Dear Families and Friends-  

Happy October! We are so looking forward to the fun and excitement of our wonderful Walkathon and celebrating our time honored Halloween Parade at the end of the month!   Thank you for helping to make our first Cougar Rally a success. It was wonderful to see the entire student body and so many parents show their spirit in rousing cheers and songs.   A highlight of the morning was the "Wave" of energy led by Mrs. Roger's students.  

It makes me smile to hear the students giggle and exclaim in wonder as they read our Cool Staff slides posted in the Multi-Purpose room. Stop by and learn a fun fact or two about the awesome staff members of Cumberland!

A huge thank you to PTA for approving the purchase of iPads to complete our 1:1 iPad ratio in grades 3-5. The students use iPads to practice reading and math skills at their specific learning level; the students also use iPads to create presentations to demonstrate their grasp of key content. We are also focused on helping our students gain keyboarding skills. Grades K-2 utilize Read Write and Type to familiarize students with the keyboard and introduce good typing habits. Students in grades 3-5 hone their typing skills with the web based Type to Learn program.

Do encourage your child to spend a few minutes daily on their keyboarding skills.

Now that morning routines have been established, students are diving right into building their reading stamina by reading books of different genres and just the right amount of challenge. Reading is one of the best ways to expand a child's vocabulary and comprehension skills. When selecting a book to read aloud to your child, select a book that is 2 or 3 grade levels above their reading level. Kids can comprehend text above their independent reading level. Need to find a book title?

Use the Library Link on Cumberland's Symbaloo to see if we have it in our school collection!  

Thanks for reading here, there and everywhere with your child!

Mrs. Mourtos

This award recognized one class per grade level for earning the highest number of Cool Cougar tickets.

Great job cougar citizens. This month's Classy Cougars are:

Kindergarten - Ms.Knowles

1st Grade - Mrs. Bennett

1st/2nd Grade - Ms. Patel

3rd Grade - Ms. Tripiano

4th Grade - Mrs. Rodriguez

5th Grade - Ms. Faure

Homework assignments will be provided to students four days a week using the following suggested time:

Kindergarten - 10 to 20 minutes or less

1st Grade - 10 to 20 minutes

2nd Grade - 20 to 30 minutes

3rd Grade - 30 to 40 minutes

4th Grade - 40 to 50 minutes

5th Grade - 50 to 60 minutes

In addition, all students are expected to read or be read to 20 minutes a day on average, seven days a week.

Did you know the Cumberland Library offers more than just library books?   

Did you know that you can check for library books online?   

Visit the Cumberland School website,  

and choose Student's Corner from the left side tabs.  You can now see information and resources about the school library.

We are pleased to announce the 2014-15 School Site Council (SSC) Members (2-yr terms):

• Brian Hugo, Teacher, 2nd year

• Celeste Deggeller, Teacher, 2nd year

• Edy Mourtos, Principal

• Jim Leung, Parent - Upper Grade, Chairperson, 2nd year

• Alfred Chew, Parent - Lower Grade, 1st year

• Lisa Atkins, Classified Staff, 1st year

• Matt Ballantyne, Parent - Lower Grade, 1st year

• Xiaoting Niu (Ting), Parent - Upper Grade, 2nd year

All SSC meetings are open to all parents of Cumberland and held in the library conference room from 3-4PM on the following dates:  10/6, 11/17, 1/5, 2/2, 3/2, 4/6, and 5/4.   

For any questions or suggestions, please contact the SSC Chair at ssc.cumberland@gmail.com 

October 6-10 is Walk and Roll to School week. Take advantage of the beautiful weather and walk, bike, or scoot to school. It's a great family activity and a fun way to start the day. Plan to meet friends on the way and walk or bike together. There will be a friendly competition between classes-the class with the most riders/walkers will earn the honor of receiving the golden boot to be displayed in their class. 

We will continue the tradition or our annual Halloween Parade. It will be held on Friday, Oct 31st at 8:30 AM. Students should come to school in their costumes. Costumes may not be overly gorey or scary, please remember we have small children on campus, and no weapons or masks are permitted. Please have your child bring a change of clothes to change into after the parade is over.

All students will go to their classrooms as usual. The classes will come out to the blacktop together. Parents are welcome and encouraged to wait outside to enjoy the parade.

An alternative activity will provided for those students that do not celebrate Halloween and will not be participating in the parade.

   As we all know, the US Constitution and Bill of Rights contain many human rights that we all cherish.  The US Constitution served as a primary source document to the drafters of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) that was adopted by the United Nations after World War II. The UDHR is part of the EngageNY Language Arts curriculum taught in Mr. Gelb's fifth grade classes. The students are grasping the concepts that human rights are intangible concepts that cannot be physically touched or seen. This results in their intellectual understanding that humans have rights simply by being human.

   The high level vocabulary the students are learning through the EngageNY Language Arts curriculum is assisting their accelerated comprehension and exposure to higher-level thinking words and concepts, such as human rights found in the US Constitution and the UDHR. Judge Zayner's presentation blended well with the academic curriculum that your child is advancing through in Language Arts, and you will certainly be impressed with your child's progress. Cumberland Elementary sends its thanks to the Santa Clara County Superior Court system, and to Judge Zayner, for helping make this assembly a successful learning experience, and we look forward to doing this again next year.

The state of California does not view vacations as excused absences. If you will miss between five and ten school days, an independent study contract may be completed. Please notify your child's teacher and Randi in the front office ten school days before your trip.

The lost and found is getting full!

Please take a look when you drop off or pickup your child from school.

Items not claimed by October 31st will the discarded or donated to Goodwill.

The lost and found is located in the breezeway, outside between rooms 7 and 10.

  There are three ways to pay for your child's school lunch:

* Write a check made payable to SESD

  Make sure your child's and teacher name are on the memo line of your check.

* Place cash in an envelope with your child's and teacher's name and bring to the office.

* ezschoolpay.com- Once registered, please email randi.salas@sesd.org to find your student's id number.

When your child's balance is low, you will receive notice a written message from the school cafeteria.

If you would like to know your child's lunch account balance, please email linda.vo@sesd.org. The school office does not have access to the lunch account program.

Your child will receive a lunch debit card once your first payment of three meals is made. This card remains in the school cafeteria.

Breakfast = $ 2.25                                        Lunch = $ 3.50

(served before school and during recess)

Hola!

We have a new and exciting after-school Spanish program. This year we have partnered with IES Language Foundation, who have been teaching languages for kids since 1982 (ieslanguages.org).

Classes for K-3rd are Fridays from 1 to 2pm

Classes for grades 4 and 5 are Thursdays from 2:45 to 3:45pm

Please register by Monday, October 6th,

Click below for the Registration Form, which contains detailed information on class dates, tuition amount, and contact information. You can also enroll online by going by going to http://ieslanguages.com/ and click on "Enroll Now" to follow the instructions.  

I am Soham Nanawati, from Grade 2, Mrs. Shukis' class. When school opened, Mrs Atkins, our librarian, shared her sand dollars that she had collected in May from Manresa State Beach, Santa Cruz. I was one of the lucky early birds to get to keep one of the sand dollars from her display collection at Cumberland Library! They are still on display and you can see them for yourself at the Library. My favorite game Animal Jam has sand dollars and information about them. I was thrilled to see a real one! I wanted to know more about them and did research on the internet. Here is what I found about them:

"When found on the beach, sand dollars are actually empty exoskeletons of a species of marine animals. Sand dollars can live for up to 10 years! Their age can be found by counting growth rings on their exoskeletons. Live sand dollars have spines covering their bodies that they use to move, breathe, and even eat." (Source: Animal Jam, National Geographic)

"The term sand dollar (or sea cookie or snapper biscuit in New Zealand,or pansy shell in South Africa) refers to species of extremely flattened, burrowing sea urchins.

Sand dollars, possess a rigid skeleton known as a test. The test consists of calcium carbonate plates arranged in a fivefold radial pattern. In living individuals the test is covered by a skin of velvet-textured spines; these spines are in turn covered with very small hairs (cilia). Coordinated movements of the spines enable sand dollar s to move across the seabed. The velvety spines of live sand dollars appear in a variety of colors-green, blue, violet, or purple-depending on the species. Individuals which are very recently dead or dying (moribund) are sometimes found on beaches with much of the external morphology still intact.

Dead ones are commonly found with their empty test devoid of all surface material and bleached white by sunlight.

Folklore says that these are coins from mermaids for the lucky people who find them!" (Source: Wikipedia)

Picture: On beach, exoskeleton bleached by sun light.

If you would like to help save money and trees, please opt out of hard copy newsletters. If you would like to OPT OUT (or if you have, but are still receiving paper copies), please email randi.salas@sesd.org. Please include your name and those of your child(ren) and teacher(s). Thanks!