Rushwood PTA Newsletter

1. Rushwood PTA Newsletter: Issue Three, November 2013 Rushwood PTANewsletter Contacts President: Renee Piper 216-577-5644 drjtpiper@aol.com First Vice President Kim Brown 330-908-3125 kimbar34@yahoo.com Second Vice President Dr. Jacqui O’Connor 330-467-0581 Jacqueline.Oconnor@ Nordoniaschools.org Treasurer Andrea Stamp 216-316-9875 astamp75@me.com Third Vice President Allison Graceffo 216-225-8193 Amgraceffo@yahoo.com Recording Secretary Cathy Pendleton 216-215-2041 cathypendleton26@yahoo.co President’s Message Welcome to November • The leaves are not the only thing changing the scenery around Rushwood. Look for our new Outdoor Learning Center to start to take shape out by our parent drop off and pick up area. We are so excited to finally be able to show it off to our students and their families. • October 17 was our second annual Family Fall Fest . The weather caused us to reluctantly hold this event indoors, and we would like to thank all the parents for their patience and understanding, -but we were so happy to have such a wonderful turn out! This was a free event from the Rushwood PTA to show our appreciation to our families for their dedication to our school and children. Everyone had a wonderful time and I had many parents tell me that it was a wonderful and fun event and that they really enjoyed attending with their children. I would like to thank many of our PTA members for all their planning, including Andrea Stamp, Dr. O’Connor and her teaching and building staff, Lisa Kellermann, Allison Graceffo, Kim Brown, and many others who helped us make this event possible! • We have another busy month of November, and I would like to thank you all for your support and dedication you show to our • school community. • I wish you all a very Happy Thanksgiving! • Renee Piper, President • Rushwood PTA

2. Rushwood PTA Newsletter: Issue Three, November 2013 Important Dates and Events PTA Sponsored Events I would like to take this opportunity to thank our parents and volunteers for having a Rootin Tootin Third Grade Family Square Dance! Thank you to Mrs. Glenn and her band, “Mud in your Eye” who performed for us and showed us all how to “Ho Down”! Dr. Lineburgh made a special guest appearance , and the students and their parents had a great time wearing their western attire and learning to square dance. It was a heart warming, family event where our kids and parents could attend and have a lot of fun together ! Special thanks to Lisa Kellermann and Andrea Stamp, and Laurie Heiser for their amazing planning of this event. Also, a thank you goes to Dawn Sedor, Sandy Axtell, Cathy & Ryan Pendleton, Allison Graceffo and our Third Grade Teachers and Dr. O’Connor for all their hard work helping set up and clean up, along with many other parent volunteers from our Third Grade Families. And a special thank you to our families for their donations to our Knights Caring for Knights food assistance program – thank you for filling our bin up! PTA Meetings Our next PTA meeting is Wednesday, November 13th at 3:45 in the library. Childcare will be provided to school age children. If you child will be staying after school, please send in a note to the office letting them know they will be staying after school. Please note, we will not be having a December PTA and will resume in January. Have a wonderful holiday! Please start thinking about nominees for our Helping Hands Awards and Educator of the Year Awards to vote on and submit for our January 2014 meeting. If you cannot attend our meeting, but would like to send in any of your committee plans, please send them on to me at drjtpiper@aol.com. Thank you. Millionaire Minutes • PTA would like to congratulate all of the students for last year’s reading of 1,852,120 minutes! • This year our theme is “Race to Read”. We are off to a great start with 375,000 minutes read over the summer and the month of September. We welcome our Kindergarteners and challenge our grade level readers to help us reach our goal of 2,000,000 minutes by the end of May. • Rev up your engines and let’s go! • Students will be recognized with certificates for 1K,3K,5K,7K &9K milestones. • We plan on having school celebrations when we reach our 1M abd 2M goals. • Also, top readers of each grade will be recognized at the end of the year. • Please help us by totaling your minutes on your monthly reading calendar sheets • And /or TTT (1st grade) sheets. Don’t forget to check out the race track poster to see • How #1 team Rushwood is doing!

3. Rushwood PTA Newsletter: Issue Three, November 2013 Fundraising Market Day November is Market Day Pie Month! Can you believe the holidays are just around the corner? Now is the time to order your holiday desserts through Market Day‘s Bonus Day’s Program! Rushwood Elementary would love to be able to earn extra money so we have partnered with High School Choral Group with hopes of selling 500+ desserts. If each student orders just one dessert, along with the choral group , we would be eligible to earn 45% profit on each dessert our schools sells. As an incentive, Rushwood is offering some great prizes to the top selling Rushwood Students! The Grand Prize will be a gift card to Cinemark movie theater and once again the top seller will be able to throw a pie in the face to one of our “lucky” staff members at Rushwood. There will be 2 gift cards to Target for 2nd and 3rdplace. PLEASE help in supporting our school. The orders must be placed by Nov. 9th by 11pm online. Pickup will be Thursday, Nov. 14th from 5-6pm in Rushwood’s Cafeteria. Also, on the pick up date – we are expecting a large order – so any time you can donate with helping with our delivery /pick up would be deeply appreciated! Please contact Denise Zagata at 330- 467-6862 or email at drzag90@yahoo.com Other Information Rushwood PTA Holiday Shoppe The annual student Holiday Shoppe will be held in our gym on Friday, December 13th from 9-2. Students will be able to shop for two family members during their recess time. Because there is no cost for the items for our students – we rely mostly on the generous donations from our families. We are in need of an home made craft type items, as well as items that you really don’t need that are still in their packages that you would like to “pass on”. Any gender or any age items will do, since some of our students shop for siblings as well. Any items you could donate would be deeply appreciated. That includes holiday wrappings and bags. With your generous donations every year – we are able to keep this a free event for our deserving students. We are also in need of “elves to help our students shop ,gift wrap, set up and take down on the day of the event. If you are able to help – please contact Tammy Guy at 330-748-4819 or email at :tammyguy@yahoo.com or Linda Imrie at 330-468-8751 or email at : samloubob2@yahoo.com PTA thanks you in advance for your help and support!

4. Rushwood PTA Newsletter: Issue Three, November 2013 Important Dates and Events School Dates and Events November 5th – Election Day November 7 – Picture Retake Day and Evening Conferences and Conference Dinners for Teachers and Staff provided by PTA November 9th – Market Day ordering Deadline November 11th – Veteran’s Day Assembly at Rushwood 9:00am November 13th – Rushwood PTA Meeting 3:45 in the library November 14th - Evening Conferences and Conference Dinners for Teachers and Staff provided by PTA Market Day Pick UP 5:00-6:’00 Rushwood Cafeteria November 15th – Earth Dome Assembly at Rushwood 9:00am November 27th – December 2nd – Thanksgiving Holiday from School School Resumes on Tuesday, December 3rd. Activities Rushwood’s Yearbook Cover Art Contest is Back! Calling All Rushwood Students! We need your artwork for our 2013-2014 Yearbook Cover! PTA is excited to bring back the yearbook cover art contest. Last year, five Rushwood students had their original designs appear on the front and back cover of our yearbook. This year, it may be your work on the cover! All winning student entries receive a free yearbook. Please see the entry form in today’s PTA folder for instructions and rules, or you can find an entry form on the PTA website. Entries are due by Tuesday, November 19th. If you have any questions, please contact Renee Piper at drjtpiper@aol.com or 216-577-5644. Thank you!

5. Rushwood PTA Newsletter: Issue Three, November 2013 Information Birthday Book Club Rushwood PTA would like to thank all the parents that enrolled in our Birthday Book Club. Over 70 new books were purchased for our library in honor of a student’s birthday. That student will receive a certificate, a sticker placed in the book they choose with their name , and the honor of being the first student to check out that book in the library. This is a wonderful way to honor your child’s birthday and help support our library at the same time. Thank you Karen Byers for all your work in organizing this year’s club, and to our librarian, Mrs. Zacerdelli for helping us with the selection of the books. Our Town and All Around Update Thank you to all our Rushwood Families for participation in the Our Town & All Around Book fundraiser. The sale counted as a success – and Rushwood PTA earned over $4100. Because of your support, the PTA can continue to be able to sponser grade level events, provide teacher grants, bring COSI and many other activities to our school! There were a total of 31 students who received Golden Tickets for selling 4 or more books throughout the fundraiser. 12 students received a cash prize between $5 -$20 in cash in our cash bag drawing. Our $20 winner was SimranRandhawa- 3rd grade. Congratulations to Carmella Varner and Tyler Vnuk who tied for top seller prizes. Both received $25 Gift Cards to Cinemark and Steak–N-Shake. Our 2 winners for the Family Bowling Night Prizes went to Allison Holt and Andrew Stamp. And Congratulations to Mrs. Goodson – for the most class sales! PTA Folder Distribution Rushwood PTA would like to thank all the parents and students who help us with our PTA Folder program when receiving and returning the PTA Communication Folders each week. PTA sends most of our information on events and programs through this folder. Sometimes, we may have a week where there may not be any flyers or notices to be sent home. So therefore, in those weeks where the folders would be empty and no papers are to be sent home – we will NOT be sending home the PTA communication folders. We will resume whenever there is something to be sent home that week. Again, only our students messengers will be coming home with the information. PTA thanks the teachers and families for their continued support with our folder program!

6. Rushwood PTA Newsletter: Issue Three, November 2013 Fundraising & Programs The Little Gym Are you looking for a night out? Having trouble finding a babysitter? No Worries! The Little Gym of Brecksville/ Sagamore Hills has partnered with Rushwood PTA for Parent’sSurvival Nights! On the 3rd Saturday of every month (Starting Nov. 16th) from 6:00-10:00, all students who attend Rushwood Elementary (and siblings ages 3-10 and toilet independent) are welcome to attend the “Nordonia Elementary Schools Parents' Survival Night” at the Little Gym in Sagamore Hills (Just East of Marc’s)! The 31/2 hours are structured with theme related games, activities, gymnastics, air mat, a snack, and a movie to end the night! You will receive The Little Gym Member price and will also be giving back to the school. 10% of your PSN tuition will be given back to our PTA to help fund our events and programs. A flyer with more information can be found in this PTA folder today. For more information , please contact the Little Gym at 3300467-5050 – Thanks and have fun!! • Box Tops and Labels Our school has done an amazing job collecting Box Tops for Education, along with Campbell Soup Labels and Tyson Labels. To promote our November Box Top Drive , Our “Turkey” label sheet will be coming home in the PTA Folders. If you are ever in need of new label sheets – please send in a note with your PTA folders – or visit the Rushwood PTA Website located by visiting the Rushwood page at Nordoniaschools.org and click on “forms”. Rushwood PTA’s Website Please visit our Rushwood PTA Website for any information you are looking for regarding our PTA. If you are ever in need of our past newsletters or meeting minutes and agendas, or forms and / or flyers concerning any activity or event, you can find them all at our website, located from the Rushwood page from visiting www.nordoniaschools.org and locating Rushwood PTA on the left hand column of the page. We can also be contacted by email RW.PTA@nordoniaschools.org. Thank you for visiting our Website!

7. Rushwood PTA Newsletter: Issue Three, November 2013 Etc. 4th Grade Fundraiser PTA would like to thank our 4th Grade Families for their support of our Market Day Lifestyle Fundraiser. Our 4th Graders sold $4000 worth of goods to be able to have a wonderful 4th Grade end of their year celebration – and we are now planning a field trip too! Our top seller was Anthony Knoteck of Mrs. Kretch’s classroom – which earned him a music sound system! All orders can be picked up at our regular Market Day Sale pick up on November 14th from 5:00-6:00. If you can not pick up your order at that time – please contact Renee Piper at 216-577-5644 or email me at drjtpiper@aol.com so we can make other arrangements for your orders to be picked up. Thank you!! Spiritwear Orders Spiritwear is Back! Just in time for the holidays , Rushwood PTA has been selling Rushwood and Nordonia Spiritwear items. Order forms went home Oct. 28th to be able to purchase tee-shirts, long sleeve Tees and Zipper Hoodies with a Rushwood and Nordonia logos. Completed order forms must be sent in PTA Folders by Friday, November 8th – so we can process the orders in time for holiday delivery. Items then will be available for pick up at Rushwood the week before our Winter Break. Please make checks payable to Rushwood PTA. It is so wonderful to be able purchase items for your Rushwood and Nordonia students to wear with pride ! Sample sizes can be found in Rushwood’s Office Lobby for an adult L and Youth L and sample of the two available logo’s. This is not a fundraiser – we are just passing on the cost of the items onto Our students so all can purchase and enjoy wearing! Thanks for your support.