February is Black History Month and the PTA, in collaboration with our teachers and community members, invite you to join us in celebrating Black culture and recognizing important people and events in the history of the Black diaspora.

We've got some great events and activities planned. Please see below for details, and mark your calendars.

WHAT: Hands-on arts and crafts, everyone is invited!

WHEN: Thursday, February 18, 7pm

WHERE: Via Zoom: https://zoom.us/j/7169375144?pwd=czJCYVc4TzU2ZThQdi8xeVByaVJPQT09

Parents, caregivers, students (and siblings!) are all invited to participate in this hands-on arts and crafts event.

Experience the fun and discovery of an art lesson with Cragmont’s very own Ms. Ellen. She's going to teach about the Black artist Faith Ringgold, whose picture book, Tar Beach, is based on a story quilt about her childhood memories.

Then, Ms. Ellen will guide parents and children in making their own story quilts! You will need paper, crayons, scissors, and glue, plus something to "quilt" such as old magazines or colored paper.

HOT TIP: start setting aside magazines now to be ready on 2/18

Inspired by Amanda Gorman’s inauguration poem and Kwame Alexander’s community poem featured on NPR, we are going to be creating our own crowdsourced poem.

The way this works is that each student can submit up to one line, phrase, or sentence, and our poetry team will compile the submissions to create a Cragmont crowd-sourced poem.

February 23, 7 PM (Zoom): An Evening of Music and Dance Celebrating Black Culture

Please join us for a lively Zoom session featuring traditional and contemporary styles of music and dance in Black culture. Students will be learning some of the traditional dances in their dance classes this month and will have a chance to showcase their skills during this interactive session. And yes, adults can dance too! 

Zoom link: https://zoom.us/j/7169375144?pwd=czJCYVc4TzU2ZThQdi8xeVByaVJPQT09

February 25, 7 PM (Zoom): Celebrating the Legacy of Black Berkeley

Sometimes we forget that Black History has been a part of Berkeley for decades. With so many contributions made in this city, please join us as we spend an evening highlighting some of our African American leaders, past and present.

Zoom link: https://zoom.us/j/7169375144?pwd=czJCYVc4TzU2ZThQdi8xeVByaVJPQT09

As we still can't have large gatherings (soon! soon!), our 2021 auction will also be online. Bidding will be from March 22-April 1, with items delivered or available for pick-up after Spring Break.

After a year of responding to COVID-19 ordinances, many of our local community partners may not be able to contribute in the same ways as they have in years past, so we're looking to go big on YOUR IDEAS for items to auction to our community.

This could look like:

• Teaching a cooking class
• Offering dance lessons (we have an 8th-grade sibling interested in offering this for our students!)
• Pet portraits
• Birthday sign-bombings
• Teach your friends how to turn off parental controls (a 6th-grader suggested this one)
• And of course, wine and beer are always a hit

We strongly encourage students to get involved and get creative. What can your student share with the community?

Please share your suggestions/submissions. 

And, we could really use some more parent volunteers to help make this happen. Please email ptapresident@cragmont.org.

When our campus was closed for three weeks last March, who could have imagined the extent to which COVID-19 would upend our lives and contribute to such an extended closure of our schools.

We know many in our community are struggling greatly.

Cragmont mama Lindsay Jean Nofelt has spent countless hours compiling a robust list of available resources on everything from food access to free internet. This list is current, and it's a gold mine. Thank you Lindsay!

If you have a resources to add, please send info to cragmontweb@gmail.com.

VIEW PANDEMIC RESOURCES >

Cragmont Elementary • 830 Regal Rd, Berkeley, CA 94708

http://www.cragmont.org