From the Principal: March 3, 2017

March 3, 2017

Dear Families,

I hope that you had a wonderful February vacation! It was nice to enjoy the unusually warm weather during our vacation break. I heard from so many students about how they were able to stay outside longer and enjoy time at the playground, which is great on so many levels.

What a wonderful Chinese New Year Celebration we had last month! Special thank you to our teachers: Ms. Szu-Ming Li, Ms. Li Wang, Ms. Ms. Kai Tan, Ms. Yi-Chin Tien, Ms. Quan Wang, and Ms. Ling Han for their dedication and instruction. I would like to thank MLK Friends and Christina Lively for purchasing and delivering hundreds of oranges so each student could partake in the Chinese tradition. Thank you to our parents and Ms. Bailey, art teacher, for creating and displaying the Chinese lanterns in our hallways. Finally, thank you to our kitchen staff and Chef Janet Salvatore for their special Chinese luncheon. All of students played a role on the big stage in celebrating this custom and our shared learning of another language and culture!

Thank you to Ms. Heather French and Ms. Jennifer Varney for presenting at Tuesday’s Family Coffee on our iLab. We appreciated learning more about the school’s approach towards integrating technology and skills. Questions from parents included topic such as screen time (co-viewing, creating, not consuming), cyber literacy, and Scratch programming (in every class this year).

This month and continuing until early April is our school’s Read Across America challenge. The nationwide RAA theme this year is "Celebrating a Nation of Diverse Readers." Here are the details...

  • Read Across America will run from March 2 (the official RAA Day and Dr. Seuss’s birthday) through April 13th (the day before April vacation).

  • Ms. Varney and Ms. Petitt will meet with each class to talk about the challenge.

  • Each student will receive one of 10 different BINGO card that challenges them to read a diverse array of books, including books set in different parts of the US, books whose characters' family compositions, religions, or cultures are different from their own, folktales, graphic novels, and informational texts. There are some "free choice" spaces as well. Students may read by themselves or have someone read to them. Teacher read alouds also count! Many books that meet these criteria are available in our school library, and Ms. Varney is coordinating with the Cambridge Public Library so that our students may come to their locations for books as well.

  • As students get BINGOs, they can see Ms. Varney or MS. Petitt for a small prize. And the fun part.... if every student in the school gets a BINGO, I will get a pie in the face at an all-school assembly on April 13th! Teachers are encouraged to issue their own challenges to their classes.

  • Additionally, if every student in the school gets a BINGO and 80% of the school (that's 240 students, give or take) gets two or more BINGOs, then I will get a pie in the face at an all-school assembly while wearing crazy pajamas!

Finally, all students who fill their BINGO cards (reading 24 books total) will be treated to a special "garden party" lunch after April vacation. Thank you to Ms. Petitt and Ms. Varney for their help with this challenge. Good luck and happy reading!

Yours truly,

Gerald Yung

Upcoming Dates
Tuesday, March 14th: Early Release Day at 1:55PM
Tuesday, March 28th: Social Emotional Presentations (6PM: Please RSVP)
Monday, April 3rd to Tuesday, April 11th: ELA MCAS Grades 3-5 (multiple days in this timeframe)
Wednesday, April 12th: Parent Conferences
Monday, April 17th to Friday, April 21st: No School/April Vacation

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