Almond Thursday Word

Dear Almond Families,

Happy Thursday! Please see below for some important information regarding the last weeks of school.

Plan for Drop-off and Pick-up of Student items:

Coming soon, I will be sharing a detailed plan with information on how families can return materials to school as well as retrieve any student work/class items. This will take place starting the 1st week of June and will be done in compliance with all current public health and safety orders. In the meantime, please work with your student to start collecting items currently at home that will need to be returned to school. Following is a list by grade level for items that you may need to return: School List.

Please keep your eyes open for an email early next week that will outline specific procedures for how to drop-off/pick-up items and, most importantly, how to do so safely.

Reminder: School Facilities Are Closed

As we prepare for the close of the school year we want to remind our families that our school facilities are closed to the public. People may use our fields while adhering to social distancing requirements as determined by state and local public health authorities.

Some Art Projects that Inspire from the LASD Art Docent Program:

Want to incorporate some more creative art projects into your days? We’ve got 4 more art ideas that can be done at home with minimal art supplies. These projects are not current Art Docent lessons or grade specific. The list starts with the simplest project and gets progressively more complex:

Paper Mosaic – Create a mosaic design with scraps of paper.

Draw a Flower Garden – Create a colorful garden scene with 3 different types of flowers and a 3-D butterfly.

Draw a Cake – Learn how to draw a cake with a slice taken out in perspective.

Write a Face – Reinforce learning of the proportions of the face and continuous line drawing by using script to draw a face.

And please tune in tomorrow to our Friday Virtual Assembly. There will be a fun announcement for your kids to consider participating in!

Here’s to exciting end-of-year activities that continue to build the Almond community!

Raquel

Wed, 5/27, PTA General Meeting, details below

6/3-6/5, School materials drop off/pick up, details coming soon

LASD Community Gives Back is a group of parents and community members interested in making sure our most underserved students and families are not left hungry in this global pandemic. LASD Community Gives Back has two ways it is looking to provide this support.

LASD Community Gives Back is collaborating with Living Classroom to prepare, plant and maintain school garden beds then harvest, and distribute the produce (by way of LASD free lunch distribution) to our most underserved families.

This is where you come in. We need volunteers to help us do all of this. As this project unfolds there will be many different volunteer opportunities (and not all will involve gardening) and we envision all opportunities to be a family affair. Not only will your older ones be able to rake in their community service hours, but also you will be able to help teach your little ones about the lifecycle of vegetables and the joy of growing food and giving to others.

Please know, we will make sure all volunteer initiatives will be done in a physically distant manner and follow all the social distance protocols prescribed by the county.

Interested? Please fill out this quick form. Questions? Email Jessica Speiser.

Secondly, LASD Community Gives Back Initiative is starting an ongoing food pantry drive for the district’s free lunch families. Every Friday, non perishable food items collected will be distributed where our most underserved families pick up their free lunch in a mobile, ongoing food pantry.

How to help:

1. Each time you shop for your family's groceries buy some extra non perishables for the Almond Gives Back food pantry drive or clear out your shelves of unexpired non perishables.

2. Deliver your donations to the collection bin at 520 Castano Corte, Los Altos, while practicing Social Distancing Protocols by Wednesday of each week (from now throughout the summer)

Thank you so much for helping Almond Gives Back. If you have any questions please contact Marcsi Elovson at mkratochwill@yahoo.com.

Continuing to support students remains LAEF’s highest priority. We want you to be aware of our fundraising status for this school year. With the recent economic disruption, LAEF remains $130,000 short of our financial commitment to fully fund teachers and staff at each LASD school.

Here’s some good news! Three generous LASD families have stepped up to offer a Challenge Match. Every dollar you give to LAEF by May 31st will be doubled, up to $20,000. If you are financially able, can you donate any amount now and help us finish funding this school year?

Thank you for considering a donation to support our schools during this critical time.

We hope that all of you are doing well as we continue to shelter in place during the COVID-19 pandemic. During this challenging time, Living Classroom is helping to balance out "screen time" with backyard "green time" with our at-home activity videos that help connect students with our nature-based curriculum at home. If you haven't done so already, please visit the our Living Classroom Parent Page where you can find at-home activity videos as well as additional nature-based resources (click here to learn how to make pretzels at home or here to learn how to plant a Three Sisters garden). We encourage you to also check out the Living Classroom – Los Altos School District YouTube Channel where we are posting LASD specific virtual garden tours, including our new LASD Mystery School Series videos which highlight the plants growing in the Living Classroom gardens at each of the schools (click here to watch the first video in this fun series…can you guess which school we are at?). Please share these resources widely and check back frequently as new videos and activities are being added weekly.

Keep Calm & Garden On! - Living Classroom Staff

The Almond School Library webpage now has all the librarian read-alouds on the site! Click here to explore these books.

Also, keep your student’s virtual life engaging, entertaining and educational this summer with this curated list of free family e-resources! Summer library resources

Our last general PTA meeting of the school year will be held on Wednesday, May 27 at 8:30-10:00AM via video conference. Below is the agenda and video conference details.

Agenda:

1. Welcome

2. Financial Update

   1. April Financials

   2. Preliminary Budget for 2020-2021 School Year

3. Leadership Update

4. Discussion Items

   1. Nominating committee update

   2. Teacher support for e-learning

   3. Gala auction

   4. Eagle project

   5. Bookwave books + blast

   6. Yearbooks

   7. Bylaw review

5. Upcoming Dates - TBC

6. Adjourn

Zoom Meeting Details: https://confluent.zoom.us/j/5108726799

Meeting ID: 510 872 6799

In addition, we will have a special PTA meeting on June 17 at 8:30am. The only action item is to adopt the 2020 Bylaws changes. Hope to see you at both meetings.