“No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of another.” — Charles Dickens
Dear Parents,
May you all have a Winter Break filled with enough relaxation, fun times, and the love of family and friends to nourish your hearts and bring a lighter skip to your step. ❄⛄❄ Deeper sleep, longer times of exercise, more time outdoors, more laughter, more time without screens, time to practice the hobbies that build my dexterity and creativity; these are the things that I wish for.
Don’t forget! School begins again Monday, January 7!
A very HAPPY HOLIDAY Season to everyone and may the New Year bring nothing but positive possibilities!
~Rhonda
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PARENT ADVISORY COMMITTEE: Please come: Wednesday, January 16th from 3:00-4:00 pm. We will be discussing our safety plan and continue with reviewing long-term priorities. There are not representatives from every program yet, but I trust that those that came once, can come again. I would like to hear from all programs when it comes time to prioritize and plan next year. If you would like to learn more, please feel free to contact me directly. [email protected]
The Parent Advisory Committee is a critical component to ensure that parent input has a consistent say in the development of our programs that make up the Charter school.
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SLV Charter General Music and Band: The General Music class ended their unit with bells by caroling the District Office staff and their parents also received the addition of a history of the songs they played. The children are learning a lot - how to read music, the history of songs, etc. Classes will start up again our first week back from Winter Break on Friday, January 11th 10-11am.
There is still space for 4th and 5th graders to join. The new focus will be learning to read music and play the ukulele. If you are interested, please let us know - we would love to have more students in the class.
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What’s Going on in Our Charter School? ..little snippets of some of our programs.
CRHS: The CRHS staff is shouting out "three-cheers" this first semester for the support of parents, grandparents, family, and friends. In addition to our students actively bustling through their courses, they were also engaging in their various electives, theater, sports, and community service. It was truly a busy first semester. Congratulations to our Aikido students. They all passed their skills test and received their next level of a green belt. Our student Leadership has plans in the works for fun activities during our second semester. Keep an eye out for this! Senior graduation is already being planned (yes already!) and the students are really having fun planning. The CRHS staff looks forward to kicking off the second-semester beginning Monday, January 7th.
CRMS: We have been busy finishing up student project presentations. We have learned about amphibians and creatures who can or who try to survive and even breathe underwater. We had a very thorough presentation on Zoology and how to become a Zoologist. There was a presentation on cakes and baking and also animals that helped out soldiers during wartime and how these animals became famous. We tried to troubleshoot the mysterious lotion issues, and then students evaluated their own amusement parks as well as three or four others'. We ended with a lovely family potluck and day of games and appreciations.
Nature Academy: 7-8th-grade students had two optional excursions that most chose to partake in. Elderday Holiday optional Excursion: students made macrame friendship bracelets (or keychains) for seniors at the Elderday Adult Day Health Care Center in Santa Cruz. While there, they gave out the gifts and also had time for some quality hanging out; participating in games, crafts, great conversations, and even some singing with the seniors. One parent who chaperoned on this trip shared that when the students first entered the center, they walked in a line and were tentative in their nature. By the end of the visit, students were relaxed, smiling and saying goodbye to all the seniors as they walked out the door. Students also participated in reading with little buddies at SLE. 6th-grade class ended the week with a wonderful round of secret snowperson. They drew names and bought a small gift specifically for that one student. When opening their gift, each child was so exuberant in their appreciation for the student and the gift they gave that the room was filled with all smiles and happy feelings.
Quail Hollow Integrated Arts (QHIA): What a privilege it was to have Antonie, from Kidpower, lead a workshop for us. She taught them relevant, usable skills to keep them safe physically and emotionally as they navigate the world in person and in the “virtual world”. Through demonstrations of how to hold yourself when walking alone; hands out of pockets, eyes ahead (no phone in hand), not clinging to the side of buildings as you approach corners, to how to “throw away” negative comments that don’t belong to you, and put them in a trash can. We also focused on “Hour of Code” with the students programming characters in the program “Dance Party” and rose to the challenge that Marie and I would try out any dance moves they created in the program. We continued with our History and ELA focus in the afternoons. Finally, we began our dance unit with a history of line dancing tracing similarities of dances from the 1800’s all the way through contemporary social dances. We gave special attention to the history of African American social dances, as we will begin hip-hop next week. Here is a fantastic video we watched featuring incredible dancers: History of African American Social Dances
Quail Hollow Homeschool: Students, grades 1-3, participated in a math task. The goal was to figure out different combinations of legs of multiple animals. By drawing along with using manipulative blocks, we discussed the constraints about our word problems. Grades 4-5 did number talk mental math adding and sharing the strategy they used. Working division word problems where the remainder must be interpreted. We wrote a letter from our travel buddies about their experiences in the rainforest. We all had fun on our annual crafting day! Students were able to plant redwood trees, and some friends decorated them with paper chains; popcorn and cranberries were strung in patterns. These all helped decorate our classrooms for our annual potluck and talent share that included the songs we learned together as a class and Robin read the story Stars and were given their own stars to keep in their pockets or to share and spread joy.
Fall Creek Homeschool: We talked about veterans and made holiday cards for them. We finished our crystal books. We had a visit from a friend who has a large crystal and mineral collection. She identified many rocks and told us where in the world they were mined. We each chose a small crystal from her treasure box. The K-2 went to the garden. We had a visit from Robin Bates, our school counselor and she read a book and led us in a discussion about self-care. We talked about symmetry and did some challenging mirror writing drawings. We discussed the winter solstice and what it means. We painted tablecloths for our potluck with symbols of the season and had a wonderful evening that included our annual talent show and a lovely potluck with families.
Mountain IS: We continued with some discussion of the various kinds of kindness we notice in our lives... Your children are very aware of much of what you do for them! We discussed winter traditions using light to bring cheer and 'warmth' in a dark time of year for the Northern Hemisphere. We discussed and how the various kinds of kindness we bring to one another at this time of year bring another special kind of warmth, too. Then worked on a secret project that reminds us of the everyday kindness of our parents and how that brings light and warmth to our lives. We finished off with the Holiday sing event, celebration tea and pajama day!
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California School Dashboard
The California School Dashboard is an online tool designed to help communities across the state access information about K–12 schools and districts. The Dashboard features reports on multiple measures of school success. Instead of looking at a single measure (test scores), the Dashboard looks at multiple measures to evaluate a district's and a school's performance. The Dashboard also is based on an improvement model, looking for districts and schools to make improvements, rather than simply comparing them to other districts and schools. You can access SLV district information and information about all schools in the district at this link: http://www.caschooldashboard.org
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Santa Cruz Metro has informed the school district that after December 20, routes 33 and 34 will be discontinued.
They will no longer run after that date. These routes serve Lompico / Zayante and South Felton.
This was a Metro decision based on the number of riders. For more information, you can visit the Metro website at www.scmtd.com
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Dates to Remember: (Please refer to your program’s newsletter for greater detail regarding dates and details specific to your program’s Field Trips and class events.)
- December 21st-Jan 4th: No School- Winter Break
- January 21st: No School: Martin Luther King
- February 11th: No School:
- February 18th: No School
- April 1st-5th: No School-Spring Break