Friday, October 9
5th Grade Play Demo, "Grease, Jr."; Location TBD, 2:00 PM

Monday, October 12
PFC 5th Grade Drama Parent Mtg.; Library, 7:00 PM

Wednesday, October 14
PICTURE DAY; MultiPurpose Room
Lunch outside
LSD Board Mtg.; District Office, 7:00 PM

Friday, October 16
LAFAYETTE TEAM GREEN Mtg.; Library, 8:45 AM- 10:45 AM

Wednesday, October 21
Dina MacDonald Thinking Strategies Parent Night, Part I; Stanley Library, 6:30 PM

Saturday, October 24
United Nations Day

Sunday, October 25
Reservoir Run; Lafayette Reservoir, 8:00 AM

Tuesday, October 27
RAPPORT Mtg.; DO, 9:00 AM

Wednesday, October 28
Dina MacDonald Thinking Strategies Parent Night, Part II; Springhill Library, 6:30 PM

Thursday, October 29
PFC-Sponsored Poets in the School, 4th grade
Reservoir Run Classroom Winners Party; MP Room, 2:45 PM

Friday, October 30
Halloween Parade; 2:00 PM

Saturday, October 31
Halloween

Sunday, November 1
Daylight Savings Time ends; set clocks back an hour

UPDATED SPECIAL MESSAGE FROM THE SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS: H1N1 INFLUENZA/SWINE FLU

Dear Parents,

As expected, we are beginning to get unconfirmed reports that students and staff may have contracted the H1N1 flu virus (swine flu). While there is no standard protocol for communication, we thought it prudent to let our families and staff know that HIN1 flu virus is likely emerging in our community. We would like to take this opportunity to remind families of the best practices that are recommended by Contra Costa Health Services to help prevent the spread of this illness (even though you have received this information on multiple previous occasions):

· Check your children for symptoms of influenza (primarily fever with either a cough or a sore throat).
· Keep sick people at home. Don't send them to school, childcare or work. No one should return to school until they have had no fever for 24 hours without the use of fever-reducing medicine, even if they feel better.
· Teach your children to wash their hands often with soap and water for at least 20 seconds. If soap and water are not available, have them use an alcohol-based hand rub to clean their hands.
· Teach your children to cover coughs and sneezes with tissues or by coughing into the inside of the elbow.
· Teach your children to stay at least six feet away from people who are sick.
· Vaccinate your children and yourself with the seasonal flu vaccine.

Please know that we are monitoring attendance closely at all of our district's school sites (there are no significant changes in absenteeism thus far), and we are remaining in close contact with the Contra Costa Health Services to get the most up-to-date information about prevention and safety protocol.

Information about H1N1 flu for parents, including fun videos and podcasts you can share with your child are available online at www.cchealth.org/topics/swine_flu/parent_information .php.
To find out where to get seasonal flu vaccine for you and your family, contact your health care provider or health plan. You can also call the Public Health Flu Hotline at 925-313- 6469 or visit www.flucliniclocator.org. Prerecorded information is also available by calling Contra Costa Health Services Health Emergency Information Line at 1-888-959- 9911.

We appreciate all of your support.

Sincerely,

Fred Brill, Ed.D.
Superintendent

A. LAFAYETTE TEAM GREEN: Many thanks for the overwhelming response from so many of you interested in participating in the first LAFAYETTE TEAM GREEN SUMMIT to be held in the Springhill School Library on Friday, October 16. Under the auspices of Sustainable Lafayette, coordinated by Steve Richard, District Science teachers and administrators as well as parents are meeting to determine how best to address the aspects of a sustainable and environmentally aware community. Unfortunately, we could not accommodate all of those Springhill parents who expressed a desire in attending the October 16 meeting, but all of those interested parents will be convening shortly at our own SPRINGHILL TEAM GREEN meeting to follow the community gathering. More information to follow!

B. THINKING STRATEGIES PARENT WORKSHOPS: Do you wonder what strategies are being utilized in the classroom to access those higher thinking skills of your children? For the last three years, the teachers of the Lafayette School District have been working with Thinking Strategies Coach Dina MacDonald and she is, once again, providing two nights of parent education in this vital area of curriculum. If you have not seen Dina in action before, consider coming to the THINKING STRATEGIES PARENT WORKSHOP, PART I, Stanley Middle School Library, 6:30 PM, Wednesday, 10/21. If you attended last year, please consider attending THINKING STRATEGIES PARENT WORKSHOP, PART II, Springhill Library, 6:30 PM, Wednesday, 10/28. It will be time well spent!

C. CONGRATULATIONS TO OUR STUDENT BODY OFFICERS:
President: BRIAN HEMMENWAY
Vice-President: EVAN MANN
Secretary: ANNA deROQUE
Treasurer: HEIDI STANFORD
Sports Chairperson: RONI MARRONE
Congratulations also to all 5th graders who participated. All were very close races. Each of you did an excel

D. GET OUT YOUR RUNNING SHOES: See you at the LAFAYETTE RESERVOIR RUN on Sunday, October 25. Many thanks to Meredith Johnson and Darcy Talbot for coordinating Springhill's efforts to be well represented at this important fund raiser. See you there!!!

E. Join the PFC! Register for e-SCRIP!!

THE SIX PILLARS & PAY IT FORWARD CORNER

"In prosperity, our friends know us; in adversity, we know our friends."
- John Churton Collins, British literary critic (1848- 1908)

CHARACTER COUNTS! AS YOU GO FORWARD DAILY, STAND TALL UPON THE PILLARS OF TRUSTWORTHINESS, RESPECT, RESPONSIBILITY, FAIRNESS, CARING & CITIZENSHIP!!!

Every week we will be including different aspects of our Pay It Forward theme for this year in the Friday Flyer. Character development should be a major component in any well-rounded educational program and it has been for many years at Springhill. Ask your children what their classes are doing for Pay It Forward. Come to Spirit Wednesday, 8:30 AM every Wednesday morning in the main courtyard and find out how we promote character development at Springhill School.

A. CONTRIBUTE TOYS TO CHILDREN's HOSPITAL: Thank you once again to the Kvitko family for starting their annual CHILDREN's HOSPITAL TOY DRIVE. Starting on Monday, 9/21, you will find collection bins for toys in front of the school. New toys or those still in good shape may be dropped off to be enjoyed by the patients at Children's Hospital in Oakland. Many thanks, Kvitkos!!! Thank you for supporting the Pillars of Caring , Responsibility & Citizenship!

B. DONATE HALLOWEEN COSTUMES, MASKS, HATS, DRESS-UP CLOTHES, ETC. FOR THE HOMELESS CHILDREN OF SHELTER, INC., to the donation bin in front of the school. Thank you to Girl Scout Troop 32154 for sponsoring this worthwhile drive! Thank you for supporting the Pillars of Caring , Responsibility & Citizenship!

C. COINS FOR A CURE: As one of several initial PAY IT FORWARD Projects this fall, Springhill School is again participating in the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF) COINS FOR A CURE Program. The drive began Wednesday, 10/7, and will continue through Friday, 10/30, and will consist of a collection can in each classroom for students and staff to contribute any spare change they wish. The actual WALK TO CURE DIABETES took place at Heather Farms in Walnut Creek on Sunday, 10/4. Thank you to all those families who participated. . . and thank you so much as we begin another successful year of PAYING IT FORWARD!

D. THANK YOU TO ALL WHO PARTICIPATED IN THE ANNUAL LIGHT THE NIGHT WALK for the Leukemia/Lymphoma Society last Saturday, October 3at Civic Park in Walnut Creek.

E. CHILDREN's HOSPITAL GOODY BAGS: Thank you to First Grade Girls Springhill Daisy Troop # 321933 for collecting Halloween goody bags for the kids at Children's Hospital Oakland. Donations can be placed in the bin in front of the school office. Thank you for supporting the Pillars of Caring , Responsibility & Citizenship!

DIFFERENTIATION CORNER

*Differentiated Instruction takes place in all of our classes. Each week we will be profiling a particular teacher's implementation of Differentiated Instruction every week in the Friday Flyer. Don't miss it!!!

In Mrs. Graham's & Mrs. Welcomer's kindergarten, students are provided with Differentiated Instruction during the daily morning message. During this interactive writing and reading lesson, beginning readers become detectives searching for the letter of the day, filling in missing letters, practicing correct letter formation and spacing between words. Emerging readers identify and spell sight words and simple CVC words, read simple sentences, and help decode the message. Advanced students, provide missing punctuation, spell more challenging words and answer the questions asked in the message. All students are provided access to the same material, but can participate at their own ability level.

*Differentiated Instruction is not individualized instruction, but rather the delivery of curriculum to students in a manner that complements their learning style while always challenging them at their ability level.

Bruce L. Wodhams
Principal
Springhill Elementary School
3301 Springhill Road
Lafayette, CA 94549

bwodhams@lafsd.k12.ca.us

"Attitude of Gratitude" is written on a t-shirt that I wear and love. It speaks volumes of how I intend to live my own life - to be grateful for all that I have and am able to do for myself and others.

This year the Red Ribbon Week committee has chosen "Attitude is Everything" as Springhill's theme. It's a powerful statement and can mean the difference in the outcome of a situation. We all have choices to make and the more positive our outlook the more positive the outcome. It's a very simple idea that can be community changing - remember Attitude is Everything. If you would like to help out please contact Karen Elliott at karen@chelliott.com.

The Lafayette Reservoir Run is October 25th - I picked up my registration form in the office, so grab one too and sign up. This is a great event that benefits all of our schools here in Lafayette. Get up, get out, walk, run and have a good time celebrating our community!

A big Thank you to the Coordinators for Springhill Darcy Talbot and Meredith Johnson! Any questions please contact them at darcytalbot@comcast.net or meredith_carlisle@hotmail.com.

Thank you to the Elzes for donating a storage shed to use to house our PE equipment! With the help of RJ Fleischman the shed should be up and in working order shortly! Many thanks!

The 5th grade is performing Grease this year. You can check out the demo this Friday at 2pm in the Multipurpose Room. If you are the parent of a 5th grader who would like to participate in the play there is a meeting on Monday, October 12th at 7pm in the Library.

The PFC is looking for committee chairs for next year! Here are a few of the positions available:
Friday Flyer Editors, Family Fun Fest Chairs, Scorpion Days Chairs, and other opportunities. If any of these jobs sound interesting to you please contact me at uvdonlon@aol.com or Jean Follmer at jeanfollmer@yahoo.com.

Have a great weekend! Julie Donlon
2009-2010 Springhill PFC President
uvdonlon@aol.com

Fall Phonathon

LASF will launch its Fall Phonathon on Sunday evening Oct 18th. Our goal is to contact new school families and those we weren't able to reach in the Spring. Even in a good year, California state funding alone cannot provide our public schools with the full range of educational programs essential for a complete, well-rounded education. In our district, private donations help make up the difference.

Together, your LASF and parent club donations pay for essential programs and services that would be lost due to state funding shortfalls. Lafayette public schools rely heavily on this partnership. In turn, we hope we can rely on you. Please answer that phonathon call.

Every Child. Every Classroom. Every Dollar Counts.

Don't forget, you can always donate on-line or use our printable donation form to make your tax-deductible donation and miss the call!

LASF 'loves' eScrip
It just takes a few minutes to sign up and enjoy the convenience of supporting LASF with a percentage of your purchases at Safeway and other participating merchants. Please visit the eScrip site to find out how easy it is. LASF's account number is 0137956566.

Thank you to our Work Day volunteers who assisted with a variety of projects! Deb Culver, Sandra Fischman, Nanette Heffernan, Barbara O'Brien, Laisha Ozaki & Kim Brast. Stay tuned for an upcoming weekend Work Day in early November - date TBD.

Remember, there are over 100 reasons to read. This week reason number 4 is "It improves your communication skills."

Here in the library we've just about finished decorating for the month and the season. Come on by and check out the great job our volunteer crew has done. Also, many thanks to all those who helped cover twenty new books last week. And, finally, a big thanks to those who helped update our shelf labels.

If you want to know more about spiders (and who doesn't?) ask a kindergartner. After they shared all sorts of facts about spiders this week, I shared a story about a favorite character in African traditional literature. Anansi and the Talking Melon, retold by Eric Kimmel, relates the trickster spider's ruse to fool the other creatures in the kingdom, especially Elephant, whose melon patch he has raided.

If you have a first grader you know that losing a tooth (or two or three) is a big event. You also know that they are learning all sorts of facts about bats. After telling me what they knew about bats, we shared a story about twin bat brothers who have always done everything together. Then one of them lost his tooth while the other didn't. How did the unlucky brother ensure that nobody forgot him in all the excitement? Steven Kroll's book Loose Tooth explores this interesting question.

It's second graders' turn to honor Hispanic Heritage Month with Estela's Swap by Alexis O'Neill. This is the story of a Mexican American girl who hopes to sell her music box at the Swap Meet so that she can earn money for folk dancing lessons at the Ballet Folklórico. This universal story of working hard to make a wish come true is a wonderful fit with our Character Counts citizenship program.

Traditional literature was also the theme for the third graders this week. In Cynthia DeFelice's tale of The Dancing Skeleton Aaron Kelly was dead but got out of his grave, walked home, and rocked away, drying up into a rattling skeleton, until the best fiddler in town came courting his widow. Students loved hearing how Aaron's bones finally got back to where they belonged.

Rocks in His Head is Carole Otis Hurst's fictionalized story of her father's fascination with rocks, which led to some interesting, and unexpected, opportunities for him in his later life. The fourth graders and I used the magazine "Smithsonian in Your Classroom" to look at some leaf fossils and learned that scientists have figured out a way to calculate temperatures in the prehistoric world using these fossils.

It's always a challenge to find a good book to read. Fifth graders heard brief book talks about several new fiction and nonfiction books in our library. They then had the opportunity to browse through several books on their tables. I gave them two minutes to look at one of the books on the table. They then passed on the book they'd been exploring to someone else at the table and picked up the next one until they'd had a chance to see them all.

Don't forget to check out our website at http://www.lafsd.k12.ca.us/people/smattern/index.htm . You will find updates on what's happening at the Springhill Library, an revised library wish list, reviews of new books, and links to many helpful resources too.

Sherry Mattern, Library Specialist

RUN or WALK TO SUPPORT OUR LAFAYETTE SCHOOLS! - SUNDAY, OCTOBER 25TH
We need YOU!!Sign up to run or walk the 17th Annual Lafayette Reservoir Run!

TWO CLASSES AT SPRINGHILL WILL WIN AN ICE CREAM PARTY!
Each person that registers will get an official bib. Students should bring their bib and their family/extended family member bibs as well. All bibs turned in to their teacher by end of day Tuesday, October 27th will be counted. The two classes with the most registration bibs will get the ice cream extravaganza party. Date of party TBD.

Come join in the 10k (8:45 a.m.), 5k (8:30 a.m.), or 2 mile "fun run" (9:00 a.m.) through the heart of downtown Lafayette, down to the reservoir and back. It is the city's most popular "family affair" and everyone is welcome, even our loving four-legged pets! Moms, dads, kids, aunts, uncles, and anyone else can participate! Afterwards, you can purchase a yummy pancake breakfast!

REGISTER IN ADVANCE AND GET A FREE TEE SHIRT! Registration forms will come home in the Friday folders.

Adult (ages 12 and older) registration Fee - $28 (race day $33)
Kids (ages 11 and under) Fee - $20 (race day $25)

Complete the form, sign the waiver, and enclose a self addressed stamped envelope (to receive bib) and check made payable to: Lafayette Chamber of Commerce. Mail to: Lafayette Chamber of Commerce, 100 Lafayette Circle, #103, Lafayette, CA. 94549.

ONE NAME PER ENTRY FORM! No bibs will be mailed without a self addressed stamped envelope. Extra registration forms are located in the Springhill office.

You may also register online by going to www.lafayettechamber.org. Please make sure you mark the line next to Springhill Elem. on the registration form. 10% of your registration fee goes DIRECTLY to Springhill school!

If you have any questions, please contact Meredith Johnson at meredith_carlisle@hotmail.com or Darcy Talbot at darcytalbot@comcast.net.

Collection for Halloween goody bags for Children's Hospital
First Grade Girls' Springhill Daisy Troop #321933 is collecting Halloween goody bags for the kids at Children's Hospital Oakland. Please help make their Halloween special by donating stickers, pencils, art supplies, toys, books, playdough, silly putty, small stuffed animals such as beanie babies and Halloween themed crafts and goody bags. There is be a bin located outside the office. Please no food, candy or latex balloons.
Questions? Contact Amy Fritschi at fritschi2@att.net or Anne Marie Hill at bryanandannehill@yahoo.com.

We Need Your Old Halloween Costumes & Dress- up Clothes!!
Springhill's 3rd grade Brownie troop #32154 wants to make sure the children of Shelter, Inc. have Halloween costumes this year! All sizes for both girls and boys are needed. Please bring your donation to school in a clear ziplock bag labeled with description, gender and age/size and place it in the bin outside of the office. Your help is greatly appreciated! For more information, please contact Chris Peters at chrisnshari@comcast.net.

To submit entries to the Friday Flyer, email Traci Lawrence: fridayflyereditor@yahoo.com

All entries due Wednesday before 3:00pm. Entries must be kept brief, please.
Subscriber info: bethhutson@comcast.net

Web: http://www.lafsd.k12.ca.us/springhill