venture into many more journeys and discover many more facts 

4-5 Group:

4/5 has been busy designing and making Pugly Dolls. Stop by to see them-they're so ugly they're cute! Students have been setting their own math goals and working on place value. LACMA visited us last week, to give the students an art lesson, and provided a bus and docents for a field trip on September 25th. We learned about a few pieces and had some time for sketching. It was a great experience. Please keep an eye on the board outside the classroom for upcoming trips and events. It worked out really well for the teachers as a place to put trip slips.  

Thank you for getting them in on time! 

6/7/8 Group:

The 6th, 7th, and 8th grade is off to a great start!  One of the most challenging parts of school can be staying organized.  To help Pacifica students keep their math notes and work in one place, we are asking that each student brings, no later than next Monday:  

*1 3-subject notebook with pockets 

If any student has difficulty attaining this, please let either Brandy or Kelly know and we will do our best to make sure that all students have one.   

The 6th, 7th, and 8th grade is also in need of parent volunteers! We have been doing hands-on math and science activities in the front room. You may have heard about making frogs, or estimating how many nickels or pennies we have to stack to reach our height! We would love to keep doing such fun activities, and we know they will run more smoothly if we have parents in the room that work with small groups. Parents are needed to keep students on task and answer any questions they have.  

We have a need for parent volunteers every day of the week for both morning and afternoon sessions. The morning session is from 10-11:30 and the afternoon session is from 1-2:30. You will find a sign-up sheet on the door of the front room starting Thursday, September 26th. Please stop by and sign up for a weekly time!  

As a last note, please talk to your students about the importance of writing in pencil or pen. Using other writing utensils such as crayons and markers makes student work difficult to read and equally difficult for students to erase. We like to keep supplies available in the classroom if we can all limit their use to the appropriate times.