Cardinal Connection

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With the month of April upon us, we are busy preparing creative ways to celebrate, educate and continue to build relationships among ALL students. April is Autism Awareness & Acceptance Month. The themes for this month include acceptance, understanding and inclusion. We encourage families to have conversations with your students about accpetance within our school and community during this month and throughout the year. To unite in support of people affected by Autism, we invite students, families and staff to wear blue on each Friday in April (4/5, 4/12, 4/19 and 4/26). Let's raise awareness...and spread acceptance!

Mrs. Farmer

Shout out to Mason Marbaugh and Mr. Marbaugh! Each morning they stop by the office to pick up cones and curbside signs that they put out daily. These things help our arrival and dismissal to run more smoothly. We appreciate your help each day!

Shout out to each of our substitute teachers! Some of these people, like Mrs. Masters, Mrs. Mahle, Mrs. Briggs, Ms. O'Connor, Mrs. Bassage and Mr. Iwanicki, are in our building regularly and we APPRECIATE all that they do! All of our substitutes step into classrooms when needed and they do a great job of keeping our students safe and helping them learn!

We have so many great things happening at our school! These things happen because of the partnership we have with our families! It's important that we recognize and celebrate the things that make a difference! Please use this form to give a SHOUT OUT to someone that has made a difference! This could be for a student, a staff member, or a family. It takes all of us working together to make a difference! We will share the Shout Out's in each monthly newsletter.

April 3 -------------------- Hungry Howie's Fundraiser Night

April 8 - 11 ------------- Kindergarten Roundup

April 30 ------------------ Kindergarten Field Trip ( Muckel, Uetrecht, Rutz, & Torrey)

Reading is Magic! Thank you to CBPU for coming to read "If I Were a Lineworker" and "Lindsey the GIS Professional" to some of our classes at Max Larsen Elementary. They helped students to understand electrical safety, and showed them a bucket truck!

We have been diving into reading and having a ton of fun! In our first week, we blew away our school goal of collecting 100 tokens, which represent books read, by collecting over 200 tokens! The treasure chest is getting filled! We played schoolwide Bingo for Books which the kids LOVED! The whole school was on on Google Meet at the same time, and when kids got a bingo, they got to choose a new book as a prize. Our door decorating contest was epic! You should see all the fabulously decorated doors throughout the school! Mrs. Machan's door took 1st place, Miss Eddy's door took 2nd place and Mrs. Mahle's door took 3rd place. Families enjoyed our Family Read In including the Book Fair, a special photo opporutnity with a mermaid and decorating cookies. We have also had a ton of guest readers including CBPU, some CHS athletes and community members. Our goal has been to continue to motivate our students to read, to celebrate all their accomplishments, and to have some extra fun! Goal accomplished!

Permission slips are available in the office for students to participate in Bible Class. If you are interested in this for your child, please stop by the office to pick one up.

Parent teacher request forms for the 2024-2025 school year will be available in the office from April 1 to April 30. Parents must pick up forms in the office and absolutely no requests will be accepted after April 30. We believe strongly in involving parents in the education of their child, and are happy to accept requests. However, please know, teacher requests are not a guarantee your child will be placed in a certain room. Creating balanced classes that allow all children to learn is our priority. Also, please know staffing (teacher teaching a certain grade level) can change before school begins in the fall.

We have received some updated guidance from the CDC, as they have recently changed the COVID isolation rules. Individuals may return to school after 24 hours of improving symptoms and being fever free without use of fever reducing medications. The recommendations also include, for the 5 days after you return, to take additional precautionary measures which can include physical distancing, hygiene, mask use, and steps to improve air quality.

The CDC qualifies these changes by acknowledging that nearly the entire population has some immunity to COVID from having had the disease or by vaccination. However, the CDC is clear that further prevention of COVID and other respiratory diseases includes keeping current with recommended vaccinations; these would include COVID, Flu, and RSV.

Due to safety concerns, the city of Coldwater has installed “No Parking Signs” along N. Clay Street from the staff parking lot to Pelton Ave. Please do not park along N. Clay Street during the restricted times. With the amount of traffic and buses in this area, congestion from parking to pick up or drop off students has caused safety concerns. Again, we ask that anyone who drives to school to pick up or drop off their child please use the curbside line. We appreciate your cooperation with this matter and attention towards student safety.

Congratulations to Miss Eddy's class for being the pizza party winners for March! Thank you for helping to raise money for our school! Which classroom will win next?? March 6 is the next chance to order lunch or dinner from Hungry Howie's. We appreciate Hungry Howie's supporting our school!

Please be sure to check out the Max Larsen Elementary Facebook Page. We will post important information there and also share about the exciting things happening at our school. Make sure to like it and follow it.

Please DO NOT use social media to communicate with us about your child including transportation changes. We do not check this regularly and will miss your message. Additionally, it is best policy for each staff person to not use social media to communicate with families. Please call our office or use email if you need to speak with someone. Thank you!

Message from Miss Epp

Strong speaking skills will improve your child’s communication and writing abilities. To help develop strong speaking skills you can have your child practice asking and answering questions. During and after activities, use wh questions to have conversations with your child. For example, after playing outside, ask who they played with and where. Ask him/her to tell you how to play a game of tag and why they like certain activities/games. Have your child take turns asking you questions as well. Encourage your child to use complete sentences in their questions and responses. Here is a little sheet as a reminder:

Hello Larsen families, here is an update from Physical Education class at Max Larsen…We have been working hard on the following skills:

• Jumping rope- Y 5’s & Kindergarten

• Teamwork “makes the dreamwork”- all grades

• Mile Club- 1st grade

• Basketball

• Volleyball

• I am so proud of the progress we have made this year! Students are doing well meeting their P.E. goals! We are working on being good teammates as well! Keep up the good work!

We have field day coming up on May 21st (with a rain date of May 24th). This year our Field Day is going to be… Max Larsen’s Summer Olympics! We will be learning about the Olympics after spring break. We will experience the various sports in the Summer Games and all the countries that will be participating! Please keep sending your child with shoes that they can run and move around in. My goal is to always keep them safe. We head outside most of the time when it is nice out.

Our first grade students are loving our Max’s Mile Club where they can run laps to earn little feet to put on their shoes! Our younger kiddos are learning to jump rope. They are earning ‘jump bracelets’ each time they practice jump rope to make it to the final jump test where they will be a part of our Kangaroo Club! All students will all earn an outdoor party with me at the end of the school year when they reach their Mile & Kangaroo Club goals! Thank you for your support & keep moving!

Sincerely,

Mrs. Rakocy

Did you know that showing up on time every day is important to your child’s success and learning from Young Five’s forward? Missing 10% of school (1 or 2 days every few weeks) can make it harder to:

• Gain early reading and math skills.

• Build relationships.

• Develop good attendance habits.

Making school a priority has many benefits!

• The routines your child develops will continue throughout school.

• Make the most of early grades by encouraging your child to attend every day

Some absences may be unavoidable because of illness or other reasons. Try not to let your child miss school unless absolutely necessary. If it is necessary for your child to miss school, please call the office (517-279-5960) to notify us.

Please be sure your child/children have an extra set of clothes in their backpacks daily. Accidents happen and we do not always have clothes on hand. Thank you for your help with this.

Please call Max Larsen at (517) 279-5960 in the event your child or children will be absent. Thank you.

With school starting at 8:45, anyone who gets in line to drop off their child after this time will be required to park and come in the building to sign their child in. Thank you.

We are requiring students to be 24 hr. symptom free/fever free before they can return. Please do not send students to school if they are or have been sick in the past 24 hrs. Thank you.

Drop Off: When dropping off in the morning please use the car line if you are in a vehicle. Pulling into the staff parking lot to drop off is not permitted. Doing this causes much confusion for people and that lot is reserved for staff parking only. Thank you.

Pick Up: When picking up your child from school in a car you must use the car line. Any students that need to be picked up early will need to be picked up by 3:25. Anything after that, the child will do their normal end of day transportation. Again, the staff parking lot is reserved for staff and bus use. Please do not pull into this parking lot. Thank you again for your help with this.

We need everyone's help with our procedures for curbside drop off and pick up. It is important that all parents and families use the parking lot along Parkhurst Ave. to drop off and pick up students. Please DO NOT use the staff parking lot. This lot is reserved for staff, buses, and permit parking. We really need everyone's cooperation with this. Thank you!

The Max Larsen school day starts at 8:45 a.m. Please be sure to have your child/children to school on time. Even missing a small part of the day impacts their learning! When students are late, they are marked a half day absent. Multiple tardies add up and lead to concerns with truancy. Thank you.

If you need to change end of day transportation please call our office at 279-5960 and do so before 3:00. On Wednesdays, you must call in to make any changes before 2:00. We will not be honoring any changes after this time. If your end of day change involves bussing you will also need to call the bus garage at 279-5950. Please do NOT leave any end of day changes on our answering machine, as we do not always get to them on time. Thank you.

It is IMPORTANT for many reasons to make sure that our school office has your current address and phone number on file. Additionally, in case of illness or emergency, we want to be able to get a hold of you as quickly as possible. Please check with our office to make sure they have your current contact information on file if anything changes throughout the school year.

Inclement weather/2-hour delay days

• You will receive an automated call if school is cancelled or delayed. Please be sure that your current phone number is listed in Skyward!
• If there is a 2-hour delay school will start at 10:45 and doors will open at 10.25. Breakfast is not served at school on 2-hr days.
• Delays and cancellations will be broadcast on: AM 1590 & FM 95.5 WTVB, WIN 98.5. TV stations are WWMT News channel 3 & CW7, WOOD-TV 8, FOX 17, WILX-TV 10 and CCStv.

Email: farmerj@ccscards.org
Website: coldwaterschools.org
Location: 25 Parkhurst Avenue, Coldwater, MI, USA
Phone: (517) 279-5960