update, 6/4

Hello Fantastic Families,

It is absolutely shocking that we are here at the last week of our school year. We will finish off the year with a week of STEAM design challenges, friendship activities, school celebrations, and our class presentations. In addition, I have one last bit of homework for you and your child to complete:

Summer Learning Plan

Homework for our last week of school 

What a wonderful school year it has been. Now summer is here and days drift by with less active learning. Remember, it is incredibly important to keep reading, writing, and practicing math during the summer months.

This week it is your homework to create a summer learning contract with your parents. The contract should provide a concrete plan for continued learning throughout the summer. The contract can be created in whatever form you prefer but must be signed by both parent and child. It may include things like: camps, field trips to local natural/historical sites, travel journals and photo-journals, daily family reading times, trips to the library, math practice and any of other innumerable learning experiences.

The contract should be turned in on Thursday June 9th. It will be returned to you for use this summer.

A (semi) wise teacher once said, “The whole world is a child’s best and most exciting homework.”

Dancefest

Send in a hand towel with your child’s name on the tag as soon as possible to use as a prop for our dance. On the day of Dancefest, June 8th, have your child wear Hawaiian/tropical print clothing. Kindergarten dancing begins at 12:30 with the rest of the grades sequentially dancing thereafter. The dancing follows an all school picnic. 

Summer Birthdays and Friendship day

We will celebrate all our summer birthdays with our usual silly celebration. Let’s hold off on the treats for this day as there will be lots of little goodies coming home because it’s…..Friendship Day! 

To celebrate the friendships we’ve made, maintained,  and grown this year we will be doing a series of fun friendship activities. Please send in 24 tokens of some kind to be distributed to the class. These can be homemade, bought, written, drawn….whatever you’d like. No treats please.

Important dates

6/6 summer birthday celebrations and friendship day

6/7 Lifeguard presentations

6/8 Dancefest! Parents invited!

6/9 last day of school

Best,

 Andrew Smith

Teacher, Del Mar Heights School

Update 5/30

Dear Fantastic Families,

I sincerely appreciate your time and engagement as students shared their writing and their gratitude last Thursday. Thank you for indulging my sentimental side in our circle together.

Last week the class was able to enjoy two performances. One, the fourth grade performance of Gold Dust or Bust, featured many siblings of class students and was full of both information and fun! The other, a professional performance of Peter and the Wolf, was amazing by all accounts. Reflections were written about the performances and we will capitalize on the musical elements in instruction this week. 

Volunteers

I thank the generous gifts of time and talents that were given in support of students during the year. We are now officially concluded with volunteers. With the variability of scheduling during these last two weeks it is less than pragmatic to maintain our volunteer schedule.

Homework

In lieu of regular spelling words and homework for the next two weeks, your student is asked to research a topic of interest and prepare a simple presentation for the class. Directions will be sent home tomorrow or can be found here. You may help as little or as much as you like, as long as it is their project and their learning. I am expecting amazing kid-prepared poster boards, speeches, dioramas, etc, of great fun and variety!  

Dancefest

Send in a hand towel with your child’s name on the tag as soon as possible to use as a prop for our dance. On the day of Dancefest, June 8th, have your child wear Hawaiian/tropical print clothing. Kindergarten dancing begins at 11:30 followed by an all school picnic and then the rest of the grades around 12:30.  

Summer Birthdays and Friendship day

We will celebrate all our summer birthdays with our usual silly celebration. Let’s hold off on the treats for this day as there will be lots of little goodies coming home because it’s…..Friendship Day! 

To celebrate the friendships we’ve made, maintained,  and grown this year we will be doing a series of fun friendship activities. Please send in 24 tokens of some kind to be distributed to the class. These can be homemade, bought, written, drawn….whatever you’d like. No treats please.

Important dates

6/1 Countdown to Summer after school PTA celebration

6/6 summer birthday celebrations and friendship day

6/7 Lifeguard presentations

6/8 Dancefest! Parents invited!

6/9 last day of school

update, 5/22

Dear Fantastic Families,

Thank you for a wonderful appreciation week! Your notes, words, and gifts arrived at the perfect time.

Just as many of you have been affected by the accident at school, I have too. Our school and the people at school mean the world to me and it is taking me some time to emotionally heal and process. Your kind words reminded me of how special a community we have here at Del Mar Heights and reaffirmed the gratitude I have for being a part of it. 

If you or your child are in need of help in the aftermath, please reach out to me. There are a series of meetings planned in the evenings to help our community move towards healing. Please see this week’s Dolphin Digest for more information.

Our studies of Geology continue with a pair of lab times guided by scientists from the San Diego Natural History Museum. On Friday we used the observational techniques of identifying streaking, coloring, luster, hardness, and cleavage (breakage) to classify rock varieties. We continue on Monday with more exploration of rocks and minerals! 

Coinciding with this study, we have invested a touch of time in Byrd Baylor’s book, Everybody Needs a Rock, the close reading revealed a bit of author’s craft and inspired the writing of our own book, Everybody Needs a Friend. Each child is just now working on their own adaptation of this story to be shared on Thursday at our Celebration of Writing.

Celebration of Writing

This Thursday 8:00-8:45ish

Please join us this Thursday in our room for our Celebration of Writing presentation. Your children will be presenting a selection of current pieces including their final fictional narrative, a few poems, the aforementioned Byrd Baylor adaptation, and perhaps a special technology surprise. More than anything, this serves as a way for us to be together to celebrate the kids and this fine school year. After our presentation, you will feast on kid-made tea sandwiches and incredibly fancy spa water made from ingredients grown and harvested by our kids from our garden. 

Homework

In lieu of regular spelling words and homework for the next two weeks, your student is asked to research a topic of interest and prepare a simple presentation for the class. Directions will be sent home tomorrow or can be found here. You may help as little or as much as you like, as long as it is their project and their learning. I am expecting amazing kid-prepared poster boards, speeches, dioramas, etc, of great fun and variety!  

Dancefest

Send in a hand towel with your child’s name on the tag as soon as possible to use as a prop for our dance. On the day of Dancefest, June 8th, have your child wear Hawaiian/tropical print clothing. Kindergarten dancing begins at 11:30 followed by an all school picnic and then the rest of the grades around 12:30. 

Heroes All Link

If you’d care to watch a version of our grade level performance feel free to take a look on my recently sent email. It’s unlisted and cannot be searched in any way on the web. 

You might also enjoy this link. Thanks to the Del Mar Heights PTA for providing weekly music assemblies where each child was able to learn and perform on a simple instrument while being exposed to music theory. Take a look on the link sent in my recent email to enjoy a little performance from our class! It’s unlisted so no public eyes can find it.

Best,

 Andrew Smith

Teacher, Del Mar Heights School

Important dates

5/23 Natural History Museum Geology mobile lab of discovery

5/26 Celebration of writing, Parents invited! 8:15 a.m.

5/27 Peter & the Wolf 12:40 p.m. (kids event)

5/30 Memorial Day - No School

6/1 Countdown to Summer after school PTA celebration

6/6 summer birthday celebrations

6/7 Lifeguard presentations

6/8 Dancefest! Parents invited!

6/9 last day of school

Update, 5/9

Hello Fantastic Families,

Happy Mother’s Day to all of our ever-loving, ever-patient mothers! I hope your day was filled with hugs and giggles!

The Del Mar Schools Education Foundation does a great job funding the credentialed STEAM+ teachers that make school a well-rounded place to be a learner. Please consider giving what is comfortable. What Del Mar has is really rare. Most “specialty” teachers in other districts are not trained and credentialed in their field of expertise. They are often uncertificated aides. This matters. It matters in instruction and in articulation with classroom teachers to reach maximum learning outcomes. 

Speaking of a well-rounded education, thanks to the Del Mar Heights PTA for providing weekly music assemblies where each child was able to learn and perform on a simple instrument while being exposed to music theory. Take a look here to enjoy a little performance from our class! It’s unlisted so no public eyes can find it.

Our trip to visit Urban Plantation and Green Acre farm to table restaurant yielded quite a learning harvest. Students were treated to a tour of the sustainable farm while discussing issues of sustainability and agricultural practice. We also were invited to explore new healthy foods direct from the garden. Who knew pickled fennel and baby corn shoots were so delicious?

Our next trip is a docent-led hike through the North Extension of Torrey Pines Park. We are so very fortunate to have such wondrous natural beauty at our doorstep and it is incumbent upon us to use it as a classroom to at least some extent. The Natural History Museum generously sends us volunteer guides who tend to be both knowledgeable and enthusiastic. So far the weather report for hike day, this Friday, looks San Diego sensational so hike on we will!

Mr. Phillip’s fantastic first-through-third grade Dolphin games featured fun athletic enterprises such as The Chicken Toss and The Hula Hoop Roll. These non-standard games help introduce the timid to competitive games while helping Mr. Philip teach about physical skills. Coming on May 18th the more traditional Junior Olympics will be held. This event must be entered through registration. Forms came home a week and a bit ago and are also available in the office I would guess. Encourage your child to join in!

Our young scientists have enjoyed experimentation with plants and are just about to plant their sprouted corn and sunflowers in the school garden to allow their further growth. The garden has been full of activity lately and the addition of these second grade crops will make it all the more vibrant as the plants mature over the summer and into the fall. 

Bird Baylor is an author of signature style and focus. Her emphasis on poetic prose centered on the care and appreciation of nature fits perfectly with our recent studies of habitats and their inhabitants’ interconnectedness, plants, Earth Day, and upcoming studies of geology. Further, We are exploring her books as part of an author study that allows us to ask critical questions as readers- developing the ability to progress from concrete interpretations to synthesis and abstracted conclusions. For instance, in the book, “The Table Where Rich People Sit” we meet a girl who believes her “poor” family needs more money. But after assigning value to their relative freedom and ability to enjoy the natural world together, she arrives at a different understanding of what “rich” means. Our readers moved from gaining an understanding of this character’s growth to generalizing her learning to a greater cohort. Finally they were able to try to approach the question, “What do you think it means to be rich?”. Answers varied as widely as you might assume but generally had nothing to do with money. Evidently I am rich because I have a little, old, and friendly dachshund. 

I’d like to invite everyone to come celebrate the writers of our classroom on May the 26th from 1:30 to 2:30 p.m. We will enjoy presentations from the students and a bit of time together to end the year right!

As May moves on please consider if you might like to have a meeting with me before the year concludes. There are no formal conferences in the district but I am more than happy to debrief and set new summer-and-beyond goals for our little ones. Please let me know if you’d like to meet.

Important dates

5/13 Torrey Pines Hike with the Natural History Museum Docents

5/18 Jr. Olympics 12:45-2:30 p.m.

5/20 Natural History Museum Geology mobile lab of discovery

5/20 Stuffed Animal Spirit Day

5/23 Natural History Museum Geology mobile lab of discovery

5/26 Celebration of writing, Parents invited!

5/27 Peter & the Wolf 12:40 p.m.

5/27 Next Grade level visit day (1 hour in third grade)

5/30 Memorial Day - No School

6/1 Countdown to Summer after school PTA celebration

6/6 summer birthday celebrations

6/7 Lifeguard presentations

6/8 Dancefest!

6/9 last day of school

Best,

 Andrew Smith

Teacher, Del Mar Heights School

Update, 4/17

Hello Fantastic Families,

Our young scientists are moving on from studies of habitats (though writing on the subject continues) into studying the various types and characteristics of plants found in differing habitats. To coincide with this study, we are planting crops in the school garden, observing and recording data related to seeds, flowers, and seed dispersion, designing our own experiments about the growth of plants, and taking a field trip to a nearby urban farm. 

Mathwork has two main emphases at the moment.

 First, we are working on using larger quantities with a variety of problem solving strategies. As I have emphasized in the past, second grade is a time to solidify understanding of how bace ten and place value concepts interplay. Because of this, many experiences problem solving different types of problems are necessary with the onus to demonstrate understanding not only with answers but with communication of chosen strategies. For example, one student might solve a Join: change unknown problem might be solved by counting on from the smaller of numbers towards the larger by like units, then place value units might be joined together. The same problem could be solved by subtracting the like units from one another to see where the change occurred. 

The second emphasis point we will be working on through the end of the year is to build fluency with very simple addition and subtraction. These are concepts that are well understood, now we must commit them to rapid recall or solution-finding. You can help with this by using one of the many online games that can be played for simple recall or by just doing some quick recall games in the car while driving. This does not need to be stressful, just a bit of extra practice to go along with the extra practice we are beginning in class. 

I am itching to begin a rich author study that I have planned. Byrd Baylor is an author who expresses depth and complexity in relationships between humans and nature with clean, concise text and beautiful linear illustrations. We will be exploring her works and her style in late April and into May. Look for some art and writing to come as we work through her texts. 

I am out tomorrow at a district meeting. Please give the kids my best and give thanks for their amazing little selves. 

Best,

 Andrew Smith

Teacher, Del Mar Heights School

This Week’s Highlights

4/18-22

Phonics and word study focus

-synonyms

Reading focus

Comprehension focus: Non-Fiction Texts: habitats, plants, ecology

Close reading: Non-Fiction, magazine articles

Book club individualized strategy lessons: Lessons created for specific skill outcomes based on individual and group needs

Focus books: plants and ecology

Writing focus

Conventions- Spacing, Feeling ending of sentences, Periods and Capitals, Commas in a series, Indentation

Writing skill- structure of multiple-paragraph essays, transitions and high-interest topic sentences in expository writing

Topical writing- multiple paragraph essays, habitats

Fiction- continue workshop for Magic Medicine Narrative

Math focus

Full Math workshop

Math journal problem solving through visual models

Individualized challenges

Word Problem solving, larger numbers in addition and subtraction

Fluency work

Social Studies focus

Earth day

Science focus

Plants

Homework

Daily reading, homework packet, and optional online work (razkids, rosetta stone, dreambox, typing club)

Field Trip Follow-up

Hello Fantastic Families,

After an enlightening field trip today I thank those who chaperoned and offer appreciation for the very fine attention that our students gave to our presenters. Please compliment your children.

As part of the field trip we were given time to use our creativity, communication, collaboration, and critical thinking in purposeful play with reusable and repurposed materials. The “play” session consisted mainly of kids interacting with each other and their materials in multi-modal, dynamic ways. Safety was, as always, a priority through the play session. There were opportunities for problem solving, engineering enterprise, negotiations, and collaborations. Labyrinths that referenced Mythology were created while models of imaginative launching machines and semi-realistic gymnastics studios took form. In the end, the “play” sessions reminded us that in a world dominated by schedules and absolutes, it is important to empower the innovative and collaborative internal lives of our children through invitations to create. 

In class we have done this with many STEAM+ activities, the most recent of which challenged our students to use what they had learned through research about a given habitat, create that habitat in a manner that represented the key concepts found therein in teams, and present their learning and project to educate others. 

Perhaps there is even more room to be made in out-of-school life for the benefits of play. Something to think about as you read through articles and papers that refer to play as a key educational tool that helps students construct a vision of themselves and functional tools of creators in a broad sense. 

Hello and Checking-in!

Hello Fantastic Families,

As we reach the midpoint of our week of spring vacation I wish you many enjoyable hours with family. As an enticement for time spent well, I encourage you to try out a visit to our local tide pools this week. Afternoon tides should be very good. I’ve attached the local tide chart so you can plan your visit prudently.  My favorite local tide pools are just north of us at Tabletop Reef in Solana beach (101 North, exit into seaside park with large lot just after descending the hill into Cardiff. The tide pools are to the south of the parking lot. Alternatively, you can turn West on Solana Vista then park at the top of the coastal stairs, descend and head north a bit.) Tide pools can be slippery so you may want to wear water shoes of some type (not flip-flops), bring a towel, and a curious mind. Have fun!

As well, please be sure your child is reading wonderful books daily! Here’s a visit to the Roald Dahl website to explore with your young reader as well. 

I look forward to sharing our days at our fantastic school once again next week!