Weekly Blog 2/29

Dear Wines Families, 

First off, I want to send out a quick leap year intellectual exercise. Please notice that the title of this week's blog is "Weekly Blog 2/29." The exercise question is, when will be the next time I will ever be able to post something with that subject line? 

Now on to more important things. I hope everyone had a nice week away from Wines last week. Now that we are back, we are hard at work and as I visit classrooms, the kids look like they were never away. I don't have a lot of news this week. However, next week our 4th graders will be taking part in our annual Disability Awareness Day Workshop. I want to thank Kelly Van Singel for organizing this outstanding experience and for the many volunteers we have lined up. We could still use a few more volunteers. Still needed are folks willing to bring in some fruit, bottled water, granola bars, etc. for our parent volunteers and our participants from the Center for Independent Living. Workshop volunteers and food donation contacts can be made on the volunteerspot link from winespto.org or by via email: kellyvansingel@yahoo.com or click directly on http://www.volunteerspot.com/login/entry/1162345645418412084. Attached to this email is a flyer about the day. 

 

That's all for now. 

 

David

Weekly Blog 2/7/11

Dear Wines Families,

I’m posting today's blog a day early because there is some time dependent information for this week. I want to first thank our community for again coming through for our school and our community. Last weekend we participated in the Ann Arbor PTO Thrift Shop “Show Your Support” effort. I’m pleased to announce that Wines had the highest participation of any school. We earned 714 tokens, which accounted for 32% of all tokens and we raised $320 dollars that will go directly to support our Lunches with Love program at Wines. Thank you to everyone who visited the PTO Thrift Shop! Thanks to Holly Derry for organizing our effort.

Attached to today's email is a flyer announcing our annual Disability Awareness Day for 4th graders. The date of this wonderful event is March 8th from 9:00 AM until noon. If you are interested in volunteering on this day (no experience necessary and you don’t need to have a 4th grader at Wines), please click on the volunteer sign up link below.
http://www.volunteerspot.com/login/entry/1162345645418412084

We have had a tremendous amount of RSVP’s for Parent Involvement Day coming up on Monday, February 13th. If you are planning on coming to school to visit on Monday, please click on the RSVP link so we can have a good idea of how many folks to expect. Most importantly, if you are staying for lunch that day, please RSVP so we can be sure to have enough food for everyone (lunch is provided for adults only).
NAAPID RSVP

Tomorrow evening, (Wednesday February 8th) there is a PTO meeting in the Media Center. The meeting begins at 7:00 and will last one hour. This is an informational meeting, so if you’ve not been to a PTO meeting before, this would be a great opportunity! I attached the agenda to today's email. As always, childcare will be available.

Attached to today's email is a flyer outlining our Student Council’s efforts to provide gift cards to veterans at our local VA Hospital. Please check out the flyer to learn about this great community service opportunity.

David

Weekly Blog 2/1/12

Dear Wines Families,

 

Attached to today’s email you will find the Wines Times. Please spend a few minutes reading through it. In addition, I have just a couple of announcements.

 

First, your child will be coming home today with a paper invitation to our NAAPID celebration on February 13^th. I hope to see all Wines families, spend at least part of your day at school on the 13^th. I will be sending out an electronic RSVP within the next few days. Like last year, we will be serving lunch to parents. We want to make sure we order enough food, so if you are staying for lunch, please make sure you respond to the RSVP.

 

Kindergarten Round Up is tonight at 6:30.

 

Show Your Support for Lunches with Love. Shop at the PTO Thrift Shop through THIS SATURDAY (February 4) to help Wines earn money for Lunches with Love. Spend $5 and earn a token to put in the Wines jar.

 

Girls on the Run Update:

We have had a great showing for Girls on the Run at Wines this year so far!  We filled a first, and opened a second team.  This is a reminder that this is the last week for routine registration, though there will be "late" registration through Feb 11.  Please note:  due to the participation of Ann Arbor Rec and Ed there was a duplicate registration process this year - meaning each participant is required to register through both Ann Arbor Rec and Ed AND Girls on the Run of Southeastern Michigan.  Please make sure if you registered only through AA Rec and Ed to also register with Girls on the Run - as this is the official roster.   Registration is at www.girlsontherunsemi.org  If there are questions, please email Holly at holly.a.murphy@gmail.com or call Girls on the Run at 734 712 1049.

 

 

David

Weekly Blog 1/25

Dear Wines Families,

This is certainly a busy time of year and so I have lots of announcements today! Pardon the long email.

• Reminder: There is no school on Tuesday, January 31^st. All Ann Arbor Public Schools staff will be participating in staff development that day.

• Kindergarten Round Up is next Wednesday, February 1^st at 6:30 PM. If you have a child who will be 5 years old by Dec. 1, 2011 and is ready for kindergarten, please join us that evening with your child. Please help spread the word to your friends and neighbors.

• Our Great Ideas grant deadline is quickly approaching. We are accepting applications until February 1^st. Don’t let a great idea go to waste!! There are adult and student grant forms available on the Wines website (www.wines.a2schools.org) and hard copies are available in the office.

• Girls on the Run: Registration is now open for Girls on the Run.  In order to register, go to http://www.girlsontherunsemi.org/. For any questions, please email Holly Murphy at holly.a.murphy@gmail.com.

• Our next PTO meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, February 8^th at 7:00 PM.

• Science Olympiad registrations are due TODAY. Teams will not be formed until after Friday so we will accept late applications until Friday.

• Wines is participating in a fundraiser with the PTO Thrift Shop, called Show Your Support. Please help us spread the word so people shop at the Thrift Shop between Sunday, January 29 - Saturday, February 4.

How it works:

For every $5 people spend at the Thrift Shop, they get a token. They can choose to put their tokens in any of 4 schools' buckets in the lobby. The four schools split $1,000 based on their proportion of collected tokens. 

Our cause for this fundraiser:

Lunches with Love - students make lunches for needy families. Proceeds will help buy food and supplies.

For more information about the PTO Thrift Shop, visit www.a2ptothriftshop.org.

• Finally, attached to today's emails you will find a flyer from our Student Council. Our Student Council is collecting gift cards for veterans at our local VA Hospital. The flyer has all the information you need to support this great cause.

Sincerely,

David

Weekly Blog 1/18

Dear Wines Families,

A few important announcements this week:

First, I regret to inform everyone that due to limited family participation, our PTO has reluctantly decided to cancel our International Night that was originally scheduled for January 26^th. I want to thank those families that did express interest, but we want this event to be BIG and we feared this would not be the case. Our PTO is already at work ensuring that we get word out early enough next year to have a really special event.

Believe it or not, we are ready to begin registering Kindergarteners for next fall! Our annual Kindergarten Round Up is scheduled for Wednesday, February 1^st at 6:30 PM. If you have a child who will be 5 years old by Dec. 1, 2012 and is ready for Kindergarten, please join us with your child on February 1^st. Please alert your friends and neighbors of this date as well.

It is time for 2^nd-5^th graders to register for Science Olympiad!  Attached to today's email was an information packet. In addition, all 2^nd graders will be coming home with a paper copy of this packet and all students will be coming home with a paper copy of the registration form for your convenience. The registration forms are due back by next Wednesday so we may begin practices.

Finally, I want to thank Beth McNally for putting on an outstanding performance last Friday to honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Every student at Wines participated and it was a special event. Thank you Beth!!

Sincerely,

David

Weekly Blog 1/11/12

Dear Wines Families.

Attached to today’s email was the January Wines Times. Those of you who follow the blog will need to check your email or go to the Wines website for the newsletter.  I do have a couple of quick announcements that are not in the Times, however. There is also a blurb at the bottom of this about our International Night on January 26^th.

I want to remind everyone that there is no school on Monday in observance of the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday. There are some great opportunities for kids at the University of Michigan that day. The annual Children and Youth Event as part of the larger MLK Symposium has many offerings for kids K-12. Please visit http://mlksymposium.umich.edu/2011/11/18/annual-children-youth-event/ for more information.

Science Olympiad registration will begin next week.  If you are interested in coaching, a quick informational meeting is scheduled for this Thursday, January 12^th, at 7:00 PM at Wines.

As we end the holiday season, I want to thank the Wines community for your donations to our coat drive. In total, we collected 19 Adult Coats, 37 Children's Coats, 22 Snow pants/Bibs, 8 Sweatshirts/Windbreakers, 4 Pairs of Boots, and 9 Sets of Hats/Mittens/Scarves. Thanks to Lisa Ridha for organizing the drive.

Wines International Night 2012

Please mark your calendars & join us on Thursday, January 26 at 6:30 p.m.

We hope you will share your family background, culture or heritage

OR

join us for an evening rich with the cultures and traditions of our Wines community

We are very excited about this event.

Ideas of ways to share: (not limited to these)

Food, Crafts, Traditions, Music, Dance, Readings, Fashion

We are encouraging all Wines families to participate.

Please contact Lisa Dempsey if you will be sharing something special about your background!

lisadempsey5@sbcglobal.net or 734-645-1369

Happy New Year, and please take some time to read the Wines Times.

David

Weekly Blog 12/21

Dear Wines Families,
I just realized that I have forgotten to post my weekly email on this blog site for a couple of weeks. My apologies. Hopefully you still received the posting via my email.

As we approach the Winter Break, I want to wish everyone a safe and peaceful holiday season. I’ve been directed by Robin Moore that I am not allowed to email her, text her, or do anything Wines related over the next two weeks. I will do the best I can to heed her directive, but it isn’t likely… I am looking forward to a little rest and time with family over the next couple of weeks, however.

For many families, you may be looking for schoolwork that your child can do during some of the long days without school ahead. This year, we are again teaming up with ThinkStretch to offer learning activities for students during vacation. If you are interested in having your child do grade level work over the next couple of weeks, please click on the THINKSTRETCH LINK.  There you can download a packet for each grade level.

Attached to this week's email is Mrs. Hendrick’s Art Room newsletter for December. Please have a look! In your “paper” Wednesday Folder this week, please look for information about Type to Learn from home, including the login and password info for each 2nd through 5th grade student.

Again, I wish everyone a safe and happy holiday season. We’ll see you back at Wines on January 9th.

David