January 21
Muskrat News
Upcoming events:
January 26 Writing Club 3pm
January 27 Homework Club 3-3:45pm
January 27 Scratch Club 3-4:15pm
January 28 Library Expedition Rm 2 12:30pm
February 3 ICP Board meeting 7pm
February 3&4 NO SCHOOL
February 10 Hatfield Marine Science Center Trip Grades 1-5
February 21 Snow day make up School is IN
From our Executive Director
Our LIFESKILL this next week is Organization. It is defined as “To plan, arrange, and implement in an orderly way; to keep things orderly and ready to use”.
I have started having conversations with the Corvallis Food Service administrators about providing hot lunches to our Muddy Creek students. So far it sounds like they would get our kitchen up and operative. Lunches would be trucked out along with our milk. We would have to find a way to provide set-up and clean-up help. There are costs for safety and health inspections as well. The District would charge us $2.50 for each hot lunch ordered. For the District to break even, we will need to average around 30 lunches per day. We do not have to have the hot lunch delivery every day. It could be 2 or 3 times a week. Free and reduced price lunches would be a part of this new development.
If you would like to see a sample elementary school menu, go to this link: http://www.csd509j.net/district_information/departments_and_services/food_services/CSD%20Jan%2011.pdf
The administrators have offered to come out any time to meet with interested parents or the PTO to answer questions and work towards a way to provide hot lunches for Muddy Creek students. Let Cedar or I know what questions you have, or if you are interested.
Looking ahead on the calendar, there are two days for teachers to fill out reports and receive in-servicing on the 3rd and 4th of February. There will be no school those days. –Dan
From the Board
HOT! Have you’ve noticed the fundraising thermometer in the hall rising in big leaps? Thanks go to Jenny Swanson (the Mandala Project) and Shari Ame (the Mosaic Mural) for obtaining grant money from the Corvallis Arts Center to develop art projects for MCCS.
STOKE THE FIRE! If you want to write a grant to help towards our financial goals or have ideas for projects contact Cedar in the main office.
Another way to help our school, donations and pledges, Cedar can help you set this up, too. A pledge of $5 or $10 per month will make a difference. Your pledge will be added immediately so check the thermometer. Help reach our goal by the end of January.
Classroom News
Room 1 – We continue to work on our lessons about the ocean and look forward to participating I the school mosaic. Our math group is working on lobster picture problems. – Miss Bridget
Room 2 – Room 2 picked out shoreline organisms — that live in the near shore waters or on the beach — to learn about and put in our mural. We loved having Shari teach us what mosaics are. We started paper mosaics today, and practiced keeping the pieces separate to leave room for the grout. Our paper mosaics make beautiful folders to keep our ocean project work in. We still need drivers for next Friday afternoon’s trip to the library, so contact Ms. Gorman or Carla Callahan if you can come with us. – Ms. Gorman
Room 3 Kinder News – This week we started our theme of ‘Local Mammals’. I borrowed a kit from ODFW in Adair. The children noticed that our classroom has a strange odor coming from the pelts but that did not stop their excitement. They each made lovely drawings of the animals in their habitats and they will be learning about how each animal survives within the Muddy Creek Water Shed. – Miss Jenny
Room 4 – The students learned how People-Pets-Wildlife all have the same basic needs in order to survive. We are learning how to create a Persuasive Writing piece. A First Alternative Coop representative is coming in Friday to talk with the class about their recycle center and ways to help improve MCCS’ recycling process. For History this week, the students learned about Oregon dairy farms, the cheese making process, milk and the Tillamook Cheese Factory. – Mr. Day
eScrip
Safeway’s ‘10% Goes Back to Schools’ promotion is going on right now! Purchase selected items at Safeway (look for the yellow school bus labels), use your Safeway Club Card or enter the number at the bottom of your receipt at www.escrip.com (list Muddy Creek as your school) and 10% of that purchase will go to MCCS. See http://backtoschools.escrip.com/ for all the details.
Art Center Project Needs Volunteers
A tile mural showing what the students are learning about oceans will be built and displayed at the Corvallis Art Center. Once the students learn how to make the mosaic, we will need volunteers to supervise small groups. The office will be coordinating volunteers for the project, so let Cedar know if you are interested.
Collecting for the Oceans Mosaic
We are asking parents to collect colorful pottery shards for the oceans mosaics. They can be broken pieces of ceramic pottery or whole dishes (flatter is better, but anything could be useful) from home or from thrift stores. Also needed are shells, beach glass, ocean stones and, potentially, some small pieces of interesting driftwood. We are looking for pieces under two inches square or that can be broken into pieces that small. You can bring them in to school where they will become part of the sorting and organizing stages of the project. Thanks! -Shari
Lunch Room/Recess Volunteers Needed
We are looking for volunteers for lunch room/recess duty for Tuesday, January 25th. Pat Starker will be helping our teachers and classroom assistants do planning. Please let Cedar know if you can help. Thank you!
Seeking Spanish Teacher
We are looking for a volunteer to teach Spanish at MCCS in an afterschool club setting.
Seeking Chess Player
We are also looking for a volunteer that would be interested in starting an afterschool chess club. Let Cedar know if you are interested.
Wish List
Portable Screen
File Folders
Pencils and Pen
Special Thanks To:
Shari Ame for all of her work getting the mosaic project going this week.
Kelly Bell for the piles of copying that she has done to help Ms. Gorman with math homework.
Thank you to the volunteers in the library that have now cataloged over 4000 books.