Sunday Update

Arrrrgggghhh! I'm sweating out the NFL draft here and wishing Pittsburgh would get off their collective butts and draft John Sullivan.

Anyway.....
Madhunika has the spa basket with everything in it except the gift certificate. I collected $22 more today so we are now up to $142. I'll send a reminder email out to everyone in a couple minutes. Maybe that will distract me from the knots in my stomach!

Thursday update

5 more contributions today, and we're up to $120 total collected. I forgot school is closed tomorrow, so if you haven't contributed yet and are planning to do so, please bring it in Monday morning and tuck it in the manila envelope in Sadie's mailbox above the cubbies.

I'm going to put the spa basket together this weekend and get it to Madhunika, and she's going to deliver it to Maryann's office next Friday.

Thanks to everyone for pitching in!

Teacher Appreciation Week Info

Tues. night -- so far we have a running total of 5 contributions ($63 total) toward:

$50 gift basket for the teacher raffles (Cui donated the basket, I picked up the box of lavender bath stuff at Costco for $15)

3 teacher gifts (went to Costco, got each of them a big beach towel for $11 and to Linens and Things where I got them colorful mesh beach bags for $7)

Sheryn volunteered to go pick up the mani/pedi gift certificates at Town Nail, which should be $35 apiece. Definitely one for the raffle basket, if everyone chips in at least $11 we should have just enough to do 3 more for the teachers also. So far everyone seems interested in chipping in, so I'm not worried.

I'm going to get the gift basket to Madhunika before I leave for Washington (4/29), and she will deliver it to Maryanne's office on Friday 5/2.

Madhunika's also going to check on how much coffee to buy and she said this afternoon that she would take care of getting that to school on Monday morning 5/5.

I'll keep everyone posted on how we're doing!

Welcome to Spring!

Back in the saddle again!

Welcome to spring everyone! Madhunika went to the last parent meeting, and I am finally getting around to posting the FYI items from that meeting.

Safety First:

• Police Traffic Division 203-622-8015, Sergeant Barry.

• Dept. of Traffic in Public Works Division 203-622-6487, Melissa Evans

These are the Police-Traffic Department and Public Works names and numbers for parents to call and raise concerns regarding the crosswalk. If you've been nearly run over like me, put these on your speed dial.

April items:

• possible potluck on the 5th? Details will hopefully come soon.
• 28th: Save the date for a Christ Church parent workshop – Dr. David Elkind, PhD who authored The Hurried Child will speak. Look for flyers and more details when it's closer.
  

Teacher Appreciation week is May 5th-9th. We are responsible for:

• Coffee on Monday morning for the teacher breakfast. A couple of those big boxes from Dunkin Donuts are just the ticket. We can use the "extra" contributions from the fall if we need to here. Other classes are handling other breakfast items, but feel free to bring in something special for the teachers if you're inclined to go the extra mile!
  
• A spa-themed gift basket for the raffles (value of about $50), for which we will need donations of manicure/pedicure certificates or other spa-theme items to make it fun for the teachers.
  
• Three to-be-determined gifts for our teachers for that week (one each), preferably something that the kids made or had something to do with. Ideas anyone? We have several weeks to get this together.

The Parent Fund is taking care of a nice Wed. lunch for the teachers, and there will be about 10 gift baskets for the raffle. If there is anything else you would like to contribute for the raffle, talk to Maryann, or let me, Madhunika, or Cui know ahead of time and we'll figure out what to do.

June:

• 6/8 There will be a planned picnic at the beach. More details on that to come!
• End of year teacher gifts: If you would like to contribute to a group gift for the teachers again like we did in December, Madhunika and I will do the collecting and organizing, and I'll send out early reminders in late April so we can have plenty of time. Just as before, if this makes it easy for you, great! If you would prefer to handle personal teacher gifts yourself and not contribute, that's fine too.

There is a school yearbook in the works!

Finals on the Holiday Gifts

The word came from the parent committee that since not every class collected the same way for Miss Marta and the floater teachers, they would take care of gifts for them ($50 AmEx card for Miss Marta and $20 movie gift certificates for the floater teachers), and that we should put whatever we collected towards our teachers. I decided to even it out and put $110 in Candice and Krystin's envelopes, and $65 in Farah's. The cards all say "Happy Holidays from the 3's!"
Sadie and I got cinnamon rolls baked (you put enough cheese sticks in that child and she'll calm down and do anything), so we're sticking some of those in with our holiday cards tomorrow morning. Hope you'll add a card or something too! :)

Holiday Gifts Update

So far I have three large baskets ($22 from Michael's craft store), and three poinsettia plants ($18 from Stop and Shop). There's more room in the basket on the left than shows in the picture! Please feel free to add something personal (card, goodies, whatever) from your family to the baskets on Tuesday morning.

Our total gift fund for our teachers is $300, minus $40 for the baskets and plants, so we have $260 to work with.

I'll head over to the bank on Monday and get some nice crisp new bills -- $100 each for Krystin and Candace, and $60 for Farah to tuck inside the cards from the class.

I haven't passed on our contribution to the parent committee yet as I haven't heard back from them on whom I'm supposed to give it to -- will keep you posted on that.

Fall Fund Update

Fall Gift fund total so far: $312 (for Krystin, Candace and Farah, plus the class contribution to the parent fund for Miss Marta and the other staff). For our three, that works out to $120 each for Krystin and Candace, and $60 for Farah, and $12 to give to the overall fund.

Class slush fund: $44

Anyone who hasn't contributed and would like to, please tuck your contribution in the manila envelope in Sadie's mailbox in the room. What do you all think about aiming for giving the gifts on Pajama Party Day -- the last Tuesday before the vacation? If you think that day will be too crazy, maybe we could shoot for that Wednesday? To make this as easy as possible, I'm thinking about putting baskets or gift bags for each of them on top of the cubbies with the envelope and note saying it is from the class, maybe a plant also? If you'd like to tuck a personal card or note in for each of them, please do so (or cookies, a picture from your child, or whatever else you want to manage ... I'm going to aim for baking something but it depends on how crazy life is).

Any other ideas that sound better? I'm up for just about anything that's relatively easy and nice for them.