From the PTA
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The Family Picnic is Thursday!
Bring a blanket, pack a picnic and a dessert to share, and come to school on Thursday evening at 5:30 pm for a chance to socialize with other La Entrada families. The Family Picnic is one of the best ways to reacquaint your family with the broader La Entrada community. While you meet other families in your child's classes, the kids can take over the blacktop for games and dancing to a DJ. You can outfit your family in spiritwear sold by the student government, buy a Baskin Robbins ice cream cone to remind you of your own childhood, and play the army tag and hokey-pokey with your kids. Kids will run free, darkness will fall, and fun will be had by all. Don't miss it. Who needs an excuse to join the PTA? Over 50% of our families didn't hesitate to join the La Entrada PTA and help support the wide variety of activities and programs that the PTA provides each year to make our children's school experience more interesting and our parent community stronger. Those of you who haven't yet joined yet use the excuse of the great school directory, fully supported by the PTA, the fascinating lunchtime enrichment series your child keeps talking about, or the invitations starting to come for grade-level parent gatherings. It is easy to mail in the form Thank you! Transitions are always busy and these wonderful volunteers have spent countless hours making the PTA work more efficiently and providing programs and activities to our school community during these first few weeks of school. We would like to thank the following volunteers and those that supported them: Karen Zupsic -For editing and distributing the Leopard's Spot, each and every week! Artis Montague- For revamping our volunteer process, moving the PTA over to online sign ups and hosting the Volunteer Faire; Julia Massa- For organizing the Hot Food Volunteers and implementing a more consistent composting program; Kristin Eberwein--For providing the hospitality during the Volunteer Fair and the PTA General Meeting. Susanna Segre and Limor Wilks-For providing a delicious dinner before PIN for our faculty and staff. Jacki Galarneau and Suzanne Mitchell-For creating and formatting another great school directory. It helps keep us together. Maria Doktorczyk-For organizing and planning another great series for Lunchtime Enrichment. Alexis Delehanty-For collecting wishlists and organizing the Apple for a Classroom program. This is a great community and it is a privilege to be a part of it. Marsha and Lucia PTA Co-Presidents
P.S. Lucia can't thank herself but I can....Lucia-- For organizing the entire district-wide, first-day-packet stuffing, overseeing distribution of over ten thousand pieces of information, and making sure over 900 district families received in their packet only the information they needed. It saved a few trees, too. Marsha
GRADE LEVEL GATHERINGSGrade Level Gatherings are a chance for the parents in each grade to get to know each other better. They are festive adults-only cocktail parties, hosted by families in the different grades. Watch the Leopard Spot for more details on the 7th grade party. Please come! 4th Grade * November 5th from 7:30-9:30 * Hosted by Dani and Larry Kelmar and Colleen McDonough and Jim Lim * At the Kelmar's home, 1203 Bellair Way, Menlo Park * Last names A-M please bring wine and last names N-Z please bring a dessert or an appetizer * Please RSVP to Dani at dani_kelmar@yahoo.com or 234-1124 by October 30th 5th Grade * September 24th from 7:00-9:00 * Hosted by Mia and Rich Mosher and Laura and Chris Purpura * At the Mosher's home, 477 Walsh Road, Atherton * Last names A-M please bring wine and last names N-Z please bring a dessert or an appetizer * Please RSVP to Laura at llpurpura@yahoo.com or 234-8104 6th Grade * November 12th at 7:00 * Hosted by Gretchen and Rob Mathews, MaryEllen and Chris McCabe and Brian McGarry and Lorraine McDonough * At the Mathew's home, 230 Dedalera Drive, Portola Valley * Last names A-M please bring an appetizer and last names N-Z please bring wine or beer * Please RSVP to Gretchen at gretchen@charlotteanddelilah.com or 279-0282 8th Grade * October 29th from 6:30-8:30 * Hosted by Dena and Bob Gaherty * At the Gaherty's home, 1015 Trinity Drive, Menlo Park * Last names A-M please bring wine or other beverages and last names N-Z please bring an appetizer * Please RSVP to Dena at cabidena@gmail.com or 854-4802
CAMPUS EVENT
CAMPUS ( the Consortium of Atherton and Menlo Park United Schools) is pleased to announce Dr. Ken Ginsburg speaking on "Building Resilience in Children and Teens" Monday, October 4,
7 - 8:30 p.m., at the Center for Performing Arts Theater at M-A. Dr. Ginsburg, a nationally renowned pediatrician specializing in Adolescent Medicine at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, PA, is a leading authority on developing resilience in children and adolescents by creating strategies to build upon their inherent strengths. Seating will be on a first come, first served basis for this event, so please plan to arrive early! This Parent Education Series event is FREE and open to our community. For more information, please contact Paula Rash at paularash@yahoo.com.
FLUBUSTER FLU SHOT CLINIC
Save the Date! On Tuesday, November 9, 2010 from 11:30 to 2:00, the La Entrada PTA will host a Flubusters Flu Shot Clinic in Jensen Hall at La Entrada open to all school families as well as any member of the community. The vaccine will include both the seasonal and H1N1 flu this year. Flu-Mist (spray application) will also be available. The cost will be $30 for the shot and $35 for the flu-mist. Your health insurance may reimburse you for the cost. Parent attendance is not necessary if your child arrives with a completed consent form. More information on how to sign up on-line will be coming soon. |
From the Principal
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Dear La Entrada Community,
It is hard to believe that we are about to start the 5th week of school. I am sure that you can tell that things are pretty much settling in at this point. Hot lunch is running well, the Study Center is open, after school activities are under way, and I know that a lot of work is getting done in the classrooms and at home.
Five weeks of school is already the mid-point of a Quarter. (The 6th -8th grade works on a quarter system; the 4th and 5th grades work on a trimester system.)
The mid-point of a quarter is a great time to make sure that home and school are communicating about student progress.
Most of our teachers keep parents up to date by printing out "grade sheets" that they periodically send home.
During the 5th week of school, we ask all teachers to be sure that families are informed if a student's grade thus far is a below a "C". Some teachers will mail such "status reports"; others will ask students to take home a grade print out and have it signed. Many teachers will also let you know if your child is doing well in class.
If your student does receive a report, please do the following:
· Read the report to determine if it was sent as a grade warning (grade below a "C"), as a good news notice, or just to give you information.
· If the notice was sent as a grade warning, please review the notice with your student to get some feedback from him/her.
· Please contact the teacher to get more specifics, and to help design a plan for improvement.
In addition to the classroom teachers, our counselor, Erika Lowe, is also available to help families design plans for academic improvement. The Study Center is also now open on Monday's, Tuesday's, and Thursday's from 2:40 - 3:40 p.m. (in the library). The Study Center is staffed by a teacher, and is a place students can go to get help on their work or just to have a quiet place to work.
Safety
Finally, I would like to remind everyone that we deal with a potentially hazardous traffic situation everyday. As we get into fall, it would be wise to begin to plan for rainy days. Please discuss with your students the best ways to get to and from school in the rain. Even in the rain, please consider having your student get to school in ways other than private cars.
I hope to see you all at our Family Picnic on Thursday, September 23!!
Warmest Regards,
Larry Thomas
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School News
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Outgrown Gently-Used Halloween Costumes Needed Haven House of Shelter Network Menlo Park is in need of ANY size costume donations for the Shelter's children school events and for Haven's Halloween party.. Between your kind donations and Crocker School (Hillsborough) we outfit over 80 kids (and parents!) annually. Please drop any costumes to LE's Tech Office, or at LL in the office where Pam Stang's Scout troop is managing the collections. Questions? email suzannemitch@gmail.com
TECHNOLOGY CLASSES @ LA ENTRADA
Welcome back to school! I'd like to remind parents about two useful online resources. The first is the San Mateo County Office of Education (SMCOE) Portal. Located at http://www.smedcenter.org/, parents and students can access, for free, many subscription-based educational sites at Ed1Stop. The Username is llesd_stu and the password is student. Please do not disclose this password to others outside the district-we pay on a student basis. There are many great resources that can either help your child with their school work or extend their learning beyond the scope of their classes. The sites are interactive and involve different types of media to make learning fun and easy. The other site I'd like to share is mine: Merging Ahead - Mr. Kelly's Tech site. It can be located here: https://sites.google.com/site/parkellyllesd. This is where students and parents can explore all the technology classes at La Entrada. Daily Agendas, Activities, Class Handouts, and many other resources are available for all of the students taking Mr. Kelly's technology classes. Below is a snapshot of what we are currently doing: KPAW: Throughout the past three weeks, the entire class has been learning how to work in the studio. Students filled out a variety of packets and worksheets, watched the making of KPAW video and learned the roles that each individual in the studio performs. The class dissected an episode of KPAW and filled in the skeleton script. Students learned proper design techniques that the CGO should use and they finished with the KPAW production rules and expectations presentations. The class has divided up into two groups: Group A (The Red Ninjas) and Group B (The Awesome People). The Red Ninjas just finished the first episode, and despite their inexperience, produced a great show which aired last Monday, 9/13. The Awesome People just finished their broadcast which airs this Monday, 9/20. This year, KPAW hopes to be broadcasting on our local cable channel. A permission form, which is still awaiting School Board approval, will be sent home for the parents to sign once it is ready. Stay tuned for more details - Inga and Mr. Parker Kelly ComPow: Did you know that there are more than 4 dozen word processing tools available, both on the computer and online? Well, after learning the basics of MS Word 2007, the class explored other similar tools and now have no excuse for not being able to access one...Ask us about Tagxedo.com and word clouds and shapes. It is one of many productivity tools we will explore this year that will help students find the right tool for the right job in their other classes. 4th Grade Computers: Now that we have mastered logging on, we've watched slide shows on computer use and safety, filled out google forms, found and created network folders, and learned the basics of keyboarding. We'll soon learn more using Wordle.net and create fluffy, personalized word clouds using descriptive adjectives. 5th Grade Computers: Wow. What a difference a year makes. It's amazing to see how much more comfortable the 5th graders are with using the computers. After covering some the of the same basic topics as the 4th grade, we've jettisoned off to Tagxedo.com and created portrait clouds filled with descriptive adjectives. Thanks again for all your support; I am looking forward to learning a lot of new technology with your child this year. --Parker Kelly, Technology Teacher, La Entrada
MUSIC NEWSNote to 4th/5th Grade Parents: The 'Opera a la Carte Program' will be presenting the opera, "La Cenerentola" ("Cinderella"), at La Entrada on Friday, October 22nd during two morning assemblies. All our fourth and fifth graders will have the opportunity for voluntary participation in the chorus. Within the next week, your child should be bringing home a permission form for you to sign (by Sep 20th) if you are interested in your child participating. Four rehearsals are scheduled (from 2:50 until 3:35PM) in the music room: - Thursday, September 23rd - Thursday, September 30th - Thursday, October 14th - Thursday, October 21st Hope your child will join us for this fun musical adventure! Mr. Cooper |
| From the Foundation | |
eScrip Correction
In last week's Lion's Roar and Leopard's Spot, there was information about signing up for eScrip. Please note the Group ID listed for Las Lomitas Education Foundation was incorrect. The correct Group ID is 125674428. We are sorry for any inconvenience this has caused. We hope you will renew and/or sign up today at http://www.eScrip.com." You can also stop by the eScrip table at the Las Lomitas Family Picnic this Thursday and we'll register your cards! Grandparents Group Registration Great news! The Grandparents Group is now on-line! You can register grandparents, if you haven't already, so they can receive newsletters, calendars, and other exciting information about their grandchildren. We're working hard to keep grandparents connected to our fabulous schools. Go to http://www.llef.org/_grandparents/grand.php to see the inaugural site - more information will be uploaded soon. Annual Father/Daughter Dance Join 150 lucky fathers and their gorgeous daughters in Jensen Hall at La Entrada for a masquerade themed night of dancing and fun. Date: Friday, October 15, 2010 from 7:00 pm to 9:00 pm Sign up at http://www.llef.org/_auction/events.php If you are a mom hoping to have a glimpse of the glamour, volunteers are needed. Please go to www.laentradapta.com and click on volunteer and then "father-daughter dance" to sign up. Contact Rachel Perkocha at perkocha@yahoo.com if you have any questions. Parent and Child Nature Hike for 2nd through 4th Graders
Spend a sunny afternoon hiking with your child(ren) and other Las Lomitas families on this local hike. Jen Overholt and Julie Herlihy have chosen the route and are providing drinks, snacks, and a special treat for successfully reaching the end. Date: September 26 from 2:00-5:00 p.m. Sign up at http://www.llef.org/_auction/events.php. |
| Sequoia Union High School News |
Save The Date!
M-A Information Night - Tuesday, October 26th at 7:00pm in the MUR
M-A Principal Matthew Zito and M-A College Counselor Alice Kleeman are coming to La Entrada to talk about the many opportunities available for prospective students. All 7th and 8th grade families are invited to learn about M-A academics, athletics, music program, clubs, etc. Don't miss this opportunity to ask questions and hear different prospectives from current M-A students.
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| Community News |
Remember to mention La Entrada at the register and Kepler's donates 10% back to our school.
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| Leopard's Spot Submissions | The Leopard's Spot is published every Monday (except Mondays following holiday weeks). To submit items for inclusion in the newsletter:
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