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