Dear Chimacum Elementary Families,

Over the next two weeks, we will be celebrating Read Across America. Read Across America is held annually on March 2nd. We will be doing some different activities from February 28th- to March 11th. During this time we want students to find good books and just enjoy reading.

One of the activities that we are doing is One Book-One School. Every classroom in the school will be reading the same book. The book we have chosen is Wishtree by Katherine Applegate. This book is also being used for the Jefferson County Community Read. Since every classroom is reading the book, it will be a great opportunity for you to talk with your children about the book and get their perspectives across the different grade levels.

Additionally, we are having a classroom competition around reading at home. Attached you will find a reading log that students can fill out. The classroom with the most minutes read will get a surprise at the end of our event. Students can read any book they like or even have books read to them. We only ask that you initial with the amount of time your child reads. We also have included some questions you can ask them about their book to make sure they understood what they read. This is the most important part of reading.

On Wednesday, March 2nd we will be having a pajama day. We will have different times throughout the day that students will Drop Everything And Read. We hope to help students see how fun reading can be. Please make sure that if your child wears pajamas to school that they are appropriate for the setting.

Thank you for supporting your child and let's have fun reading!

• A walking field trip to HJ Carrol Park with Ms. Pennell's class.
• Weekly Chimacum Creek monitoring & testing with Mr. Gonzalez's classroom.
• A Port Townsend Marine Science Center visit by the third-grade classes.
• 6th-grade students will be planting bare-root native plants to be used along Chimacum Creek.
• 4th-grade students will also be visiting the Port Townsend Marine Science Center.

Stay tuned for more great outdoor learning and field trips that augment our place-based learning (PBL) units and science, technology, engineering, art, and math (STEAM) focus!

Friday, March 18th is a non-student day where teachers host conferences for targeted students. Classroom teachers will be arranging conferences for targeted students only, in a format that works for families---either by Zoom, socially distanced in-person, or by phone. If you do not receive communication from your classroom teacher by Friday, March 4 on Bloomz, an email, or a phone call, then there will not be a formal parent/teacher conference for your child on the 18th. If you would like to conference with your child's teacher, you can at anytime contact the teacher directly to arrange a conference.

Please feel free to let your child's teacher know if you have any questions regarding the report card.