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El Semanario
Edison Language Academy – Together Through Two Languages (310) 828-0335 www.edison.smmusd.org
ANNOUNCEMENTS SATURDAY, OCTOBER 29 -- FALL FESTIVAL AND DIA DE LOS MUERTOS ALTARS EXHIBIT - We’re hard at work on classroom altars and all the plans for games, food, and cultural entertainment for. Volunteers still needed. Join us from 1:00-5:00 pm for a wonderful time! UPCOMING PARENT EDUCATION WORKSHOPS – Helping Children Cope with Anxious Feelings”, Tina Gonzalez (FSSM) – Wed. 10/26 at 8:30 am; “Preparing for a Successful Parent Teacher Conference,” Elizabeth Ipiña (Edison) – Wed. 11/2 at 8:30 am. Grab a cup of coffee or tea and join us in the cafeteria. HALLOWEEN AT EDISON – The Edison costume parade will be held Monday morning, October 31 beginning at 9:00 am. Children are invited to wear costumes to. Parents are invited to join us (and large numbers usually do!) Make sure your child has a change of clothes for the rest of the day. If you would prefer that your child not participate, we will have storytime in the library. Just let your child’s teacher know. PARENT TEACHER CONFERENCES are coming at the beginning of November. We have a pupil free day on November 4 and minimum days until November 10. Please check with your child’s teacher for available appointments. TRICK OR TREAT FOR UNICEF – Many of our classrooms participate in the Trick or Treat for UNICEF. Your child may bring home a letter explaining the project and a small box to collect change from neighbors as he or she goes trick-ortreating. The funds collected come back to school after Halloween, collected and bundled into an Edison contribution to UNICEF. It’s a simple and wonderful way for our students to learn about the lives of children who live in places where having access to clean drinking water and basic medicine can make the difference between life and death. Funds are urgently needed in Haiti in the aftermath of Hurricane Michael. If you’d like to learn more about this project, visit https://www.unicefusa.org/stories/trick-or-treatunicef-gives-kids-power-change-world/30632
FROM THE PRINCIPAL’S DESK: A SCHOOLWIDE STEAM PROJECT: THE GREAT MONARCH MIGRATION This fall Edison has been participating a schoolwide STEAM project – learning about the longest known insect migration on earth, the migration of the monarch butterflies from Canada to Mexico. These international travelers fly for over 3,000 miles and travel at heights of up to two miles above the earth’s surface. For generations North Americans had seen the signs of the migration south, but never figured out where the monarchs were headed. And since Pre-Columbian times, people living near the Monarch sanctuaries have associated the arrival of the monarchs with the Day of the Dead, believing that the monarchs brought the souls of the departed back to visit. Each classroom has chosen a focus for their work on the project. We’ve used The Journey North on-line interactive program sponsored by a division of the Annenberg Foundation and other print and on-line materials as resources for this study. The Journey North uses citizen scientists who report on butterfly sightings and at this point in the year, the monarch migration from Canada and the northern USA to Mexico is in full swing. The largest migration of monarchs comes across the Great Lakes, over Texas and ultimately heads to Michoacan. But there is also a Western stream of Monarchs that heads south along the Pacific Coast and down into Baja California. In the west, tagged butterflies from as far north as Yakima Washington have been sighted in Santa Cruz – 3,500 of them! The leading edge of the western migration is Parque Nacional Sierra de San Pedro Mártir in Baja California and in the eastern migration, in Guanajuato, Mexico. If you’d like to follow the migration at home, visit http://www.learner.org/jnorth/tm/monarch/kids_current.html. While most monarchs only live 2-6 weeks, the migrating generation of monarchs lives for up to eight months. This generation is stronger and able to delay reproduction until after they over-winter in Mexico. They migrate with unerring accuracy to a place they’ve never been before, but where generations of monarchs head every year. Scientists are still learning about how this migration works – and we’re learning along with them. Our students also have been participating in a symbolic butterfly exchange – creating class and individual butterfly artwork, letters and poems to send to children in Mexico living near the over-wintering areas. We sent off our butterflies last week and hope to receive butterfly artwork and letters from children in Mexico when the butterflies migrate north again in the spring. A wonderful documentary on the mystery of the monarch migration is available right now on Netflix if you’d like to learn more. See “Flight of the Butterflies” at http://usa.newonnetflix.info/info/70259094/s or http://www.flightofthebutterflies.com/home/
October 29 – 1:00-5:00 FESTIVAL DE OTONO/ Day of the Dead Altars
November 4 Pupil Free Day for Conferences
November 7-10 Minimum Days for Conferences