I can hardly believe that I posting the weeks event for the final week in October. This month has passed by very quickly! The week begins with the Turkey Trot and ends with Halloween and daylight savings time. Be sure to check you child’s classroom blog for more specific events related to classroom activities. Halloween festivities are scattered throughout Thursday and Friday–and times vary on these days.
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I was the luckiest principal in the world this week because I had the honor of eating lunch with the top money earners for our school walk-a-thon. It was the perfect day for lunch with me because it was a cold, rainy day and the Jet’s pizza was exactly what we needed to warm ourselves up!
During the lunch we shared pet stories (ranging from silly pets to crazy pets), talked about our Halloween costumes, and much more. There were lots of giggles and plenty of YUMs. The pizza and cinnamon sticks were delicious. Thank you, PTC, for sponsoring this great lunch. And many thanks to everyone who contributed to our walk-a-thon.
From Angela Truman, coordinator for Box Top’s and Labels for Education Programs:
This year, we are planning for two box top competitions. For each, there will be two levels of competition:
The first competition period will run from now until December 18th.
The second period will start January 4th and run through March 19th.
Box tops and labels can be sent to school with your children or dropped off in the designated boxes in the school lobby, outside of the office. There are three box top/label programs this year:
Box Tops for Education: For 12 years, Box Tops for Education has helped schools raise over $250 million. The 2009-2010 Box Tops fundraising goal for Georgetown is $2,809.07!
You can participate via the following:
1.) CLIP box top coupons from your favorite products.
2.) SHOP at your favorite online stores through the Box Tops MarketplaceSM (www.btfe.com/marketplace) and up to 8% of your qualifying purchase will be automatically donated to your school.
3.) PURCHASE BOOKS through the Box Tops Reading RoomSM at Barnes & Noble. For more information, visit www.btfe.com.
Spartan Cash for Labels: Through the Spartan Brand Cash for Labels program, Georgetown can receive money for UPC labels clipped from any Spartan Brand product purchased at your local D&W, Family Fare or other store that carries the Spartan brand.
Campbell’s Labels for Education: For over 36 years, Labels for Education has supported schools across the country by providing more than $110 million in free educational merchandise. The goal this year for Georgetown is to collect 3,000 points in labels. To participate, simply clip and save UPC labels from participating Campbell’s products.
Some of the eligible products for 2009-2010 include:
Splash® Beverages
And, to help make achieving our goal easier, Campbell’s is offering products worth 5 Points! For 2009-2010, eligible products include:
For more information, and a complete list of eligible products, visit LABELS
Thank you for your support of Georgetown Elementary—Every little bit helps! Together with these programs—Labels for Education, Box Tops for Education and Spartan Brands Cash for Labels—we can build a better school for our children!
If you have any questions, please contact me: Angel Truman at 662-9015 or by email at angeltruman@sbcglobal.net.
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I will forever be a lover of the genre, KID’s BOOKs. I cannot go to a book store 
without spending time in the kids’ section pouring through pictures books and chapter books. I would much rather curl up in bed with a chapter book by Sharon Creech than a newspaper!
To stay up with the news, I use an RSS reader system that feeds the news to my email system. Today, I was delivered an NPR interview with Jeff Kinney, author of the DIARY OF A WIMPY KID series. Just yesterday, I was talking with Ryan (a 5th grader at our school) about this series and what specifically we liked about the writer’s style. So, for you, Ryan…and any other kids that might be interested, check out this interview—and all the questions come from the best readers ever: KIDs!
I would like to remind you that our book fair will be the week of November 2. This event will be held in the Media Center…and I am sure that these books will be available for purchase. They are very popular with our readers ages 10 on up.
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It’s time for me to stir up a little scavenger hunt competition! I have extended the deadline to Monday, October 26. The original deadline was Friday, Oct 23–but students do not have school on that day.
So far, we have had over 40 students and three teachers enter the competition. The class that has the MOST students (along with their teacher) enter wins ONE HOUR WITH THE PRINCIPAL. The current breakdown is as follows:
Every student who participates gets a ticket in the reading counts drawing. All of the students who participate are entered into a drawing in which one winner receives a Barnes and Noble gift card and lunch OUT with the princpal.
So…while you are on your three day weekend from school…staying healthy…read up on teacher’s hobbies and enter the scavenger hunt!
I hope this letter finds you all healthy. I am writing to give you an update on the H1N1 influenza and to inform you of how we will proceed with flu outbreaks within the district. We are working very closely with the Ottawa County Health Department (OCHD) to monitor the health and safety of our students. If you suspect your child has the flu, please see your health care provider.
Symptoms of H1N1 influenza include fever, cough, sore throat, runny or stuffy nose, body aches, headache, chills, and fatigue. If your child is sick with these symptoms, please keep them home from school for at least 24 hours after their fever is gone. (The fever should be gone without the use of a feverreducing medicine.) This will help prevent the spread of this illness to others.
This school year, the school closure protocol from the Centers for Disease Control and the Health Department is different from last year. Schools will not be closed due to a single confirmed case of H1N1. We know that we already have illness likely caused by the H1N1 virus throughout Ottawa County, therefore the decision to close a school will be based on the number and severity of illnesses. We continue to monitor the attendance at each building carefully. If a building’s attendance drops below 75 percent, we may consider closing the school but will make this decision in consultation with the Health Department.
The OCHD anticipates widespread illness attributed to the H1N1 virus, some of which will be confirmed but much more will be undiagnosed with symptoms. Neither the Health Department nor the District will be able to send a letter home each time we receive notification of a confirmed case. We will update you as needed, putting the safety and well-being of your children first. We are hoping that the H1N1 influenza does not spread as expected, but we all need to follow the guidelines from the Health Department to keep our community safe. These guidelines include:
Sincerely,
Mr. Nicholas Ceglarek, Superintendent
If you take a walk through our building, you will hear lots of coughing and sneezing…and see children with runny nose and red eyes. The seasonal type viruses have arrived sooner and many of our students and staff have picked up one or more of the viruses already.
To help us keep everyone healthy, please keep your children home until they are FEVER FREE FOR 24 HOURS. This fever free time = fever free with no medication to keep the fever away— a 24 hour period in which the child has not had motrin, advil, tylenol AND they have been fever free during this time. This is key to preventing the spread of these viruses to other children.
Mr. Rob, his custodial staff and the teaching staff at our school are doing all we can to disinfect door knobs, working surfaces, and school utensils. We need your help in keeping your children home if they do not feel well.
Finally, we have had parents contact us to share that their children were diagnosed with the flu. We are monitoring these reports and we continue to urge parents to not send children back too soon. The CDC has helpful answers to common questions regarding the H1N1 virus. For more information, click on the link in the upper right corner of this blog.
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This past September we kicked off our first BLOG scavenger hunt! The goal of the hunt was to increase the readership of our blogs by offering prizes for students who participated. The theme of the September scavenger hunt was “teacher vacations”.
Each student who participated (140 total) received a ticket for our upcoming Reading Counts drawing. In addition, the classroom that had the most participants (Mrs. McDonald’s 3rd grade) won and hour of teaching time with ME as their teacher. Finally, all students who participated were entered into a blog drawing and one student was selected–winning a $10 gift card to Barnes and Noble and a pumpkin carving kit! Congratulations, Ray!
We have just kicked off our second scavenger hunt, TEACHERS HAVE HOBBIES, TOO! To participate, read through the blogs and enter your finds in the survey answer form. Happy Hunting…and thank you for reading our blogs, too!
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A hobby is an activity that you do for enjoyment, and there are a wide variety of hobbies you can have living somewhere that has four seasons. My winter hobbies are knitting and baking. In the spring, I love to walk and collect stones on the beach. The summer and fall are perfect times for one of my favorite hobbies, gardening.
This summer, my hobby was very different: FAMILY TIME. During the school year, everyone in my family is very busy and sometimes we are rarely home together. My goal this summer was to spend LOTS of time doing activities with my son, daughter and husband. We swam in the pool, went to movies, took long walks, and sometimes just did nothing but talk. It was one of my best summers in many years.
Visit the many Georgetown Blogs to learn about the hobbies of teachers in grades PK-5! If you have an interesting or unusual hobby that you would like to share, send me a comment and I will share it on our blog.
