The Dolphin Whistle
April 26, 2017 ISSUE 33
MESSAGE FROM PRINCIPAL LAMBERT
Dear Mariano Castro Parents,
While we have caterpillars each spring, this spring has been a particularly good one for the caterpillars. Your children all know to stay away from them as some children have an allergic skin reaction. The season will end soon, but in the meantime please remind your child to stay away from the caterpillars here at school and anywhere else around town that they see them.
Best Regards,
Theresa Lambert
5th Grade Music Instrument Collection
Room # 52 on the following date, see attached flyer for more details.
Instrument Collection for Strings Only is Thursday May 18th
Instrument Collection for Band Only is Friday May 26th
Thank you for your cooperation!
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EMERGENCY ACCESS AND SCHOOL DROP OFF AREAS
This is our school’s main entrance for emergency responders it must be kept clear at all times!
Keep Our Students Safe!
We all must work together to enhance the ability of emergency responders to reach our campus and respond to emergency situations.
Students, visitors and district staff are prohibited from parking in areas marked as fire lanes because doing so can prevent the timely arrival of first responders to the scene of medical or fire emergencies on our school campus.
Please take the time necessary to find parking on the street or other parking locations near the campus.
Keep Our Students Safe!
During morning drop-off and afternoon pick-up — and to maintain emergency access to our campuses — follow these important traffic safety tips:
Set a good example for your child.
Make sure your child knows how to enter and exit your car safely. Never exit on the side of oncoming traffic.
Do not park in the campus’ pick-up circle. Parking, even for a moment, slows everybody down.
Parked cars can also hinder emergency vehicle response to a campus. This is the main entrance to our school campus.
If you must meet with a teacher or run inside, please use the on-street or designated parking spaces.
Do not park in red lanes; and remember to use the crosswalks for safety.
Respect children and pedestrians crossing the internal drives and surrounding streets.
Teach your child to use good manners and safe walking skills when crossing the drive and street; also to respect crossing guards, and obey safety rules.
Pick up students from the curbside only; never wave your child over through traffic. Crossing between cars is extremely dangerous.
If you can carpool, please do so. Not only will you find a friend, you reduce the number of cars coming to campus — and frustration.
- Be patient and courteous to staff assisting children with loading and unloading.
Heelys (shoes with roller skate wheels in the sole) are not allowed to be worn to school or on the playground. If students wear their Heelys to school, they will be asked to remove the wheels and turn them into the office. Students escorted by their parent may collect the wheels at the end of the school day. Please ensure your child does not wear these shoes (with wheels in the heel) to school.
Our Science Fair on April 6 was a huge success!
Dear Mistral & Castro community,
Participation was high this year. It was higher than last year, no matter how you measure it: 225 students registered (up 18%); at least 81 projects were presented to a judge (up 33%); and at least 138 kids had the experience of presenting (up 11%). High participation is due in large part to the generosity of parent leaders who reached out across cultures—in both directions. Thank you for including so many kids in wonderful science learning experiences. A special thanks goes to Castro teacher Grace Chavez who worked with 12 teams to ensure that all interested Castro 2nd and 3rd graders had the opportunity to participate.
Many students participated for the first time. One third of students registered this year had not participated last year. This included not only 36 Kinder students, but also many upper grades students who participated for the first time. I hope you had a great experience and will continue your science explorations!
We had judging in Spanish as well as English for the first time. I want to thank our fantastic judging team for encouraging our young scientists: Amy Adams, Bahareh Ajami, Sarah Heilshorn and myself (English); and Oscar Castro, Juan Garcia, and Joey Mercer (Spanish).
This year’s popular topics included crystals, volcanoes, and—especially in 5th grade—slime! This year I experienced much emotion as I spoke with 5th grade students who have enthusiastically participated in the science fair each of the four years that I have been involved as an organizer and judge. I hope that their science learning experiences at Mistral and Castro ensure a continued love for exploration in and out of the science classroom as they move through middle school and life. Congratulations, 5th grade scientists.
Students worked as a team to build a huge arch in our second annual engineering challenge. In order to assemble the arch from nearly 20 huge, wedge-shaped boxes, students acted as a human “falsework” or “centring”—the temporary scaffold used by builders throughout the ages to support an arch until the keystone is put in place. Kudos to the first group of students who completed the challenge, a little over 1 hour into the fair! And many thanks to 3rd grade parents Chris Cosner and SS Mohan for assisting with this energetic activity.
Families were able to enjoy half-price tacos, thanks to the Mistral PTA! Families and a loyal local business all benefited, thanks to the leadership of Mistral PTA President Joey Mercer. I have always felt the tacos make our Science Fair special :-)
Project boards can be picked up from the MUR stage. I will recycle all unclaimed projects next Friday, 4/28.
I am seeking a co-leader for the 2018 Science Fair. This event is incredibly popular with students, parents, and staff. But in order to make it happen next year we need a co-leader. The job requires a few hours in the fall to apply for a materials grant, then several hours a week (mostly working from home) in February and March for PR and registration, with the big event day early in April. Please contact me to learn more.
Thank you everyone for a great science fair!
Sincerely,
Susanna Mlynarczyk-Evans
Mistral 3rd & 1st grade parent
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Calendar of Upcoming Events
4/26 Wednesday - SSC 5:00 pm -6:30 pm Staff Lounge
4/26 Wednesday - PTA General Meeting 6:30 pm - 7:30 pm MUR
4/27 Thursday - FEI 5:30 pm - 8:00 pm MUR and Staff Lounge
4/27 Thursday - Principal's Coffee 8:00 am - 9:00 am Staff Lounge
4/27 Thursday - Personal Success Awards Assembly 11:15 am MUR
5/4 Thursday - FEI 5:30 pm - 8:00 pm MUR and Staff Lounge
5/11 Thursday - FEI 5:30 pm - 8:00 pm MUR and Staff Lounge
5/19 Friday - Field Trip Stanford University 9:00 am - 1:30 pm RM's 15 & 16
5/22 Monday - CA/MI 5th Grade visit Graham Middle School 8:45 am - 11:15 am
5/24 Wednesday - Field Trip Lawrence Hall 8:00 am - 2:30 pm RM's 9 & 11
5/24 Wednesday - SSC 5:00 pm - 6:30 pm Staff Lounge
5/25 Thursday - CSMA 5th Grade Gala Band 7:00 pm - 8:00 pm MUR
5/25 Thursday - Personal Success Awards Assembly 11:15 am MUR
5/26 Friday - End of third Trimester, Minimum Day dismissal 11:55 am
5/29 Monday - Memorial Day/ No School
6/6 Tuesday - 5th Grade Promotion Ceremony
PTA NEWS
PTA General Meeting
FROM THE DISTRICT
Mountain View Parent U
MV Parent U presents: “Reading, Writing and Talking with Children: Supporting Literacy at home” on Tuesday, May 9 from 6:30-8pm at the Graham Middle School MUR.
Presenters: The Mountain View Public Library (Sharon McClintock, Librarian Youth Services) and our very own District Reading Teacher (Nancy Pfeffer, Landels teacher and mom)
Please join us to learn several strategies for supporting your readers and writers at home.
• How to boost your child's reading engagement and make reading fun
• Ways to help your child overcome his/her writer’s block
• How to have a conversation when your child is reluctant to share about his/her day
*** Go home with some fun, ready-made literacy activities!
In addition, the Mountain View Library will share:
Ebooks and online library resources
Information on Library programs and services for the entire family
Provided:
Interpretation (Spanish support)
Child care
Transportation (Bus departs from Castro Elementary and Crittenden Middle at 6 p.m. and returns at 8:30 p.m.)