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Edison Language Academy – Together Through Two Languages (310) 828-0335 www.edison.smmusd.org
ANNOUNCEMENTS NOROVIRUS UPDATE – We seem to be making progress thanks to everyone’s efforts! Please continue to report all absences to Kathy Fargnoli (ext. 61-348) and keep children home for 48 hours after their last symptoms. And do not come to campus yourself if you have had symptoms in the last 48 hours. We postponed those events that we could and have gone through cases of soap, hand sanitizer, and disinfectant as we try to stop the spread of germs. Please also continue speak with your children about washing their hands! Stairway to the Stars – th Congratulations for our 5 grade members of the elementary honor choir, honor orchestra, and honor band who are performing in Stairway concerts st at Barnum Hall March 15, 17, and 21 . Supporting Students Social/Emotional Growth -- Being able to treat others with kindness and respect is an important part of what we want children to learn in elementary school. It can be a gradual process, learning how to regulate your emotions, treat peers well, and solve problems with words. Students’ development can be uneven, sometimes they can do it and sometimes they can’t. But that’s why we keep teaching and practicing these skills. As you talk with your child this month, will you please reinforce a couple messages for us? 1. Keep your hands and feet to yourself and not your peers; and 2. Social exclusion is a form of bullying. When you try to convince people not to be friends with someone, you are bullying, The UCLA School Function Program is also offering a parent workshop on March 29 at 8:30 am in Room 207 if you would like more information on how parents can support children in this way. Please join us!
FROM THE PRINCIPAL’S DESK: THEATER AT EDISON Theater classes are woven into the core curriculum at Edison. Each student, th Pre-K - 5 grade participates in a weekly theater arts class conducted entirely in Spanish with Maestra Martha Ramirez Oropeza. Maestra Martha has been our Teaching Artist in Residence at Edison for more than a dozen years. Her presence is made possible through a collaboration with the arts education organization PS Arts and SMMEF. I’m not sure if everyone in our community really understand how rare it is for a public elementary school to have this kind of program or what a powerful enhancement it is to a dual immersion program. Time for the theater arts program comes from our regular instructional minutes devoted to the teaching of Spanish and it integrates beautifully into our efforts to help students become bilingual and comfortable speaking Spanish. Theater arts helps us strengthen students’ oral language development and extends their learning about the art of storytelling and themes in literature. It builds selfconfidence, and gives students sustained opportunities to collaborate and be part of a theater troupe. Theater classes are about much, much more than just learning the lines to a play and holding an annual performance. th th While we have small “informances” for Pre-K through 4 grade, our 5 grade students mount a full-scale bilingual play – a two-and-a-half hour play with six th acts, 75+ actors, musicians, dance, and song! The 5 graders performed Friday morning for their fellow students and Friday evening to a packed house of families. The play, Cambia Todo Cambia (Everything Changes) illustrates some important universal truths told through theater across the ages and many different cultures. The acts include: Ketzalkoatl y el Maíz, Prometheus Unchained, Aesop’s Fable of the Boy who Cried Wolf, Romeo and Juliet, the Corrido de Cesar Chavez Niño, and the Diary of Ann Frank. These plays highlight the importance of humility, sacrifice to bring knowledge, the importance of telling the truth, the folly of feuds and violence that kill love, the importance of standing up for justice, and the importance of supporting each other in the face of discrimination and persecution. The theme song, Cambia Todo Cambia, by Violeta Parra is about how it is the nature of things to th change over time. That’s a particularly appropriate message for our 5 graders as they come to the end their six years as members of our little community. th I always find myself a teary when watching the 5 graders perform this play – mostly because of all the changes we’ve seen the children go through in their six years with us. The shy child who can now take the stage and smile at an audience of 400…children who were monolingual in Kindergarten, now using both languages fluently…a formerly socially awkward child finding his or her voice in comedy…and children who have learned to look out for and support their peers. And it is just as moving to see the expressions on the faces of our younger students. One of our Kindergartners grabbed me at lunch, and literally bouncing with excitement said, th “Directora, that was the BEST. PLAY. EVER!! I can’t wait until I’m in 5 grade!