Sligo Creek Elementary School

PTA Newsletter
Its your child. Its your school. Its your PTA!
Volume 13, Issue 9 Friday, April 13, 2012

Mark Your Calendars!

Upcoming PTA Meetings
Tuesday, May 1 (7-8:30 PM) Tuesday, June 5 (7-8:30 PM)

Get Ready Get Set Stride next Friday!!!

On April 20, the second annual Salamander Stride Fun Run will come to Sligo Creek! The Stride is a great community event for the students, teachers, and administrators and, of course, parents and family members who are able to come out and cheer on the kids on Friday afternoon. The Stride is the PTAs main event and fundraiser this year. By doing this one major fundraiser, we are able to avoid the gift wrap and cookie sales of years past. So please give this one your all! By going to the Salamander Stride web page at www.razoo.com/p/Salamander-Stride-2012 you can add your child to his or her class team, then create a link that you can send to friends, grandparents, aunts and uncles, etc. to ask them for donations. Or if you prefer paper, please use the pledge sheet that came home in the March 16th Friday Folders. See the SCES PTA website under News for links to make your childs fundraising page, download the pledge sheet, or to volunteer for the event. Well need lots of volunteers to make the event a success! If you can help on April 19 and/or April 20, please email Debbie Boger at debbie.boger@post.harvard.edu or Marcy Kreindler at mwkreindler@gmail.com.

Upcoming PTA & SCES Events

Thursday, April 19: Science Speaker (7 PM in the cafeteria) Friday, April 20: Salamander Stride Friday, April 27: 1st and 2nd Grade Musical Performance (11:20 AM in the Gym) Monday, April 30 Friday, May 4: Staff Appreciation Week Week of May 29: Book Share

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.

PTA Science Night: April 19 at 7 pm

Our next guest scientists are Dr. Lora Koenig of NASA and Dr. Ludovic Bruker of Laboratoire de Glaciologie et Geophysique de l'Environnement, Grenoble University/CNRS. Theyve just returned from 2 months in Antarctica studying the effects of climate change and sea level rise. During their visit to SCES, they will show us how NASA uses satellites from space to monitor the ice sheet, and tell us (in English or in French!) about their most recent trip to Antarctica, where they collected ice cores and radar data to determine how much snow has accumulated during the past 4 decades. Theyve promised to bring along some Antarctic ice so everyone can experience the cold temperatures for themselves! So please come join us in the SCES cafeteria for some really cool stuff. For more information on their recent activities in Antarctica please check out their blog posts at http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/blogs/fromthefield/category/seat-satellite-era-accumulation-traverse/.

WANTED: PHOTOS of SCHOOL EVENTS FOR THE SCHOOL YEARBOOK!!!

Do you have photos of the Winter Wonderland Social, the Science Play Date, a class field trip, or any other school event this year? If so, we would love to put them in the school yearbook. Parents, if you have photos, please contact the Yearbook editor and 4th grade teacher, Ms. Wright at:

Principals Letter
Dear Parents and Families, We are looking forward to the Salamander Stride and students cant wait. This was one of the highlights of the year last year. The informational packets went home in the March16th Friday Folders. Every child will participate in the Stride and will be recognized for their participation. The Salamander Stride is scheduled for April 20th from 1:00-2:45. Grade levels will participate at various times. Kindergarten and first grade will participate from 1-1:45, fourth and fifth grade from 1:30-2:15, second and third grade from 2-2:45. Please feel free to join us as a volunteer or spectator at our event. At this time we are in the planning stages for the coming year. Currently, we will not have a combination class but that can change depending on the upcoming enrollment. At this time, we are scheduled to have 4 classes at every grade level, 2 Academy and 2 French Immersion. We will keep you informed as we move through the remainder of the year. We have just completed the process for the selection of our after care provider for the 2012-2013 school year. A committee composed of staff, community member and parent were involved in a very lengthy process. We are pleased to announce that Kids Co. of Gaithersburg will be our provider for the coming year. Please visit their website at www.KidscoOnline.com. More information will be provided as transition plans are put in place. KidsCo currently serves 17 MCPS schools throughout the county. KidsCo states that they are proud to offer an exclusive program that offers the flexibility of a small company and the stability of an established presence. The owner, Jay Gerson, as well as the support team are actively involved in the day to day excitement of the programs and each of our children enrolled knows them personally as supporting staff members. For those who will be participating in the aftercare program, we feel confident that you will be more than pleased with KidsCo. Spring Break gave us the much needed rest to have the energy and enthusiasm that is needed for the final quarter of the year. We have much to do this last quarter and there are many events in the Spring. Thank you for your help and support. As of today, you have logged in over 1,000 volunteer hours. What a great community. Thank you for all you do for us.
Sincerely, Diantha R. Swift

Wilnetria_Wright@m cpsmd.org.

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.

P a g e |2

PTA Book Share

This years Book Share will take place the week of May 29. The Book Share is a great opportunity to clear off your bookshelves and get those books back into circulationand of course its a thrill for students to take home FREE books. You can put books and magazines for K to 5th-grade students in the box in the front office. If you only have a kindergartener, and thus no outgrown books, thats perfectly fine: your child can just enjoy getting books this year, and you can donate some when he/she is older. Or you can pick up a book for older readers at a yard sale and donate that. Please, no coloring/sticker books, religious books, or books with small parts. Especially in demand are books for 4th and 5th graders, French books/magazines, and nonfiction books (some students who arent normally big readers will get excited about a book about dinosaurs, snakes, or transportation, for example). Book donations are considered tax-deductible contributions to the PTA. Please contact Stephanie Hartman to help or for more information (sehartman@yahoo.com).

Solar Flares Spring Dance Team to Perform in the National Cherry Blossom Parade Tomorrow!
The Solar Flares Spring Dance Team will be performing in the 2012 National Cherry Blossom Parade in Washington D.C., starting in front of the National Archives Building tomorrow (Saturday, April 14). They will be singing and dancing to the song, Somebody To Lean On, and will be wearing pink, white and green sweatshirts. In the parade, the Solar Flares Dance Team will sing and dance with over 1,000 students and, together, this large group will form a Mass Youth Choir. By wearing color-coded sweatshirts, along with forming a special performance position, this choir will create the Cherry blossom Logo to commemorate that 2012 is the 100th Anniversary of the National Cherry Blossom Parade. The Parade runs along Constitution Avenue from 7th to 17th Streets, NW, on Saturday, April 14, from 10 am-noon, rain or shine. It will be simulcast live on WJLA-ABC7 and News Channel 8! Good luck Solar Flares!

First and Second Grade Students Will Perform Music Styles For Everyone Soon!
All First and Second Grade Students will be performing a music program entitled: Music Styles For Everyone for their parents, families and friends on Friday, April 27, 2012, at 11:20 a.m. 12:00 p.m., in the Sligo Creek Elementary School Gymnasium. Students in this performance will be dancing and singing in several musical styles such as Pop, Hip Hop, 70s Music, Classical and Jazz. Good luck First and Second Grade Students!

5th Grade French Immersion Kids Bake their Way to Montreal

Come out this weekend to support the 5th grade French Immersion kids as they sell baked goods to raise money for their end of the year Montreal trip. Enjoy cookies, breads, pies and fresh coffee at two great venues: Saturday, April 21 9am - 4 pm: Flower Avenue Market at 8809 Flower Avenue Sunday April 22 10 am - 2 pm Takoma Park Farmer's Market
If you'd like to help out the Bake Sale by contributing baked goods, please contact Kim Levone at klevone@yahoo.com or Marah Stets at mstets@me.com
P a g e |3

Recorder Karate Music Program Motivates Students to Practice!

Third, Fourth and Fifth Grade Students are encouraged to read musical songs, while studying how to play the recorder instrument at Sligo Creek Elementary School. The following students have achieved the black belt status because they have mastered nine different songs. Each Recorder Karate Song gradually increases a level of musical skill and introduces a new musical concept. After each song is tested/performed by a student, he/she receives a different color belt for each song that they have mastered. Many of our Fourth and Fifth Grade Students, who have passed the Black Belt requirements of Recorder Karate, are working on advanced recorder music in a duet format. (Duets- Two different musical parts that are performed at the same time) Students who successfully pass/test for each duet, receive a master Twister Belt. In the Twister Belt sequence, there are eight different colored twister belts, and once that is completed, there is a silver and gold belt, awarded to students who play in different meters and genres. Congratulations to all of these students for achieving this honor and for being a member of our 2012 Recorder Karate Black Belt Team! Congratulations as well to the students who have achieved Gold Belt Status as noted below. Keep up the great work!
Third Grade Colin Gilligan Sam Kerns Jacob Yokoyama Fourth Grade Quinn Buckley Hayley Cheek Hannan Delil Tristram Dorr Samantha Ebongo Charles Edwards Lauren Finlay Ella Gilligan Ella Glass Claire Haeberle Kevin Lemus Michelle Malcioln Jacqueline Marquez-Castro Celia Montes-Sharp Betselot Shifferraw Gwen Sletten Olivia Speaks Olivia Swain Morgane Thompson Pavithra Vaidyanathan Fifth Grade Cooper Abrahams Talia Appelman Louis-Paul Bama Joseph Benda Josephine Briand Drew DeShano Erick Difiore Will Donaldson Belen Floreza (GOLD) Joseph Gabriele (GOLD) Alex Gramaglia Henry Haley-Goldman Jonathan Harris Anna Hosh Libby Isaacson Gabrielle Jakobsberg Wilver Jimenez Elizabeth Kelley-Kern Molly Kramer (GOLD) Nicholas Lage Jackson Lee Raviv Levone Ziad Lien Rachel Martin Madeline Merrill Anja Prien Ally Ratkowski-Howe Obriani Remy Maia Richman Alex Robbins Jason Salazar Thady Sam William Tawamba Marlena Tyldesley Callum Vicary Henry Yuan Bitanya Zewdie

Girl Scouts Earth Day Clean Up

Every year since the founding of our Girl Scout Troop, the girls of Troop #6257 have initiated an annual clean up in honor of Earth Day. This week the girls focused on the areas around Sligo Creek Elementary School and Silver Spring International Middle School. They filled over 15 bags full of wrappers, bottles, cans, paper, plastic bags and other debris littering Schuyler Road, the tennis courts, and the track and field area. They tackled the challenge with a great deal of zest and enthusiasm and were really proud of their accomplishments. Many of the girls attend Sligo Creek ES and many will likely matriculate to SSIMS. They care about their community and we wanted to let you know. Lori Kaplan & Suzanne Chartol (Troop co-leaders) Merry Plocki (Earth Day Coordinator)
P a g e |4

SLIGO CREEK ELEMENTARY SCHOOL 500 Schuyler Rd, Silver Spring, MD 20910 301.562.2722 www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/schools/sligocreekes/ PTA Web site: www.scespta.org Comments? Questions? Send them to the 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

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

P a g e |5