Save The Date
* New *
- March 19, Monday, Fit Girls Starts, grades 4-5
- March 23, Friday: All School Spring Concert; K-2nd 9 am. 3rd-5th 9:45 am NOTE: postponed from last week
- March 23, Friday, Spirit Day – Dress to Impress
- March 23, Friday, Community Card Info Meeting, 8:15-8:45 AM Thompson Cafeteria
- March 26, Monday – Grade 3 -5 Enrichment, ImprovBoston Anti-Bullying Workshop
School Calendar
Click http://tinyurl.com/ndp8spb for Thompson’s Google Calendar to get school holidays, early release days, and PTO events on your own calendar. Click http://tinyurl.com/y7u5k2on for a printable version of this month’s calendar.
Highlight
Science Week
Thank you to the parents, teachers and Ms. Donato who helped celebrate science during Thompson’s first Science Week. Despite Mother Nature’s alternate plans, parents visited different classrooms and shared their knowledge of science. A special thank you to parent Anthony Fernandez who amazed all the kiddos with experiments involving liquid nitrogen during lunch. Ask you child about the frozen balloon or the smoking cheez doodles!
On Saturday, the Science Explo included more than 30 exhibitions on physics, robotics, chemistry, biology, earth science and more. Kids lined up to walk on “oobleck” (a mixture of cornstarch and water). Students programmed circuits and created animation videos. They explored chemical reactions and circadian cycles. None of this would have been possible without the many parents who took the time to plan a station and spent hours passing on some valuable knowledge.
Thank you to all of the many volunteers that donated their Saturday to make this event a success. A delicious and nutritious lunch was provided by Something Savory catering, thank you Jodi and John. The bake sale featured galaxy bars, dino fossils cookies, periodic table cupcakes, and more. It was a scientific treat.
Thank you Mr. Brahim for coming in on a Saturday, maintaining your good humor, and cleaning up our mess.
There were several impressive science themed raffle baskets featuring biology, chemistry, physics, programming, geology, astronomy and more. Basket items were donated by our incredibly generous Thompson Community. Additionally, we were lucky to receive donations from Empow Studios, Einstein’s Workshop, MIT Museum, The New England Aquarium, and more.
It’s events like these that invest in our future by inspiring our kids to become scientists and engineers. We look forward to the next Science Explo in 2020.
Thompson News & Events
Green Team
Thompson students transformed trash into art, education and collective action to gear up for the Science Explo and Arlington Ecofest Sat. March 24th.
The Thompson 4th graders in Ms. Armstrong’s class collected straws at lunch for 2 weeks to make their trashformation on the Superhero Decomposer, Red Wiggler Worms, and Composting. Inspired by their project 4 students in Ms. Jette’s class, wrote essays on the negative environmental impact of straws and a letter to the school food service director asking her to consider switching to compostable and reuse-able straws. After using their 2016 transformation, a sea turtle made from school cafeteria styrofoam trays, to inspire APS to switch to compostable trays, these students have their minds set on compostable straws and zero waste lunches.
Textile Recycling Bin
Support Thompson while donating your unwanted clothing, shoes, linens, stuffed animals, and more (in any condition as long as they are clean and dry). Bay State Textiles gives the schools a share of their profit from the sale of these materials. The more you donate, the more the school will receive! The bin is located on the Everett Street side of the school, near the loading driveway.
You can learn more about the Bay State Textiles program at http://www.baystatetextiles.com/schools-box-program
See the acceptable items and other participating schools in the AHS Textile Recycling 2018 Flyer.
Community
Wonderful Town
Arlington High School’s spring musical production of Wonderful Town opens on Friday, March 23rd and runs all weekend. Shows are 7:30 PM on Friday and Saturday and 2:00 PM on Sunday. Order your tickets from a cast member, in the AHS main office, or by using this online link. Tickets are also always available at the door. Tickets are $15 for adults and $10 for students and children. The show is appropriate for the whole family, and we’d love to see you there!
Annual Arlington Trivia Bee
JOIN or come cheer on school & community teams as they compete in the 23rd Annual Arlington Trivia Bee hosted by Arlington Education Foundation!
March 25th from 3-5pm at Town Hall
On March 25th, Arlington’s Town Hall will be abuzz with the friendly yet fierce team-based competition of the Arlington Trivia Bee. Live music, kids activities and the opportunity for audience participation help create the lively, family-friendly atmosphere that defines this annual town-wide event.
Each Trivia Bee team consists of three adults who compete under a team name and may don a creative hat or team costume. Nearly thirty teams — made up of friends, neighbors, elected officials, school groups or community organizations — face off in multiple rounds of trivia questions on sports, literature, history, current events, music, science, and local lore. All proceeds help to sustain the Arlington Education Foundation’s work supporting students and teachers in Arlington. The Bee will include teams of fifth graders from each elementary school who will compete in their own round to kick off the event.
The event will feature Todd Bearson on the piano, and Irwin Grossman will once again be our lively MC. This year’s judges include Kathleen Bodie, Superintendent of Arlington Public Schools and Kevin Flood, Assistant Director of the Arlington Boys & Girls Club. The kids activities will include a presentation by Curious Creatures. Stop by on the 25th and join in the fun!
Volunteer Opportunities
The Thompson PTO has many volunteer needs both small and big. If you’re looking for a way to give back to Thompson, here’s a list of ways you can help.
Annual Picnic Organizers
Though it seems a long way off the planning for the annual June picnic is starting now. The PTO is seeking parent volunteers interested in taking an active role in planning to join the picnic organizing team.
Contact: Kate Murphy, thompsonschoolvoluntee
Safe Routes to School Coordinator
Looking for a parent interested in helping with the Safe Routes to School program. This is the program that has organized the Walk/Bike to School Day among other projects. The current parents in charge have graduating 5 graders. If interested there is a March 8th meeting about Safe Routes to School you might be interested in attending.
Contact Kate Murphy: thompsonschoolvolunteers@gmail.com
Join the Community Card Team!
2018-19 Community Card Spring Info Meeting TAKE 2!
Friday March 23rd, 8:15-8:45AM, Thompson Cafeteria
Our original meeting date got cancelled for snow, but the good news is, now you don’t have to make an extra trip to Thompson to attend! Come to the cafeteria before the School Concert starts, to hear how you can get involved with the 2018-2019 Community Card. This is Thompson’s 2nd most profitable annual fundraiser, bringing in a record $16,000+ this year for Student Enrichment. It’s no overnight task though; now is when we get the businesses on board and confirm our advertising and selling plans, so that we can relax over the summer, and then hit the ground running in September with successful Town Day (Sept 15th) and Fall Sales. Whether you are totally ready to jump on board, have some great ideas to suggest, or are simply curious before committing to anything – come to this meeting. You will get an overview of the program, and hear the long-term and short-term tasks needing attention over the next 6 months. Many talents are valuable here – we have important jobs available for introverts and extroverts alike, both behind-the-scenes and face-to-face, and of varying time commitments.
Questions? Comments?
Can’t make it to the meeting, but still want to get involved?
- Ashley Lorenz (K,3,5) at ashley.e.lorenz@gmail.com
- Gaggi DeStefanis (3) gaggi@rcn.com.
Help Throughout the Year
To check all current volunteer opportunities: http://tinyurl.com/ThompsonPTOVolunteers
Connect with Us
THOMPSON PTO BOARD
Nandana Mewada, Co-President
Diana Trudell, Co-President
Yael Beals, Vice-President
Danielle Gottesman, Communications Chair
If you have news to share with the community, please email ThompsonPTOevents@gmail.com by Thursday at 12 noon to be included in the next newsletter.
Please note that we will only include news from the Thompson School and Town of Arlington. Announcements of interest to the Thompson community from other non-profit organizations may be included at our discretion.
Oh Ick! Jessica Garrett, author of Oh Ick: 114 Experiments Guaranteed to Gross You Out, visited Thompson to build excitement for the upcoming EXPLO.