pta roar · parkwood elementary pta newsletter vol. 1, issue 15, february 2013 next issue: april 2,...
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PTA Roar Parkwood Elementary PTA Newsletter
Vol. 1, Issue 15, February 2013 Next issue: April 2, 2013 Submissions due on 3/15/13 to [email protected]
SAVE THESE DATES
Come & Learn PW Watch D.O.G.S.
Wed, Feb 6
6:30-7:30 pm Parkwood Gym
PTA Board Meetings Tuesdays
Feb 12, Mar 19, Apr 16
7 pm, Parent Center
Open to ALL Parkwood parents & teachers
Mid Winter Break Feb 18-22
Support Staff Appreciation Week
Mar 4-8
Articles Due for PTA Roar Newsletter
Fri, Mar 15
Submit to newsletter editor Marion Mohrlok at
Parkwood Heritage Night
Wed, Apr 3 5:30-7:30 pm
Parkwood Gym
Talent Show & Auction Fri, May 17
Parkwood Heritage Night & Classes - A Celebration of Cultural Diversity Did you know that 58% of Parkwood school families have roots in other countries? What a great asset and definitely some-thing to celebrate!
Save the Date and join us for Heritage Night, our annual celebration of cultural diversity, held on Wednesday, April 3, 5:30-7:30 pm at the Parkwood Gym.
The event will include
a potluck, providing you an opportunity to share foods from your family’s cul-ture.
Parkwood’s Steel Drum Band
A local bag pipe group
Activities and crafts by global regions.
Heritage Classes Leading up to Heritage Night, your child will have the opportunity to learn about their classmates’ heritages in our heritage clas-ses.
On four Wednesdays in March (3/6, 3/13, 3/20, 3/27; 3-4pm) Parkwood parents will offer these classes and introduce different cultures and traditions.
Watch out for our registration forms in your student’s backpack.
Questions? For additional information or if you are interested in helping at the event or sharing information about your family’s heritage, contact Parkwood Family Ad-vocate Kristina Koul at [email protected] or PTA Chair for Family Activities KaLyn Burmeister at [email protected] or 206-498-4549.
February 21 is International Mother Language Day International Mother Language Day was proclaimed by the UN's Educational, Scien-tific and Cultural Organiza-tion (UNESCO) General Conference in November 1999.
The International Day has been observed every year since February 2000 to promote linguistic and cul-tural diversity and multilin-gualism.
Languages are the most powerful instruments of preserving and developing our tangible and intangible heritage.
All moves to promote the dissemination of mother tongues will serve not only to en-
courage linguistic diversity and multilingual education but also to develop fuller awareness of linguistic and cultural traditions through-out the world and to inspire solidarity based on under-standing, tolerance and dialogue.
~ Learn more at: http://www.un.org//en/events/motherlan-guageday/
Page 2 PTA Roar
Like us on
Check out our new Parkwood Face-
book page hosted by a parent.
Search for ‘Parkwood FAN’, like us
and learn about upcoming events,
volunteer opportunities, ways to help
raise $ for Parkwood, family friendly
things to do locally, and lots more.
Feel free to add to the wall with fun
facts or things you would like to see
communicated regarding our school.
Got PTA? Not a PTA member yet? You can still join! Our vision is that all 450 of our families and all of our staff and teacherfs are proud members of our PTA!
It’s affordable. It’s meaningful. It’s what Parkwood parents do!
Membership envelopes are available in the office!
Questions? Contact Stephanie Korn, PTA membership coordi-nator at [email protected].
Talent Show & Auction
Each school year the PTA is organiz-
ing an auction during and around our
annual Talent Show to raise money
for our school activities.
Please mark your calendar for
this year’s Talent Show on
Friday, May 17.
In addition, please consider donating
items (be creative and think about all
your talents!) or asking friends who
have a local business if they would be
willing to donate items to our auction.
Ideas for auction items include:
Wine; gift certificates; special trades
to share (yoga or pilates classes,
cooking or baking (personal chef ser-
vice for the evening!), theatre, con-
cert, movie or museum tickets, x
hours of house cleaning or babysit-
ting, a backstage pass to a ballet per-
formance. Or perhaps you regularly
go to a business that would want to
support our school.
Please contact Natalie Lecher if
you have an idea for a donation or
questions: 206-406-6124 or
Parkwood School Families In Need
Campaign Continued
Our Parkwood ‘Families in Need Campaign’ during the Holiday Sea-son was a great success with over $300 in gift cards collected!
Thank you all for supporting families in our own school com-munity.
The Holidays are over,
the need is not. That’s
why we will continue our
Families in Need Cam-
paign throughout the
school year collecting gift cards to
area retailers. These cards are dis-
tributed by Nurse Condit and Family
Advocate Kristina Koul to Parkwood
families in need.
Please consider donating a gas,
grocery or clothing store gift card.
Donations can be dropped
off in the PTA box in the
school office or at the Fami-
ly Advocate’s office. Please
put the gift card(s) in an
envelope marked “Families
in Need Campaign.”
THANK YOU! ~ Jill Heiney-Smith, PTA Chair, School &
Community Services, [email protected]
Visit our Parkwood PTA web-site: http://
www.parkwoodpta.org
Follow us on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/
parkwoodpta
Like us on facebook: http://
tinyurl.com/ParkwoodFAN
Please join us on Wed, Feb 6, 6:30-
7:30 pm for pizza and to learn more
about this program that brings Dads
(and other father figures) into the
school.
Watch D.O.G.S. (stands for: Dads of
Great Students) are fathers, grandfa-
thers, uncles and other father-figures
who volunteer for at least one day
each year at an official Watch
D.O.G.S. school.
The goal of this involvement is to pro-
vide a presence in the schools and to
be a positive and active role-model
for students at their school.
Look for a flyer from your student to
sign up so we have enough pizza.
Questions? Email our ‘TopDog’
and PW dad Jeff Lovelace at
Learn more at: http://fathers.com/
Parkwood introduces Watch D.O.G.S. program
Volume 1, Issue 15, February 2013 Page 3
Do you live in a community or just in
a house on a street of people whose
lives are separate from your own?
For thousands of years, our ances-
tors lived in barrios, hamlets, neigh-
borhoods, and villages. Yet in the
time since our parents and grand-
parents were young, privacy has
become so valued that many neigh-
borhoods are not much more than
houses in proximity.
Now, many activities take place be-
hind locked doors and backyard pri-
vacy fences. The street out front is
not always safe for pedestrians, and
is often out of bounds for children.
With families spread across the
country and friends living across
town, a person who doesn’t know
their neighbors can feel isolated and
insecure. And when the links among
neighbors are weak, security relies
on locks, gates, and guns, rather
than a closely knit web of connec-
tions.
Experts say focusing on the good
aspects and good people is a big
step toward defining the strengths of
a neighborhood, and drawing it clos-
er together. The result? It's better
equipped to tackle the inevitable
problems. Benefits can be as simple
as making a friend, as elaborate as
setting up a neighborhood emergen-
cy plan and as unexpected as find-
ing someone who can teach you
how to play the violin or barbecue
the perfect salmon filet.
Building a community from scratch
is daunting. But the good news is
that vibrant communities can grow
over time from existing neighbor-
hoods.
Here are a few ideas to get you
started:
* Start simple:
Leave the house.
Look up when you're walking.
Pick up litter.
Talk to the mail carrier.
Help carry something heavy.
Bake extra and share.
Ask for help when you need it.
* Create a new kind of Neighbor-
hood Watch: Build a “care force” that
helps out with dinners and errands
when neighbors need a hand.
* Host movie nights, using a garage
door as the movie screen. Alternate
which home gets to pick the rental,
and don’t forget the popcorn.
* Take advantage of free neighbor-to
-neighbor networking tools such as
Nextdoor to facilitate communica-
tions and build happier, safer neigh-
borhoods.
* Put up a book lending cupboard.
Bring a book, take a book. Collect
your old reads and share them with
passersby in a
cupboard mount-
ed next to the
sidewalk out
front. Give it a
roof, a door with
glass panes, and
paint it.
Community Is Not Just For Extroverts!
The City of Shoreline is made up of
14 neighborhoods.
Neighborhood Associations are
groups of neighbors in these neigh-
borhoods coming together and creat-
ing a sense of community.
They may organize social events,
coordinate Block Watch activities,
implement Neighborhood Mini-Grant
projects and other improvements,
plan speakers on relevant topics and
share information through neighbor-
hood newsletters, websites
and e-newsletters.
Some Parkwood res-
idents have recently
started a long over-
due Parkwood
Neighborhood As-
sociation and invite all Parkwood
neighbors to join in.
A first Winter Social was held on
January 25 at our school’s gym and
it was a great way to get to know
our neighbors, many of them
parents at our school.
Interested in learning more?
Contact parkwoodneigh-
[email protected] or join their fa-
cebook community (search for
Parkwood Neighborhood Associ-
ation).
Not living in the Parkwood
Neighborhood?
Check out the City of Shoreline’s
website for the Neighborhood
Association in your community.
NEW: Parkwood Neighborhood
Association
Neighborhood Gathering
PTA Roar Newsletter, Volume 1, Issue 15, February 2013 Page 4
Parkwood Kudos
THANK YOU to everyone for another wildly successful
December food drive. We met our goal of 250 bags of sugar, and collected over 2,500
items overall!
Congratulations to Ms. Iverson’s and Ms. Pembrooke’s classes or collecting the most food and
winning the pizza parties.
District wide, over 500 families and 1200 Shoreline students
were served with this wonderful tradition.
Thank you to Christine Dunbar for managing and sorting the food every day, to all second grade
students and teachers for counting and collecting the food,
and to the many families who helped deliver the food and sort it
at Kellogg on December 14th.
Printing of this newsletter is
generously donated by Mr. Tony Parks.
Thank you, Mr. Parks!
Building Classroom Communities
All of the Kindergarten families were invited to a potluck Friday, January 11, organized by a couple parents. The potluck was held in the school cafete-ria. The hope for this gathering was to get to know other parents and build communities amongst children and families.
FAN (Family Action Network) has been meeting for a couple years and a sub-group called Classroom Network Com-mittee formed with the very goal of building classroom communities. This school year alone, there have been several potlucks in classrooms.
The Kindergarten potluck had an amazing turnout. After eating, the chil-dren were able to go have fun with 3 para-educators that all the parents helped pitch in for, while the parents got to know one another a bit better.
There was a fun mingling activity to find other parents who had been to a tropical location, played an instrument, and all sort of fun ice breakers. There also was a map of Shoreline displayed where families were able to write down where their child lived as well as put a
sticker on the spot so families were able to see how close they lived to other kindergarteners.
All in all, it was a great evening and a nice introduction to put names to the faces we see so regularly in the school halls or in the parking lot.
The hope is to continue these types of events throughout the year. Park BBQ's with parents and kids, Roller Skating night, etc.
Hats off to the team of parents who made it all happen: Lisa G-B, Heather C., Amparo S., Mea F. and Lindsey E. And a special thanks to Mrs. Wiper and Mrs. Salmon for showing up and hanging after hours. That means a lot!
~ Amparo Squaglia, one of the potluck organiz-ers and PTA Volunteer Coordinator
If you are interested in organizing a classroom meeting in your class, please contact classroom commu-nity representative Sarah Horning, [email protected].
Parkwood Kindergarten Parent Potluck, January 11
Baseball Season Is Starting! Spring is almost here and the kids are eager to get out.
What better way to beat the cabin fever and get movin’ than
to sign your kids up for T-Ball/Softball/Baseball?
Shoreline’s Richmond Little League is offering teams
for kids ages 5-18. Online sign up is open now at
www.richmondlittleleague.com. See you at the ball park!