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Click on a grade below or scroll through to read all about what's happening at school.
Kindergarten First Grade Second Grade Third Grade Fourth Grade
Fifth Grade Sixth Grade Seventh Grade Eighth Grade
6-8 Grade Drama La Entrada Art La Entrada Music La Entrada Library Other Activities
Kindergarten
The exciting journey of elementary school has begun! These youngsters have adjusted well to their new school routine, and are embracing this special time for discovery, adventure and new friends. Kindergartners enjoy weekly library, music, and computer lab classes in addition to learning to read and write. They have "movement" - the current name for P.E. - several times per week, and enjoy their own playground at recess and lunch time. In library, the children look forward to meeting with their 3rd grade "buddies," who will read with them all year and help them with book selection and check-out. Many fun events highlight the fall calendar, including the Halloween parade, the Thanksgiving feast, and the Holiday Workshop.
1st Grade
First graders saw their boundaries expand with a longer school day, and the freedom and challenges of a larger playground filled with three grades of children. The first graders engage in the wonderful Second Step learning and social skills program, which teaches compassion and understanding, as they learn to identify their feelings and those of their classmates. The Halloween parade and Holiday Workshop are fall event highlights, and currently these students are welcoming docents from Environmental Volunteers. The docents bring hands-on materials to teach the kids about plants and animals in the local environment. The visits prepare our first graders for a special nature hike at the beautiful Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve.
2nd Grade
Second graders are advancing well in their reading skills, by choosing appropriate, "just right" books, using their word decoding strategies, and making connections to various stories. In writing, students practice forming 'friendly' letters and using the writing process of brainstorming, drafting, editing and publishing to write paragraphs on a variety of topics. The children are learning Primary Math, where they combine solid thinking skills with deep mathematical understanding. Second graders also learn the Second Step program, which teaches behaviour and emotional skills, techniques to improve their ability to focus, and ways to increase attentiveness. The kids greatly enjoy their art lessons, and recently took a "Geo-Kids" field trip to the Geology department at Stanford.
3rd Grade
The third graders are the "top class" at Las Lomitas, and enjoy some special opportunities to be leaders and role models at the school. Each week, they read with their Kindergarten "Buddies" in the Library. They can join the Recycling Team, act as P.E. Helpers, and become Playground Buddies who help ensure cooperative and friendly behavior on the playground, with a special focus on conflict resolution. Some curriculum highlights of the fall include a visit to the DeAnza Planetarium for the study of "Sun, Moon, and Stars," and a field trip to the historic Woodside Store to better understand the lives of early settlers in our local area.
4th Grade
As the newcomers at La Entrada, the fourth graders encounter many changes and opportunities at once. School begins an hour earlier than at Las Lomitas. The first subject of the day is math, most likely with a different teacher than the one who teachers their core subjects, and certainly with a different mix of students. Fourth graders spend weeks deconstructing and understanding the story "Because of Winn-Dixie," and all classes performed the play "Grammar Gulch" to solidify their writing and speaking skills. They learned about California's special geography by building physical salt maps, and are finishing a unit on the early European explorers who 'discovered' the New World. Fourth graders share their lunch time with the 5th graders, but enjoy leaders from the 8th grade class on Fridays who run special activities and games, and sell snow cones. Next up: Book reports and California mission projects!
5th Grade
Each day brings something new in fifth grade, and our students have been busy! Fifth graders are writing and revising extensively, as writing permeates all subject areas and enriches a variety of activities. Some of the writing activities involve responses for Core literature, small group discussions, and research and investigation projects in content areas. The fifth graders are becoming experts at construction formal five-paragraph essays, developing short responses to a variety of prompts, and writing narratives that spark creativity. Some fifth graders have completed their first core novel, Esperanza Rising (Munoz) and its supporting activities.
Math skills are sharpening through our partnership with the Silicon Valley Math Initiative, which introduces new concepts, problem solving opportunities and group challenges.
In science, they focused on investigative and interpretive skills, in preparation for "Outdoor Education" in November - a week of camp in the Santa Cruz Mountains. The fifth graders studied the influence of geography upon the lifestyle and culture of Native American tribes across our country. Research projects, art activities, and museum presentations are some of the ways in which fifth graders bring Native American History to life. Fifth graders will continue to develop scientific design and experimentation abilities as they progress toward individual Science Fair projects at the end of the year.
6th Grade
With the fall quarter under their belts, our 6th graders are fired up and ready for the winter. In Core classes, students are finishing up with their ancient Egypt studies and are moving into Kush and Israel. All classes will be reading Tuck Everlasting, continuing their study of poetry, and writing responses to literature and persuasive essays with an emphasis on supporting evidence. In Ms. Kuczon's Physical Education classes, the Fall State Fitness Testing is wrapping up, and the early results show that our 6th graders are extremely physically fit! The next unit will be hockey, played outdoors on the tennis courts. In Ms. Tinkham's Science classes, the students are squeezing 250 million years into a few short weeks while they study Earth's interior, convection currents in the mantle, Pangaea, and create huge Earth cross-sections and small tennis ball globes. And in Mr. Anagnostou's Math classes, students just completed a most successful fractions unit and are moving on to one of the most essential building blocks in math - equations. Students are learning to solve equations by using properties of equality and not mental math, which may be harder initially, but will get easier with practice. Like Pangaea - they'll get there!
7th Grade
The 7th grade held its seventh annual Multi-Cultural Day on November 20th. It was a great day to be a 7th grader! To culminate our family history project, every seventh grader brought in a dish to share from his or her culture. They enjoyed delicious ethnic food for three different class periods, and watched a fascinating video called "Carved in Silence," which featured the history of immigrants entering our country via Angel Island. They later listened to stories from Scotland and Russia, traced our ancestors geographically, and learned some games from other countries. The day's highlight was the presentation of folk dances from around the world, directed by Ms. Ochowicz. 8th Grade Eighth graders "rule the school," and provide leadership and mentoring to our younger students with lunchtime activities, service projects, and student government programs. They are advancing deep into complex language arts, science, and math skills, in preparation for high school. 8th graders are perfecting their foreign language skills, with a choice of Latin, French, Spanish, or Mandarin, and are widely involved in school electives, as you'll read below. Our eighth graders are getting very well prepared for high school!
6-8 Grade Drama
Sixth grade Drama classes are busy writing and performing 'Family Sitcoms' and 'Moral Dilemmas.' Students are becoming more confident and expressive in their performances. Drama Production, a 7th-8th grade elective, just presented "A Midsummer Night's Midterm" on stage in Jensen Hall. It's an adaptation of Shakespeare's classic, brought to life by four students studying for a big test. The show was produced entirely by the students, including the design of costumes, sets, and props. Great job!
La Entrada Art: In 4th grade Art, the students recently completed beautiful weaving rugs inspired by the Navajo people of the Southwest. The little carpets are bright and beautiful. In 5th grade Art, classes are wrapping up expressive self portraits and moving on to Abstraction. The portraits don't always resemble the artist, but are charming nonetheless! The 6th grade art students have been learning about color. They first created landscape paintings, then colorful masks, and now are working on collages in the style of Henri Matisse. Art 1 students have been studying negative and positive space, and are putting those skills into practice creating block print designs. Art 2 students just finished silk painting and are now studying Impressionism and creating their own Impressionist paintings with acrylics on canvas. The photography students continue to develop their landscape photos in the dark room, and are working on research reports of famous photographers. What a talented and creative group of students we have at La Entrada! La Entrada Music:
December brings the 4th and 5th grade Winter Concert! They are working on a fun, educational concert with the theme, "Get America Singing." The students will be singing six songs in the concert which features great, home-grown music including "The Star Spangled Banner," "Down By the Riverside," and a toe-stomping finale. This concert will feature some young, confident narrators who auditioning for the right to represent their class. We also presented the 5th graders' 'first-ever' band performance! They have come a long way since September, when they could barely product a sound or assemble their instruments. This group shows great promise!
The 6th-8th grade band students recently visited Hillview Middle School to audition for the privilege of performing our national anthem at a SF Giant's baseball game in the spring. Our 175-student strong band is anxiously waiting to hear whether they will get to perform or not!
A number of 7th and 8th graders from our symphonic band marched in the Halloween Parade in downtown Menlo Park. These students also performed in the hallways of La Entrada for some of our students and staff on Halloween Day. They had a blast! A week later, some of our students went to Menlo-Atherton High School and practiced with some of the high school band members. Later, they performed with them for the M-A football game! It was a chilly night and the home football team had a rough night on the scoreboard, but the Pep Band helped liven up the crowd, and a good time was had by all.
Finally, our annual Winter Band Concert, featuring all the instrumentalists from our 5th/6th/7th and 8th grade bands, took place on December 5th, and it was fabulous! What a fabulous fall season for music! La Entrada Library The school library is a favorite quiet refuge for many of our students, but it is also the center of great discovery. On Election Day, we held a school wide vote to help students experience and participate in our national election. The 8th graders composed 'Book Recommendations' for their favorite fiction novels, and are now preparing "Non-fiction Reading Guides." The 7th graders explored scary stories for Halloween and practiced oral storytelling techniques. They have also been busy researching cells and cellular systems for science class. 6th grade classes have studied poetry units, while the 5th grade has finished their Native American project research. 4th grade classes enjoy the broad range of our books, and have become adept at using the on-line catalog system to find books on their preferred subjects. Soon we'll begin the California Young Reader Medal Project. This project involves 8th graders trying to persuade younger students to support, and vote for, a particular book entry in the competition. This project involves the development of valuable literary, oral, and interpersonal skills. Plus, it is really great to watch our oldest students trying to charm and win over their younger 'colleagues' to their cause. Other Curricular Activities: Stay tuned for the next newsletter, where we will update you on our foreign language studies, computer lab, Physical Education, Leadership classes, Student Government, and more! return to top of page
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