Weekly Blog 9/5

Dear Wines Families, 
As most of you know, please expect to receive a weekly "Wednesday Email" from me each Wednesday all year long. In addition to email, the text of my message (without attachments) can also be found at www.winesprincipal.blogspot.com and I also post it to my twitter feed (@winesprincipal) and the Wines Facebook page (www.facebook.com/wineselementary). 

Great First Day!
We had a fantastic first day at Wines yesterday. The kids were excited to be back to school, and we hit the ground running right away. At our opening assembly, we discussed our school rules which have changed this year. We've streamlined our rules into just two simple ones: Be Kind and Be Safe. Our teachers and staff are working with kids all week on defining what it means to be kind and safe at school. Today really marks the true first day of school in my mind. We've gotten through our initial entry and now school is "in session" and the kids and staff are hard at work! 

Welcome Back Picnic: Tomorrow Night 6:30-8:00
Our annual Welcome Back Picnic will take place tomorrow evening on the back playground beginning at 6:30. Bring a blanket and food for your family and join us for this informal opportunity to connect and reconnect with Wines families. We've had, I believe, three straight picnics rained out so hopefully tomorrow will be clear! 

Reminder: Fruits and Vegetable Snacks
Just a reminder that our school policy is for fruits and vegetables only for student snacks. For this first week of school, we will provide fresh fruit for students who forget to bring a snack, but beginning next week we will not be able to provide snacks. Snacks are an optional item for students, but if your child needs a snack, please make sure they have a fruit or vegetable. Kindergarten and Young 5's families, please refer to the "Community Snack" guidelines from your child's teacher. As always, if your child has specific dietary restrictions or needs, we will certainly be able to accommodate those. 

Modular Update:
Our Modular building is VERY close to completion. In fact, we can actually move in as early as tomorrow. However, we are still waiting for some technology to be installed (projectors, sound fields, and document cameras) which we hope will happen over the next couple days. Since our teachers are currently in quality teaching spaces, we will wait to move in until the rooms are completely functional. There will be some ongoing external work taking place over the next few weeks including installation of a covered canopy connecting the unit to the main building. However, we are just about ready to move our 5th grade. This will allow Mr. Wyse and Ms. Glaser to be able to return to their rooms for Art and Music. We will begin moving items into the building tomorrow and our teachers will begin setting up their classrooms. Once we have our technology in place, we'll pick a date and have one final move of student furniture, etc. While we don't have an exact date yet, we don't think it will be too much longer. 

Thats' all for today. It's shaping up to be a great year. 
David