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

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