Sligo Creek Elementary School

PTA Newsletter
Its your child. Its your school. Its your PTA!
Volume 13, Issue 3 Friday, October 7, 2011

Mark Your Calendars!

Upcoming PTA Meetings
November 1 (7-8:30 PM) December 6 (7-8:30 PM)

PTA Updates
At the October 4, 2011, PTA meeting, PTA members voted to amend the budget so that the PTA could spend down some of its funds that were raised last year through the first-ever Salamander Stride. At our September meeting, we asked for proposals to be submitted so they could be voted on at the October meeting. Four proposals were submitted and were discussed at the October meeting. The PTA voted to fund the following items: $700 for the PTAs NAACP Parents Council Committee to hold meetings with SCES parents and MCPS staff, as well as to develop materials for a Black History Month program at SCES. $8,000 for LCD projectors and document cameras (known as ELMOs) for our classroom teachers. These funds will be spent in conjunction with $11,000 that the school is planning to spend on the same items, and this combined total funding will provide all of our classroom teachers with this technology. ELMOs will allow our teachers to display and share a much wider range of information with their entire class. ELMOs can display anything, making them more flexible than overhead projectors, which are limited to paper. Students are able to see what is being projected from any point in the class. The technology thus reduces crowding (decreasing behavior problems and classroom management issues); the enlargement improves students understanding of a concept, as well as increasing curiosity and reinforcing teaching points. $1,460 on new recess equipment, including balls, basketball chains, blacktop paint, double dutch jump ropes, and a "fun ball tower" which (pending MCPS approval) will be cemented in the blacktop for student use at recess $1,000 to hold a charette with students/teachers/parents at both SCES and SSIMS to discuss ways that the courtyard that the two schools share can be developed. This money is in addition to the $1000 already approved last June. This is the initial stage of a long-term project, and the charette will enable us to see what our community wants from this space and how much support there is to develop it.

Upcoming SCES Events

Monday, Oct. 10: Community Open House (9:15-11:30 AM) (Columbus Day) Wednesday, Oct. 12: NAACP Parents Council Meeting (6:30-8:00 PM) Thursday, Oct. 13: Picture Day Thursday, Oct. 20: PTA Science Speaker Friday, Oct. 21: No school for students; MSTA Convention Friday, Oct. 28: Fall Festival (during the day); 1st marking period ends Monday, Oct. 31: No school for students Saturday, Nov. 5: Science Round Robin Monday, Nov. 7 Friday, Nov. 11: PTA Book Fair Thursday, Nov. 10: Early Release; Staff Appreciation Lunch; Parent Conferences Friday, Nov. 11: Early Release; parent conferences Thursday, Nov. 17: PTA Science Speaker Wednesday, Nov. 23: Early Release Thursday, Nov. 24 Friday, Nov. 25: Schools closed for Thanksgiving break Friday, Dec. 9: K-2 Social (Winter Wonderland) Tuesday, Dec. 13: Winter Concert Thursday, Dec. 15: PTA Science Speaker Monday, Dec. 26 Friday, Dec. 30: School closed for Winter Break SCES PTA meetings and events are open to everyone. PTA meetings are held on the first Tuesday of the month in the Gym at 7:00 PM. Free babysitting is provided for toilet-trained children that are 3 years or older.

Please Note: The PTA

Presidents Column will no longer be featured in every issue.

Principals Letter
Dear Parents, We are pleased to report that our first month of school has been busy, smooth and dynamic. Operationally, we have made a few changes that have made a difference for our dismissal processes. We appreciate your patience while were challenged with getting all of our car riders to meet you quickly. We are still working on the traffic congestion in the SSIMS parking lot. As a reminder, if you are picking your child up as a walker from the upper lot, you are to park your car and meet your child, not remain in your car. If you are remaining in your car, you are to pick your child up in front of Sligo Creek. The wait time has been reduced significantly and while no one likes to wait, we do appreciate you following our process. For students in grades 3-5, information regarding your childs Measures of Academic Progress Assessment in Reading (MAP-R) will be sent home in next weeks Friday folder (October 14th). The purpose of the MAP-R assessment is to identify the skills and concepts students have learned and diagnose instructional needs. The MAPR assessment provides data that informs the teachers where there are instructional gaps and serves to guide the teacher in meeting the specific needs of students. MAPR is given in grades 3-8 and provides longitudinal data for teachers. If you want more information about MAP-R, go to the MCPS home page and search MAP-R. We continue to enhance and improve our website to be able to provide information in a timely manner. We thank Ms. Heatwole, for undertaking our new and improved website. The feedback has been extremely positive. Our goal is to insure an effective and efficient means of communication to you. Teachers are developing distribution lists so they can communicate with you effectively. We are moving toward Going Green in that our goal is to provide all information to you electronically. We continue to use Connect-Ed to let you know when students are late or absent. We have had instances when parents thought students were in school and the student had other plans. This provides an additional safety measure for you and your child. Please call and let us know when your child is absent. We hope that we wont make mistakes making phone calls, but that may happen. Know that our goal is to provide information to you regarding your child. We appreciate your cooperation. It is extremely helpful if you send in a note if your child needs to be picked up early. We also receive phone calls at the end of the day requesting that a child not ride the bus, go home with a friend or other different arrangements be made. It is extremely difficult at the end of the day to make sure that the arrangements can be made, especially if we have several calls with limited time. If at all possible, please send in a note with your child if the plan is to be changed for that day. It saves so much time and we can be sure that we can get everyone where they need to be. Upcoming events include our Open House on Monday, October 10th. Please join us from 9:15-11:30 to visit your childs classroom and be a part of their learning. We look forward to your visit. Our Fall Festival will be held on Friday, October 28th from 2:00-3:15 pm. We are in the planning stages and will keep you updated. We continue to seek your support as a volunteer. Our needs are great and our resources are few. Please contact your childs teacher, or me if you can spare any time at all. We would love to have you here with us working with children. Thank you for your many words of encouragement as we begin another year. Sincerely, Diantha R. Swift

Thursdays in the Park

Come join in a tradition for many families at Sligo Creek Elementary School called . . . Thursdays in the Park. We meet each Thursday after school, weather permitting. Bring a snack to share and let the kids have a giant play date (two great play sets at the playground). Bring along siblings and other classmates. It allows us to build community, parents can chat and get to know one another, and best of all, the kids get a chance to run off some steam at a nearby park. The location is at Sligo Bennington Park of Sligo Creek Parkway (same location as the Kindergarten Picnic) -Sligo-Bennington Neighborhood Park, 599 Bennington Dr, Silver Spring, Maryland 20910. More info at: www.montgomeryparks. org

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Upcoming PTA Events

NAACP Parents Council
The NAACP Parent's Council will be hosting an informative Parent's night on Oct. 12, 2011, from 6:30 to 8 PM in the school gym. Food will be served from 6:30 to 7 PM. This session will include information on what the council is all about and how to get involved. There will also be presentations by Mrs. Swift, Ms. Brown, and Mrs. Scott. The NAACP Parents Council is geared towards the African-American parents and students of Sligo Creek Elementary.
Tiwiya Savoy Chair, NAACP Parents Council

Visit us on the Web at our PTA website: www.scespta.org There you will find information about PTA meetings, events, volunteer opportunities, and useful links and resources.

Science Play Day

The inaugural Sligo Creek Science Play Day is on Saturday, November 5th from 9:00 AM to noon. The Play Day is a free-form show-and-tell for all of us to show off our bug collections, robots, snap circuits, rock collections, favorite scientific demonstrations, whatever turns us on. The school gym will be lined with tables where you can set up. We'll have a corral where robots and remote-control vehicles can strut their stuff. You can tape your favorite posters to the wall. Mr. Brinson will be interviewing us on camera. There will be scavenger hunt. We'll have a quiz show to see what parents and kids know about science. We'll need plenty of help - get in touch with Stuart Kern, sgkern@sgkern.com, to see what you can do.

SCES Open House

Monday, October 10th (Columbus Day) is Open House Day at SCES. On this day, parents are invited to visit the school from 9:15 to 11:30 AM to observe their children's classes. Feel free to come for all or part of that time. This event is for class observation: the teachers ask that we don't interrupt the class to talk to the them at this time. Parents will have the opportunity to talk to teachers during the parent-teacher conferences in November. If you need to bring younger siblings with you to the Open House, that's fine, but please keep an eye on them while you're there. If you can, please take advantage of this opportunity to see your children and their teachers in action.

Book Fair is Coming!

This year the PTA book fair will be held during the school week of Monday, November 7 through Friday, November 11 in the Media Center at school. Books in English and French will be for sale. Many volunteers will be needed to help staff the fair. If you can help out, please contact Marcy Kreindler (mwkreindler@gmail.com) or Alice Vorosmarti (vorosmarti@verizon.net).

French Immersion Open Houses

These Open Houses are designed for people who are interested in applying for a spot in immersion. They will take place Jan. 31, Feb. 22, and March 29, 2012. Please let family and friends know about these dates if they are interested in immersion.
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French Immersion News

Bienvenue ! Welcome !
Welcome to another great year at Sligo Creek E.S. There are many parents who are new to the school and who may not know what the French Immersion Program is, and how it works. Id like to give you an overview of the program. Immersion is a strategy for learning a foreign language. In immersion programs, all the work of the day is done in the target language (the language the students are learning, in our case French). The native language (in our case, English) is never spoken by the immersion teacher in the immersion setting. Since our immersion program is in our school, the work of the day is the Montgomery County Public Schools curriculum and the setting is the school. Our students do the same Mathematics, Social Studies, Science and Reading/Language Arts as the students in the Academy program; the difference is that, in our classes, the language of instruction is French. Our students do have Art, Music and Physical Education classes in English; these classes are taught by specialists who teach all the students at Sligo Creek. Students from both programs are mixed in some of the special classes, with the hope that they will better get to know each other. Immersion students are, for the most part, native speakers of English. They hear and speak English at home, are read to in English by their parents, are exposed to English reading materials and to English speakers all around them. In school, they are given formal instruction in English starting during the second semester of 4th grade, twice a week for 45 minutes. In 5th grade they receive about 3 hours of English instruction per week. If anyone would like to have more information about immersion, a copy of our handbook is on the Sligo Creek home page at the Montgomery County Public Schools web site. You may also call me at school with any questions. Nellie Thompson French Immersion Coordinator Sligo Creek Elementary 301-562-2722

Tims Tips
If youve just ordered flower bulbs during our Fall Fundraiser or if you just need some advice on planting bulbs, heres some useful tips from our Beautification Committee co-chair and SCES parent, Tim Abrahams. 1. Always plant with pointed side of bulb up. Plant at a depth of 3 times the diameter of the bulb ( in most cases 6-8 inches). It is better to plant a little deeper than too shallow. 2. Try to plant the bulbs in well-drained soil. A place with standing water is not good. You can also amend poor soil or compacted soil with a good organic mix or compost. 3. It is best to plant the bulbs in the fall or early winter. They should be in the ground before the first freeze. The bulbs need 2-3 months in the ground over the winter in order to bloom in the spring. 4. Water the bulbs well after planting to help settle the soil around the bulbs. It may be necessary to water in the spring when the flowers bloom depending on the rainfall. 5. It also helps to mark and label the areas where the bulbs are planted. I sometimes use old popsicle sticks or chop sticks . This helps out in the spring to identify what came up or what did not come up. You can also use these markings if you want to move or relocate bulbs.
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Help Spread the Word: A New Low-Cost Internet Service Is Available for Families with Children Who Qualify for Free Lunches
Internet Essentials from Comcast is an exciting new program designed with the assistance of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to bridge America's digital divide, as a condition to Comcast's merger with NBC earlier this year. The program is intended to address key barriers to Internet access and adoption by providing affordable Internet access, the opportunity to purchase a computer and training to low-income families with at least one child receiving free lunches under the National School Lunch Program. Eligible participants will receive: Comcast home Economy Internet service for $9.95 per month (plus taxes) with no activation fees, additional equipment rental charges, credit checks, or long-term contracts; The option to purchase a pre-configured computer for 149.99 (plus taxes); and Access to digital literacy training. An entire household will be eligible to participate in the program if the household: Is located where Comcast offers Internet service; Has at least one child receiving a free school lunch through the National Free School Lunch Program (NSLP); Has not subscribed to Comcast Internet service within the last 90 days; and Does not have an overdue Comcast bill or unreturned equipment. Participating families may be able to benefit from Internet Essentials for the entire life of their child's K-12 education, as long as they remain eligible. Spreading the word to families will go a long way in helping to drive adoption of what is becoming an essential element of education in America. The Internet has the ability to strengthen and enhance the lessons learned in the classroom and is an increasingly important tool for students and their parents to succeed. For more information on Internet Essential from Comcast and the enrollment process, please visit www.internetessentials.com.

Missed the PTA meeting? Catch up by reading the minutes online. Go to our PTA website to find current and archived meeting minutes. http://www.scespta.org/pta-meetings.html

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Painless Fundraising: Shop to Support Sligo Creek

There are several programs that earn money for the PTA painlessly just by virtue of purchases that you make regularly. Sniders Grocery Store In Silver Spring, MD Sligo Creek ES participates in Sniders 1% rebate program. All you need to do is save your 2011 Sniders receipts and send them to the school in an envelope marked PTA Painless Fundraising. Once a year, Sniders Grocery will send us a check for 1% of the pre-tax today. So start shopping and send in your receipts. (No receipts earlier than 2011, please.) Giant Food Each year in September, Giant starts its A+ BonusBucks program and Giant BonusCardholders are required to RE-SUBMIT their BonusCard information to earn funds for SCES. Please designate SCES as the beneficiary of all your BonusCard spending; all you need to do is go to http://www.giantfood.com/aplus and register your 12-digit BonusCard on behalf of Sligo Creek using ID #03704. You can also call 877-275-2758 to register your card over the phone. Safeways eScrip program starts in September and requires that you RE-ENROLL each year so that these Safeway funds can be dedicated to your chosen school. Please consider designating SCES as the beneficiary of your Safeway/eScrip spending. Go to http://www.escrip.com/ and register your Safeway card on behalf of Sligo Creek. Our school code is #6564713 Box Tops for Education has helped Americas schools earn over $400 million since 1996. You can earn cash for your childs school by clipping Box Top coupons from hundreds of participating products. Box Tops also offers easy ways to earn even more cash for your school online. Weve put some collection boxes and folders around the school. You can find a box in the workroom across from the media center and a box near the teachers mailboxes. Or you can put your Box Tops (unexpired, please) in a zip-lock bag or envelope, marked Box Tops, and send them to school in your childs backpack. The PTA will take care of the rest! A complete list of Box Tops products can be found here: http://www.boxtops4education.com/Default.aspx Amazon Last year, for the first time, the PTA opened an SCES Amazon.com shop at www.scespta.org/amazon.html. Our shop features many book recommendations from our very own Sligo Creek students. Students shared the names of their favorite books during last years PTA Book Fair and their recommendations are now available to you on www.scespta.org/amazon.html. By visiting our PTA shop, you will get lots of popular reading suggestions in English and French AND have access to the wide range of products sold on Amazon.com. All purchases made on Amazon.com through the link on the PTA website, www.scespta.org/amazon.html , earn money for our school (4% to 6% of all your purchases).

SLIGO CREEK ELEMENTARY SCHOOL PTA Sligo Creek Elementary School 500 Schuyler Rd Silver Spring MD 20910 PTA Web site: www.scespta.org Alice Vorosmarti, Newsletter Editor Newsletter@scespta.org

SCES PTA Officers Diane Kelleher,co- President Stuart Kern, co-President Andrew Schulman, Treasurer Alice Vorosmarti, Secretary Susan Dahiya, Vice President for Events & Fundraising Debbie Boger, Vice President for Communication & Outreach Gabe Gonzalez, Vice President for Academic Support

Paper copies of the newsletter may be found in the carrel next to the PTA bulletin board which is in the hallway to the right of the school office.
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