Our Mission

At Springer Elementary School, we will provide a safe and supportive environment that engages, inspires, and nurtures all students’ emotional and academic needs in order to become empathetic, productive global citizens and lifelong learners.

In This Issue: November 3, 2017:

• Principal’s Message

• News and Announcements

• Parent Education Opportunities

Quick Dates for your Calendar:

• Friday, November 3: Vision Screening Grade 5 & SDC Upper & Lower

• Monday, November 6; 9:00-10:00am: Author’s Visit, Luke Flowers, Grades K-2

• Wednesday, November 8, 6:00-7:00pm:  Parent Training for Ability Awareness, Staff Room

• Thursday, November 9, 8:45am: Parent Training for Ability Awareness, Staff Room

• Thursday, November 9; 9:00-10:30: DELAC Meeting, District Board Room

• Friday, November 10: Veterans Day, No School

• November 13 - 17:  Book Fair

• Wednesday, November 15, 5:00 - 7:00pm:  Book Fair Family Night

• Tuesday, November 14th, 3:15pm: AMC 8  

• Friday and Saturday, November 17, 18th: Peter Pan Play

• Monday & Tuesday November 20 & 21: Parent/Teacher Conferences; No School

• November 22 - 24: Thanksgiving Break; No School

• November 27 - December 1: Ability Awareness Week

• Monday, December 4, 1:00pm: LASD Winter Concert Grades 4-6

• Wednesday, December 6, 7:00pm: Springer Singers Winter Concert; Multi

• Thursday, December 7: Springer Gives Back

• Thursday, December 7, 7:00pm: PTA Mtg., Staff Room

• Thursday, December 7, 7:00pm: Kindergarten Information Night; Multi

• December 18 - January 1: Holiday Recess

Principal’s Message

Dear Parents,

The Halloween Parade was a blast.  All of the  costumes were amazing, creative and just a lovely reminder of childhood fun.  Thank you all for coming and sharing in the parade.

Math Corner:  AMC Math Competition Opportunity

The AMC 8 is a 25-question, 40-minute, multiple choice competition exam for middle school math students, done without calculators.  The competition is run by the Mathematical Association of America who score the test.  The MAA AMC office will begin emailing official scores and reports in early to mid-December following the AMC 8 in late November. The email reports go out roughly in the order in which they receive them from schools. Processing and reporting from start to finish takes about 3 to 4 weeks.Here’s  a link to a sample question.  Website:  AMC 8 Sign Up

We will be offering to proctor the assessment above on Tuesday, November 14 at 3:15pm. If you and your child would like to sign up, please click here.

Sincerely,

Lynn Boskie

Buzz… This Halloween my family and I dressed up as superheroes.  What did you and your family do?   

Math Corner

The AMC 8 is a 25-question, 40-minute, multiple choice competition exam for middle school math students, done without calculators.  The competition is run by the Mathematical Association of America who score the test.  The MAA AMC office will begin emailing official scores and reports in early to mid-December following the AMC 8 in late November. The email reports go out roughly in the order in which they receive them from schools. Processing and reporting from start to finish takes about 3 to 4 weeks.Here’s  a link to a sample question.  Website:  AMC 8 Sign Up

We will be offering to proctor the assessment above on Tuesday, November 14 at 3:15pm. If you and your child would like to sign up, please click here.

Reading Corner

When your children come home and you ask what did you do in class today and they begin to share what they did in reading you might hear some of these terms:  

Reading Workshop Vocabulary

Comprehension-Understanding what is read.

Fluency-The ability to read accurately at a moderate pace.

Fiction-A made up story.

Nonfiction-A true story.

Genre-A category of literature with a particular style, form, or content (examples: fantasy, historical fiction, realistic fiction, biography)

Reading Stamina-The ability to slowly increase the amount of time spent focusing on reading.

Schema-Background knowledge about a topic.

Metacognition-Thinking about your thinking.

This is What Thoughtful readers do...

Monitor & Correct-They pay attention when the text stops making sense. They go back and clean up the confusion.

Visualize-They create mental images supported by the five senses.

Make Connections-They retrieve and activate prior knowledge in order to connect to their own life, other texts, and the world.

Predict & Question-They generate predictions and questions before, during, and after reading.

Analyze-They examine the parts of the text in order to understand the whole.

Critique-They think about the information and evaluate the characters’ actions or facts presented.

Determine Importance-They sift out relevant and useful information.

Summarize-They take time after reading to think about what happened or what was learned.

Infer-They draw conclusions and make predictions, and form interpretations.

Synthesize-They continually change their thinking in response to a text.

It’s A Springer Thing!

Eiskue, Miranda and Gray were all caught doing kind, responsible and empathetic things for other students. These three students were recognized at the flag assembly, but many other students received certificates in their Friday Folders for their acts of kindness.  Great role modeling guys!

Holiday Food Drive

The Springer Student Ambassadors will be collection food beginning November 1 - 17 before and after school in front of the Mural Wall.  There is also a collection barrel in the school office.  They are collecting non-perishable food items. Click here for examples of non-perishable foods.

Wild West Book Fair

November 13-17, 2017

8:00am - 3:30pm on Mon, Tues, Wed & Fri

8:00am -2:15pm on Thursday

Grand Opening Monday, November 13th, 8:30 - 10:00am

Bring your friends and come in for coffee, pastries and books!

Book Fair Family Night

Wednesday, November 15th, 5:00 - 7:30pm

Join us for food trucks, fun and shopping!

For more in more informations on shopping online and donating books to kids in need, please click here.

Back To School Tax Receipts

Tax donation receipts were sent out via email for all Back To School Drive orders that included a tax deductible donation.  Contact bts@springerpta.net with any questions regarding your BTS order or donation amount.

If you didn’t get a chance to fill out the online BTS form, hard copy forms are available in the PTA Membership cubby in the office.

Thank you for your support of the Springer PTA!

Author’s Visit

Author Luke Flowers

Author of Moby Shinobi Books

Monday, 9:00 - 10:00

Multi

Grades K -2

Click here for order form and more info

Selpa Events

Selpa, an all-volunteer group of parents of children with special needs, are sponsoring several upcoming events:

Parent Chat: The Second Tuesday of every month.  Click here for flyer.

Click here for Spanish Parent Chat flyer.

LAEF

Thank You!

The LAEF Phonathon was a big success with 61 parents, LASD staff, and volunteers calling LASD families.  We are grateful to those of you who have donated this school year. Your support is making a difference for all our TK-8 students by funding STEM, arts, literacy, wellness, and personalized learning.

The $50K Challenge Match Deadline is around the corner

It’s not too late for every dollar you give to LAEF to get doubled by our Board of Directors! There are matching funds still available, but we need you to donate by 11/17. The suggested donation is $1,200 per student, and every gift in any amount will help us meet our $3.7M goal. To learn more, pledge or donate, go to LAEFonline.org.

Vision Screening

On Friday, November 3, the Fifth Graders will be screened for Vision.  If your child wears glasses or contact lenses, please make sure that they wear them to school that day.  If you have questions, please contact the LASD nurses at: lasdnurses@lasdschools.org.

Looking for Noon Duty Volunteers

Noon lunch duty is currently short one staff member in the younger grades (1st-3rd) area on Tues/Thurs.  We are looking for parent volunteers to help fill this spot, especially on Thursday.  If you could spare even one Thursday per month, we would really appreciate it.  The hours are 11:45 - 12:45, but if you are also volunteering for hot lunch, we could still use your help after hot lunch, as that is when the kids are spread out the most throughout the campus.  Please contact Clover Huang at: cloverh[at]yahoo.com to sign up.

OhmConnect Fundraising Platform

The Springer community started using a novel fundraising platform last year, called OhmConnect. We raised $930 last year, and $1500 this year by having a handful of parents of the school turn down their electricity usage just one hour per week.

We're aiming to raise $5,000 this year and all you need to do is signup using this link and connect your utility account.

ohm.co/springer

OhmConnect donates between $50 - $150 per team member per year, depending on how much you reduce. They'll be donating an instant $75 per new team member. If you haven't signed up yet, now's the time to do it!

Parent Education Opportunities

Through an enriching presentations from local and national experts on topics of interests to parents, faculty and staff, the MVLA Parent Education Speaker Series seeks to contribute to the academic, physical, and emotional health of our students.  All events are free of charge and are for parents, faculty and staff in Los Altos and Mountain View public schools.  For a schedule of upcoming presentations, please click here.  

How Submit an Article to the Springer Buzz

If you have an article to submit to the Springer Buzz, please send it to the editor at springer.buzz@gmail.com by noon on Monday for inclusion in the next edition.  Late arrivals will be included if possible but can’t be guaranteed!  All flyers must be in either WORD or PDF format, accompanied by a brief summary of the activity in the email.