November 5
Muskrat News
Upcoming events: November 2-15 MCCS Holiday Food Drive
November 10 PTO Meeting 8:30am
November 11 No school, Veterans Day
November 18 Mr. Day’s Class Restoration Field Trip
November 18 Board Meeting 7pm
November 19 Bookmobile 2-3:15pm
November 20 Giving Thanks Celebration
November 25&26 No school, Thanksgiving
From our Executive Director
There is no school on Veteran’s Day, this coming Thursday, November 11th.
Cooperation is this coming week’s LIFESKILL. To repeat, all of the LIFESKILLS are supportive of the Life Guideline – Personal Best.
Cooperation is working together toward a common goal or purpose.
More about helping children with reading: Unknown words. Research tells us that efficient readers skip unknown words. Let your child skip unknown words. At the end of the page go back to the word to see if they can tell what it means or what makes sense.
This next Monday the Corvallis 509J School Board is hearing our proposal to renew our charter. The meeting is scheduled for 7:30pm November 8, 2010. The discussion is the first item on the agenda. The Muddy Creek Board presents for 10 minutes, the Corvallis Administration presents for 10 minutes, and then the Corvallis Board asks questions for 10 minutes. This is followed by public testimony. If any of you would be willing, I think it would help us a great deal to have parents show up and speak in support of our renewal.
-dan
Classroom News
Room 1 – I am sad to announce that Sam the Hamster died this week. He will be missed.
We are still working on our architecture project. We have also started learning about the food pyramid. As our food donations come in for the food drive we are going to graph each food group. – Miss Bridget
Room 2 –Just like Ms. Bridget’s class, we are deep in our study of homes and architecture. We’ve been thinking about what materials and features are used to provide shelter in different weather conditions. We are also starting to look at homes from different cultures around the world. In this season of less light, we are starting to learn about festivals of light from different countries, starting with the Divali celebration in India. – Ms. Gorman
Kindergarten – Friday is always a busy day for the Kinders. After our morning circle, we headed to Mr. Day’s room to meet with our Buddies. This is a treasured time for both classes. The students are spending about 20 minutes together reading stories and getting to know one another. After reading with our Buddies, the Kinders transitioned to the studio for a session in art experience. We really enjoy getting out of our room and into a larger space where our creative ideas have elbow room to expand. Today we made texture collage’ on black paper. Look for the new art next week down by the classroom. – Miss Jenny
Room 4 – Parents of 4th/5th graders, please check your email for regular updates from me. We practiced our typing skills more this week and look forward to reading to our Kinder buddies on Fridays. Joke of the day: What is Issac Newton’s brother’s name? (Fig J) -Mr. Day
Opportunity for HP Product Donation
HP’s Product Giving program is underway. HP provides a 3:1 match for all product donation dollars from HP employees towards the purchase of HP equipment for qualified schools and non-profit organizations. We would like to purchase a couple of new PCs for our classrooms and estimate the total donation required would be around $400. If you are an HP employee and are interested in participating in a group donation, please contact Kathy Brewer at kathy.brewer@hp.com or 541-715-0470 by November 12.
November Tasting Table Volunteer Opportunity
The Corvallis Environmental Center is seeking volunteers to help at the tasting table prep day for this month. Every month local farms share a different vegetable or fruit with MCCS and other local schools. On Tuesday November 9th they are looking for as much help as possible slicing, scooping, dressing, and baking squash starting at 10 a.m. at the Corvallis Central Kitchen. The Central Kitchen is located on 16th street at the back of Corvallis High School. Please let Sara McCune, the Education Coordinator for the Edible Corvallis Initiative, know if you are interested at (541) 753-9211 or sara@corvallisenvironmentalcenter.org . For more information about this great program go to http://corvallisenvironmental.wordpress.com/edible-corvallis-initiative/farm-to-school/tasting-tables/ .
Holiday Food Drive
Please consider joining the MCCS community in donating food to help low-income families in Benton County this Holiday season. From November 2nd-15th each classroom will be collecting food. The types of food needed are: canned fruits, canned vegetables, canned pumpkin, canned cranberry sauce, canned milk, peanut butter, stuffing mix, tuna and other canned fish and meats, baby food, olives, Jell-o, cake mixes, fresh apples and fruits, winter squash, potatoes and other fresh vegetables. No home-canned goods can be accepted. This year the number of people relying on emergency food assistance in Benton County is at an all time high. Thank you for helping us support such an important cause!
FROM THE BOARD:
Thanks to all who worked on the Charter Renewal. It has been submitted to the Board of the Corvallis School District. Special thanks to Morning McCreary who did most of the heavy lifting and to Elisa Fairbanks who made sense out of the budget projections.
We would like to write a homework policy for the school and are looking for parents to be on a committee. If you are interested please email kriste.york@gmail.com with a few words describing your views on homework so that our committee will hopefully have a balance of viewpoints. This is a temporary committee, and once the membership is decided we will decide when to have our first meeting based on members’ schedules.
PTO NEWS
The next PTO MEETING is WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 2010 at 8:30 AM in the Community Room. We need your ideas and energy! Topics to be discussed: the fast-approaching Giving Thanks celebration and pie auction and fundraising ideas to support the music program.
Our annual “Giving Thanks” Celebration will be Saturday Nov. 20th. This is a MCCS Community Social with music, potluck dinner and activities for kids. Everyone is invited including grandparents, community members and friends. We need some volunteers to help set up, clean up, and supervise activities for the kids such as face painting, and games. We are also looking for some live musical entertainment, so if anyone knows a group willing to perform please let us know.
We are starting a Parenting Book Shelf in the library that will have resources for parents to borrow. If you have parenting books you would like to donate, please leave them on the library desk with a note marked “Parents Library”.
If you have any questions, suggestions or would like to volunteer please contact Kerry Pfeil kerrypfeil@gmail.com /541-207-3562 or Terina McLachlain 8gr8kids@gmail.com /541-829-9847
Volunteers needed
Mr. Day’s 4/5 class needs a volunteer who is good at math to help with the high math group from 10:30-11:30am.
Also needed is someone to come in anytime to help with copying and writing.
Homework Club
Laura Oakes will be starting a grade 3/4 Homework Club meeting Mondays at 3 – 3:45pm in the community room. Bring reading, math, spelling or whatever you need to get caught up on. Snack will be provided.
Cub Scouts
Ben Morris is a Cub Scout recruiter and he will be here on Nov. 16th at noon and 17th at 3:00pm to talk to boys and their parents about Cub Scouts.
Special Thanks To:
Big thanks to Kerry Pfeil and the other parents that fed the staff a great lunch on Friday!
Wish Lists
Mr. Day’s classroom is also in need of kid-sized garden gloves, weeding tools and a watering can.
Mrs. Hansen’s music class- rhythm instruments, 50 kazoos!
The Room 2 CD player is not working anymore. If anyone has a CD player with speakers (boom box style) that they are not using, we would appreciate it.
Ms. Gorman’s and Miss Bridget’s classrooms need a few items to help them with their outdoor activities. They are looking for donations of rakes, shovels, a wheelbarrow, kid-sized gloves, seeds, extra garden tools in general and fall bulbs (tulips, daffodils, crocuses, etc.). Anything you can spare would be greatly appreciated.