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The Springer Buzz September 19, 2014 |
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In This Issue:
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Quick Dates for your Calendar:
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No School Tomorrow! |
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A reminder that tomorrow is a Staff Development Day and there will be no school. |
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Our Rockin' Walk-a-thon Is 4 weeks Away! |
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Attention Springer families - it's time to collect your sponsors (on the green form) for this year's Walk-a-thon (Saturday, October 11 from 10-3)! Pledges can be made in flat amounts or per lap. Please ask your friends, family and neighbors to support Springer... and thank them very much! Green sponsor cards (signed by a parent) are due to the office by Thursday, October 2. Extra forms and purple registration booklets are available in the Walk-a-thon cubby in the office or online on the Springer website. Walk-a-thon T-shirts are much loved by all Springer students... and we need your child's size! Please complete the online Back to School Form to ensure your child gets this keepsake to enjoy all year long! If you'd like to order extra Walk-a-thon t-shirts for other non-student members of your family, please fill out this webform (LINK) by September 28. Extra shirts are $15. Finally, it's not too late to volunteer on Walk-a-thon Day (have we mentioned we need you?!). Join your fellow Springer community members for a fun, easy, social one-hour shift. Sign up online today! Just click here! 100% family participation is our goal. Rock on, Springer! |
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International Walk-to-School Day! |
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International Walk to School Day - October 8th Meet up at Varsity Park on October 8th at 8am or arrange your own walking school bus from your neighborhood. Traditional donut holes will be served upon arrival at school. International Walk to School Day is a global event that involves communities from more than 40 countries walking and biking to school on the same day. The event has become part of a movement for year-round safe routes to school, with record-breaking participation. Springer will participate with thousands of schools across America! Shout Out! We are seeking volunteers to hand out donuts and chaperone the walk from Varsity Park. We also need a volunteer to lead and continue this fun event next year! Please contact Stacy Rademacher stacy0228[at]yahoo.com. |
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Cornerstone Corner |
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This month’s “It’s a Springer Thing” theme is RESPONSIBILITY. Students are learning about being responsible in their friendships. The Project Cornerstone book “Friends to the End for Kids: The True Value of Friendship” by Bradley Trevor Greive uses engaging photos of animals to illustrate how to make friends, keep friends, and the importance of friends. Goals of lesson: · To help all students learn how to respect each other and to develop stronger interpersonal skills. · To have students explore ways to be UPstanders both online and in our face-to-face world. Here are some questions you can discuss with your child at home: · What do you like most about your friends? · Do they bring out the best in you? · Do you bring out the best in them? · How do you show your friends that you care about them? · How do your friends handle conflict when it arises? COMMON LANGUAGE AND VOCABULARY: Friendship boosters – Positive things you can do or say that build new or stronger relationships with people. Friendship boosting behaviors can include smiling, learning names, greeting one another, listening, accepting differences, etc. Upstander – A person who stands up for what is right without putting themselves in harms way. This is the person who stands up to bully behavior and makes everyone feel like they belong. When you “catch” kids modeling positive behaviors... Notice, Name it, and Celebrate it! |
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Double your LAEF Donation with Matching Funds! |
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LAEF is pleased to announce that all NEW and INCREASED donations made by October 8th will be matched dollar for dollar, up to $100,000, by DeLeon Realty and a group of private donors. How it works: · If you are a new family or new donor, 100% of your donation will be matched. · If you have donated in the past, any increase over your last gift will be matched. Save us a call by making your tax-deductible donation today: www.laefonline.org (or bring a check to the school office). We Need Phonathon Volunteers We need parent helpers for our upcoming Phonathon September 29-October 2. Sign up at http://www.signupgenius.com/go/60b0f4da8a92f4-losaltos or click here. Thanks in advance for becoming an active participant in your child's education!
Questions? Contact the LAEF Office at 650.559.0445 or email to admin@laefonline.org. |
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Hot Lunch Is Looking For Volunteers |
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Hot Lunch is still looking for a few more volunteers. Shifts are from 11:15-12:15. Tuesday 10/7, 10/21, 11/4, 11/18, 12/2, 12/16 (one person) Friday 10/10, 10/24, 11/7, 11/21, 12/5, 12/19 (two people) Hot Lunch is a fun opportunity to see the kids during the school day, plus it is a fundraiser for the PTA. For more information and to volunteer, please contact Hilary Burcell at: hilary[at]burcell.com or Anita Leo at: amleo73[at]yahoo. |
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Classroom Yahoo Groups |
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Each class at Springer has a Yahoo Group, used for communications from the PTA, the room parents and/or teacher, and for discussions between the parents. It is very important that at least one parent from each family join the Class Group, as otherwise you will miss communications about activities in your classroom, special events at Springer, etc. All parents listed in the Springer Directory have been sent an invitation to join your Class Group(s). If you haven’t already joined your Class Group, please click here for instructions on how to join. Questions? Contact: SpringerClassLists[at]gmail[dot]com. |
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Back-To-School Order Form |
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The online Back To School Order Form closes this Sunday, September 21! Don’t miss the chance to use this quick, easy, on-line tool that allows you to make donations, sign up for PTA memberships, order Birthday Books, select your child's Walk-a-thon T-shirt size, place Walk-a-thon Food Pre-Orders, and purchase Auction Tickets, Spirit Wear, and Yearbooks. This is a convenient way to make a single payment for your donations and orders! We recommend reviewing the 2014-2015 Spirit Wear selection with your child before opening the form. Please consider making your BTS payment via e-check. We prefer electronic payments because they allow us to more quickly and easily process the BTS orders. (Last year, a parent volunteer made 27 trips to the bank to deposit over 1400 handwritten checks for the Springer PTA!) Furthermore, payment by e-check is less expensive for us. (Intuit charges the PTA a flat fee of $0.50 for every e-check. PayPal charges the PTA 3-5% of each payment.) The Los Altos Educational Foundation (LAEF) accepts (and prefers) payments by e-check as well. If you receive an error while attempting to pay by e-check as a guest user, it could be because you have previously registered your bank account with Intuit. If you have already registered your bank account, then you must login. The link to the form is: Springer 2014 BTS Order Form The password is "stingers" (all lower case) Payments by check are due by Friday, September 26. Thank you for your support of the Springer PTA! |
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Please Complete Lice Permission Form |
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Those annoying Lice! Don’t you just wish we could eradicate these bugs from our lives? Realistically, we won’t be able to eliminate lice completely, but learning about lice and how to prevent infestations and treat them when necessary, is a proactive and smart approach. Periodic lice checks can greatly reduce lice outbreaks, but schoolwide checks are not possible without the help of volunteer parents. Volunteer parents will be trained by the District Nurse and privacy for your child is ensured. Please read and sign the permission slip, which will allow a trained parent volunteer to check your child by clicking here. And please sign-up as a volunteer too--we would love to have you on the Springer Lice Squad! |
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Save Money on Your Energy Bill and Donate to Springer |
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Do you want to save money on your electricity and donate to Springer at the same time? Then click here to check out Ohmconnect. What is Ohmconnect? Ohmconnect is a home energy tool that combines the energy reductions of a community and sells that reduction back into the grid. We can generate an estimated $5k to $10k across a school's community, which is then donated to Springer Elementary School. How do users sign up? 1. Sign up at www.ohmconnect.com/springer 2. Connect your utility account to Ohmconnect 3. If you have a central AC or electric car, send an email talk@ohmconnect.com to receive a free electric car charger and/or wifi thermostat to automate your reductions and donations. Questions? https://www.ohmconnect.com/faq |
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Become a LIVING CLASSROOM docent... share your love of nature with kids! |
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The Living Classroom is looking for docents to help deliver hands-on garden-based lessons to the students of the Los Altos School District. No experience necessary as we provide all the training needed! Our Fall docent training session will take place on Monday mornings from 9 - Noon on September 8th through October 13th. Please click here for more details. Questions? Please contact the Living Classroom at livingclassroom@lasdschools.org or visit our website: www.living-classroom.org. |
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Noontime Fun! visory Program Is Off To A Roaring Start! |
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Springer's Noontime Fun!visory Program is off to a roaring start! This past week the YOGA Team comprised of Reena Vokoun, Makiko Kikuchi, Ellyn Berner, and Kacey Fitzpatrick hosted their first YOGA Session of 2014-2015 at Springer! Students from all grades participated at lunch on Tuesday. In fact there was such a great turnout that students ended up sharing YOGA mats. Therefore if you have extras yoga mats lying around the house not being used, please donate for use at this program. Mats can be brought to the Springer office. Next week two new programs will be added: Arts and Games on Wednesday and Volleyball on Friday at lunch. Arts and Games welcomes our new Arterrific Stinger Student Volunteers--over 65 students-strong! These volunteers will be helping to facilitate games of Connect4, JENGA, and UNO this week, volleyball drills next week, and a Name that Tune trivia contest the week of the Rock and Roll Springer Walkathon. Parent volunteers are encouraged to attend our first Volleyball session at lunch on Friday for Grades 3-6. Please come help put up the net at 11:30! Thank you! Questions, please contact Laurie Pasmooij (laurie.pasmooij[at]mac.com) |
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Student Extracurricular Activities: |
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There are after-school activities at Springer for all grade levels. For a list of all of the activities and more information, please go to Springer’s website by clicking here. |
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STAY AND PLAY! After School Sports & Games With Mr. Heeb |
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Play and Stay Sports and Games with Mr. Heeb will be starting Monday September 15th. Please click here for more information. |