Weekly Blog 11/30

Dear Wines Families,

 

I just a few Wednesday announcements this week:

Our Book Fair is in full swing and thanks to the hard work of Mori Richner, the Fair is better than ever! Last evening’s Family Night was very well attended. My boys came to their first Wines “event” of the year and while they were a bit overwhelmed with the crowd, they both left happy with books in their hands! I again attached an informational flyer about the Book Fair to this week's email. The Fair runs through Friday at noon.

 

You should have received your child's report card yesterday. If you did not, please contact your child's teacher. Report cards are a crucial way for us to inform you of your child's progress. While we strive to be as clear as possible in our reporting, it is not uncommon that parents will have questions about certain parts of the report. Please do not hesitate to contact your child's teacher if you have any questions or concerns. 

 

I’m sure there were varied emotions across our households this morning when we saw our first snow of the year. If you were like me, you were frantically digging through closets trying to find snow pants and boots, etc. As winter eventually arrives for good, please make sure students are coming to school dressed to spend time outside daily. A warm jacket, boots, hat and gloves are essential. Snow pants are also a good idea. District policy is that we will go outside at least once a day for lunch recess as long as the wind chill temperature is above 0 degrees. Also, our school rule is “Snow Stays on the Ground.” This means no snowballs—even if they are not thrown at anyone. Thanks for reinforcing this rule with your kids. Personally, I love throwing snowballs, but at school we need to make sure everyone is safe.

 

Finally, one final reminder that our very large lost and found collection will be donated to charity after this week. All items are on display near our cafeteria. Students have picked up a few things, but there are still many unclaimed items. If you are in our building this week, please have a look.

 

Sincerely,

 

David

Early Week Announcements

Dear Wines Families,

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend. I know all of my fellow Wolverine fans are feeling good this week! I have just a couple of early week announcements and reminders.

First, a reminder that Tuesday evening, Nov. 29th, is our annual Family Night at the Book Fair. The event begins at 6:30. Attached to yesterday's email is a flyer with information about all the events going on this week during the Book Fair. If you are planning on coming to have lunch with your child during the Book Fair and you would like a school hot lunch, please let us know in advance that you are coming. The fee for an adult hot lunch is $3.00.

If you are coming to the Book Fair, Family Night, or if you are coming to school for any reason this week, please take moment to “browse” through the Lost and Found. We will be donating items left after this week to charity.

Do you like to play Bridge? Do you want to learn and help some of our 5^th graders learn? Beginning on Wednesday at 9:15 AM, a Wines parent and resident Bridge champion will begin teaching Bridge to some 5^th graders for Math enrichment. The group will meet on Mondays and Wednesday mornings at 9:15 AM in the computer lab. If you are interested in helping out (even if you don’t know how to play), please contact Bob Katz at rjkaa@sbcglobal.net or at (734) 669-2091. Our first session is Wednesday morning.

Have a great week!

David

Thanksgiving Wishes!

Hello Wines families, 

I want to extend a Happy Thanksgiving to our entire school community. I hope you all have a wonderful few days. I continue to be so thankful to be part of the Wines community. As we enter the long holiday weekend, I want to share a couple of good Thanksgiving news items with everyone as well as make a couple of announcements. 

I'm proud to report that today we held an assembly where we made a $1,700 donation to Alpha House. Our students voted for Alpha House as the recipient of at 10% donation from our Run-a-Thon proceeds. The kids were excited to give the check today and two representatives from Alpha House were here to accept the check and speak to the students about the wonderful services they provide to our community. 

I'm also pleased to announce that our Student Council exceeded their $1000 Halloween fundraising goal for UNICEF. Great job Wines! 

I want to again remind everyone that Picture Make-Up Day is Monday, Nov. 28th (that's next Monday). Please bring your old package to return. To order a picture package online, please visit www.inter-state.com and use the prepay code of 645782.

Our Scholastic Book Fair begins next week as well. Don't forget that Tuesday evening beginning at 6:30 is our Book Fair Family Night. 

We were going to donate our Lost and Found items to charity this weekend. However, we noticed today that there are still a lot of nice items in the Lost and Found that parents may still want to claim. We will keep the items for one more week. Book Fair Family Night next week would be a great time to check it out! 

Finally, if your child had a project in the display case from the Science and Builders Fair, our display has changed. The projects are in the office if you would like to pick it up. 

Have a great Thanksgiving. 

David

Weekly Blog 11-16

Dear Wines Families,

I have a number of important announcements this week so this email will be a bit longer than usual. Here goes (in no particular order):

First off, I want to point your attention to Ms. McNally’s Music Room Newsletter attached to today’s email.

As many of you know, last week the Lieberman family lost their home to a fire. Obviously, this has been a hard week for the family. Mackenzie is back to school here at Wines and the kids have been wonderful. They have given her a little extra love, but they have also done a great job of making Wines a place of normalcy for her. I have spoken to Scott and Samantha and they wanted me to express their sincere gratitude to everyone for their support and offers of assistance over the past week. They also wanted me to let everyone know that while the fire was devastating, they are quite fortunate in that they have had a very responsive insurance company and they have everything they need at this point. While they are most appreciative of the many offers they have received, other than our positive thoughts, the family is not in need of additional assistance. In the event that needs arise, I will let everyone know how we can help.

Picture re-take day is Monday, Nov. 28^th (the Monday after we come back from Thanksgiving break). If your child did not have his or her picture taken, we will take it then. If there was a hair out of place, eyes closed, or any other reason why you would like to have a re-take, please send your child to school (with his hair combed) and with the old picture package. To order a picture package online, please visit www.inter-state.com and use the prepay code of 645782. Attached to today's email is a flyer with more information.

We need your help in the office. We understand that life for everyone is busy and unforeseen changes to schedules, etc. happen all the time. At the same time, when we receive “last minute” changes at the end of the day as to where children are going after school, etc. it can be very challenging to get the information to the teacher and the child. This presents a potential safety concern for our kids. We are working on making a few changes to our own system at school, but you can help as well. If possible, please let us know by 12:00 each day if there is a change to any plans. If the change comes after 12:00, please let us know as soon as you can. If we receive word after 3:00, it becomes extremely challenging for us and we can’t guarantee that the message will make it to the teacher or child. Thank you!!

Our Lost and Found is full!! If your child is missing items, please have him or her take a look before Thanksgiving break. During the break, we will be donating remaining items to charity.

Friday is the last day to bring in leftover candy to our office. The Junior Girl Scouts want to thank everyone for their donations and a nice shipment will soon be on the way to soldiers overseas!

Friday evening at 7:00 is our second Movie Night of the year. Bring your pillows for a viewing of Everyone’s Hero. If you come to Movie Night, you might want to check out the lost and found!

Lunchtime Extra Specials to start in January! Attention Wines parents! Do you have a special talent or interest you'd like to share with the students at Wines? Are you a super Speed Stacker? Do you like to build with legos? Are arts and crafts your thing? This is one of the most popular activities our kids get to do at Wines, and as always, we need ideas and helpers. Please send an email to winesextraspecials@gmail.com with any thoughts you have on things 1st-5th graders can enjoy during a lunch recess.  There will be 2 three-week sessions starting January 17th, 2012!

Sincerely,

David

Weekly Blog 11/9

Dear Wines Families,

Wines is “Beating the Odds!”

Yesterday, The Michigan Department of Education (MDE) released a list of 123 “Beating the Odds” schools who are outperforming schools with similar risk factors and demographic composition.

  

The Department conducted two separate studies to identify schools that are “Beating the Odds.” Study 1 identified 60 schools that are performing above their predicted levels, based on risk factors such as percent economically disadvantaged; percent students with disabilities; percent English language learners; and percent minority students.  Study 2 identified 83 schools that perform better than a comparison group of schools with similar demographics. Wines was one of the 83 schools identified as “Beating the Odds” in study 2.

We are proud of our kids, our parents, and our teachers for their efforts in helping us receive this recognition. Attached to this week's email was the full press release from MDE along with a list of the 123 recognized schools.

Attention Run-a-Thon photographers. Our yearbook coordinator looking for photos from our Run-a-Thon for the yearbook. If were at the Run-a-Thon and took pictures that you’d like to share please contact Suzanne Kaji at suzannekaji@yahoo.com or suzanne.kaji@tlcmi.com. Thanks!

Reminder: PTO meeting tomorrow, Thursday Nov. 10^th, at 7:00 PM. Childcare is provided.

Sincerely,

David

End of the Week Announcements 10/28

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Dear Wines Families,

Just a couple end of the week announcements:

If your child hasn’t told you already, we are pleased to announce that 73.4% of Wines students walked to school on Wednesday. Our friends at Evening Street Elementary in Columbus, Ohio had 72% of their students walk to school. So Wines won our competition! I contacted their principal yesterday and offered a compromise since both schools did so well, and the numbers were so close. However, she was a gracious loser and she will be wearing Maize and Blue next week to school. Thanks to everyone for supporting all of our Walktober events.

I look forward to a fun filled Halloween celebration on Monday. We ask that students do not come to school in costume and instead bring their costumes in a bag. Our costume parade begins at 1:45. Please note that at approximately 1:30 we will close our parking lot near the front entrance to traffic for our parade. As a reminder, we want to keep Halloween a friendly event and our costumes should thus be friendly as well. Please, no fake blood or weapons. The general rule of thumb is that if you are not sure, it probably isn’t something for school.

I’m pleased to announce a great opportunity for any extra candy. The Junior Girl Scout troop at Wines is collecting Halloween candy to send overseas to troops in Afghanistan.  The troops love celebrating a little bit of Halloween tradition, and they distribute a good amount of candy to the children of Afghanistan.  Please send only wrapped items, no homemade treats, and no chocolate (it will melt). Please drop off extra candy in the designated box in the office anytime from November 1 - November 11.

Have a great weekend.

David

Weekly Blog 10/26

Dear Wines Families,

Well, this week I sent my weekly email a day early, and this blog is a day late!! .

Yesterday we had our final Walk to School day as part of our Walktober celebration. We competed with Evening Street Elementary in Columbus, Ohio to see which school had the largest percentage of walkers. I'm pleased to announce that both schools had tremendous participation and Wines narrowly beat Evening street with 73.4% of our students walking and 72% at Evening Street. I will be working with the principal at Evening Street on how we will celebrate our success. The "bet" was that she would wear Michigan gear to school. However, since we basically tied and each school did so well, we are going to figure out a fun compromise. 

Our Run-a-Thon pledge collection is going very well. We have already raised over $7000 meaning we are approaching our goal of $10,000. If your child has pledges to turn in, he or she can bring in the money any day until Nov. 2^nd. Checks can be made payable to “Wines PTO” and our online pledge opportunity can be found at http://www.winespto.org/runathon.php. Last week, Ms. Fisher’s entire class came to visit me after learning they had earned a popsicle party for completing the most laps in 4^th grade. Led by Student Council representative Lucia Sanchez, the class declined their party unless the other 4^th grades received one as well. Their argument was that everyone did a great job and tried their best. Well, I could not agree with Lucia and the rest of the class more!! So, we decided together that every classroom at Wines will receive a popsicle party. On Nov. 3^rd we will all celebrate a great Run-a-Thon with popsicles and I hope we will also be celebrating meeting (or exceeding) our fundraising goal!!

This Thursday evening from 7:00-8:00 we will be hosting our annual Builders and Science Fair. This event is for ALL Wines families, whether your child is participating or not.  Please come out to see the scientists and builders at Wines!  There will be some “try it” activities, and of course the fabulous projects created by our students.  The Fair runs from 7-8 pm.  Participants should arrive at 6:45 to setup.

The deadline to turn in Great Ideas grant applications is Nov. 1^st. This is a wonderful opportunity for parents and kids to turn an idea into something tangible for their school. No idea is too small! Hard copy applications came home in their child's Wednesday folder last week or additional applications can be downloaded or picked up in the office.

Finally, as you know next Monday is Halloween. This is a great day at Wines! In terms of logistics, our annual parade will take place at 1:45 in front of the building. AM Kindergarten families, Mrs. Rothman will let you know about your special activities for the day. Costumes should not be worn to school. Students will put them on in the afternoon. As always, please keep our costumes friendly. I ask that costumes do not include fake blood or weapons. A good rule of thumb is that if you are not sure about a costume or part of the costume, it probably isn’t appropriate. Classroom teachers have various plans for their own parties that they will share with you.

If you choose not have your child participate in Halloween activities, please let me know directly and we will have an alternative activity for him or her.

Thank you,

David