PTO-Funded Enrichment
Calabash Library
Learning to read, reading to learn or reading for pleasure, our Calabash Library offers a wide variety of material to support your student’s curricular needs and further their love of reading. We aim to develop an appreciation of literature and teach students how to become independent information seekers; skills that will ensure a lifetime of learning.
Story time and library media skills instruction are important components of weekly visits for all grades. At recess and lunch we encourage quiet reading, research, and activities such as chess and puzzles. Some of our favorite annual events include author visits, Scholastic Book Fair, and Read Across America celebrations.
Calabash PTO allocates money every year to the library for author visits, book purchases, library upgrades, and other library-based enrichment activities.
Calabash STEAM/Science Lab
Fully funded by our PTO, our STEAM Lab is a space designed to allow our students to fully immerse themselves in weekly experiments and hands-on science. From microscopes, to robotics kits, to an extensive array of experiments available to our teachers, it’s the perfect space for our kids.
Science at this age is messy and fun, and having a space outside the classroom for teachers to run these experiments means they don’t have to limit themselves to only the tidy, easy lessons that would allow for easy class clean-up.
All our students, TK-5th, visit the STEAM lab as part of their science standards and curriculum.
Ballroom Dance & Cultural Dance
The PTO funds a year-long ballroom dance program for our 4th and 5th grade students, and we are one of the few schools in the valley who offer this performance art-based dance curriculum. However, the program teaches them so much more than just Ballroom Dance (though what a gift in itself!); students demonstrate positive character values, interact in a positive manner with their peers and come to understand the positive benefit of regular exercise in their daily lives. Students have shown improved self-esteem as well as increased self-confidence. They exhibit respect for each other and positive social interaction skills with their peers.
Lower grades all participate in a PTO-funded cultural dance curriculum in the second half of the year, in anticipation of our annual Multicultural Festival.
Comprehensive Arts Program
As an affiliated charter school, Calabash places an emphasis on health, technology and the arts. We’re strong believers in educating the WHOLE child, and we strive to make the arts both accessible and varied so our students have a chance to find and build upon their passions. The PTO spends a significant portion of our annual budget to fund a comprehensive arts program at Calabash, with specialists from several areas coming into the classrooms to work with our students.
Whether it’s improv, theatre, dance, fine arts, instrumental music, or more, we strive to expose our students to as many facets of the arts as possible. We’re constantly looking for new opportunities!
Weekly P.E. Program
Calabash PTO fully funds a weekly P.E. program for all our grade levels. Led by Coach Eric Grindler, the kids are led through a series of active games, stretches, physical skills, and age-appropriate conditioning exercises.
Their time with Mr. Grindler is a highlight of everyone’s week!
Field Trips & Assemblies
PTO funds the cost (fees and transportation) for field trips for all grade levels, including off-campus trips and mobile on-campus assemblies.
Previous field trips include Griffith Observatory, CA State Missions, Will Geer’s Theatricum Botanticum, Bank of America Performing Arts Center, Reagan Library, Moorpark Teaching Zoo, Leonis Adobe Museum, and Chumash Indian Museum. Recent mobile field trips include Discovery Cube, Wildlife Learning Center, California Weekly Explorer, and Aquarium of the Pacific’s Mobile Touch Tank.
Organic Garden
PTO funds a year-long horticultural curriculum through EnrichLA, in which a Garden Ranger comes to campus and teaches our students in a hands-on program.
They will learn about environmental stewardship, composting, gardens as food sources, soil and plant diversity, and more. Each grade level gets approximately a 12-week rotation through the garden - and they will get their hands in the dirt and be working!
PTO's garden budget also takes care of year-long garden maintenance and upkeep.
