When: Saturday Feb 11, 2012
Where: Ohrenberger Cafeteria
Time: 9:30-12:00 PM
Cost: $2/per child (pa with RSVP or at the door)

Please RSVP  by Friday Feb 3 through the flyer sent home.

Note to parents, this is not a drop-off event. All parents must accompany their children during this event.

The Beethoven School was featured on NECN today for the Patriots Rally and kick off of our Super Bowl Food Drive that runs January 23 through February 3. View the video.

While excitement builds for the Super Bowl on Feb 5, the Ohrenberger & Beethoven schools are hosting a food drive to collect canned or boxed, non-perishable foods for the Roslindale Food Pantry. Donations of food are gathered, organized and distributed by the Food Pantry to individuals and families in our neighborhoods. This annual food drive is a wonderful opportunity for our students to help those less fortunate in our community. Please bring your contributions to your homerooms 1/23 – 2/3/12.

Suggested items include:

• Canned tuna, chicken and other meats
• Canned soups or chili
• Plastic bottles or cans of 100% fruit juice
• Pasta, rice, or other grains
• Healthy cereal
• Dry or boxed shelf-stable milk
• Canned beans
• Peanut butter
• Canned vegetables

Please – no glass containers.

Mon, Jan. 23 –  Fri, Feb. 3: Superbowl Food Drive
Wed, Feb 8:  Next Parent Council Meeting
Sat, Feb 11: Arts & Crafts Day – Ohrenberger Cafeteria

Updates from Ms. Nash:

• School integration between the Beethoven and Ohrenberger Schools are entering the final phases which includes petitioning the state as a formality. Families are welcome to come to the meeting if they have questions. The meeting is on Wed, Jan 18th, 5:30pm
• Spring art show – Teachers are gearing up for the spring art show. Don’t be surprised if kids have 2 art classes in one week.
• Current Second graders and Third graders who will be moving to the Ohrenberger next school year will get a tour of the school in the upcoming months. As per other years, the kids will walk from the Beethoven to the Ohrenberger to play a game of basketball and receive a tour of the building. There will be a separate day set up for parents to come take a tour of the school if they are interested.
• Fundraising efforts are going extremely well. The school needs 100 folding chairs to replace the old chairs in the auditorium plus an amplifier.

Recap of Recent Events

Book Fair

• Recap: December’s Scholastic Book Fair was a success.
• Because we still had a decent amt of book rewards left over from this year we decided to go with an all cash profit.  We also earned extra book rewards on the side for sales growth

Winter outerwear exchange and drive

• Recap: the event was a success with multiple families taking advantage of the clothing exchange

Kids R Kids Promotion at the end of November did not raise as much money as last year

Promotion at Top It Off raised $38

Upcoming Events

Arts & Crafts Fun Day
Summary: Arts & Crafts Fun Day is a day where kids can create a symphony of arts & craft projects to share with someone special or keep for yourself. Flyers will be sent out the week of January 23.
Date: Saturday, February 11, 2012 from 9:30am-12:00pm at the Ohrenberger Cafeteria
Charge: $2 per child
Things needed: volunteers for the event
Contact: Cindy Ho at cindyho@rcn.com or 617-469-3595

Community Activities

Cathy Ware is personally doing a Cradles to Crayons collection. If you have stuff to donate you can contact Cathy via email. Here is a list of what Cradles to Crayons collects: http://cradlestocrayons.org/boston/donate-goods/items-we-accept

Food drive -  In conjunction with the Ohrenberger School, the Beethoven will have a food drive from Jan. 23 – Feb. 3 with a  “Superbowl” tackle hunger theme. Food will be donated to the Roslindale Food Pantry. Contacts are Gretchen Nash (Beethoven contact) & Amy Trueblood-Jensen (Ohrenberger contact). Gretchen will confirm that the Roslindale Food Pantry can handle the amount of food we get. Kids can make a quilt of cards where each quilt is a drawing about good nutrition. We may  do one flyer between the 2 schools. Kids can graph how much food coming in. Gretchen will find out where we will donate and put together something for teacher and list of what they need.

Spring clothes drive – Someone suggested doing a spring clothes drive as well

Toy Drive for Room to Grow - Contact: Magda Hernandez. Notes: No date yet for the event.

Pizzeria Unos Night – Michele Sarro suggested a “Unos Night” where on a particular day, Beethoven families can go there and Beethoven will get a cut of profit. Michele will find out more details.

Other
Beethoven Website – http://beethovenbps.wordpress.com/
Upcoming enhancements to the site: watch for an art gallery to be posted soon

Future Events
International Night – Date: Thursday before April’s spring break (4/12)
Teacher Appreciation Day (May) – Joan Chan will head up
Field Day (June)

Agenda:

-          Book Fair – Recap

-          Arts & Crafts Fun Day

-          Community Activities

o   Winter outerwear exchange and drive – recap

o   Canned food drive

o   Toy drive for Room to Grow

-          Cafeteria Upgrades

-          Fundraising Activities – Updates

-          Future Events

o     International Night (May)

o     Teacher Appreciation Day (May)

o     Field Day (June)

Mark your calendars! The next Parent Council meeting will be on Wednesday, January 11 from 6-7pm. As always, childcare will be provided.

Hope to see you there!

School resumes on Wednesday, January 4.

The students of the Ohrenberger and Beethoven Schools and their families are invited to take part in a sing-along during the tree lighting ceremony. The ceremony includes a visit from Santa Claus and kids can have their picture taken with Santa.

Meet at the Beethoven by 11:15AM and we’ll walk over to the event together. Hot beverages and snacks will be provided.

Mon., Dec. 12 – Fri., Dec. 16:      Scholastic Book Fair
Tuesday,  Dec. 13, 9:00am:         K1/K2 Holiday Show
Wednesday, Dec. 14, 9:00am:   Grade 1-3 Holiday Show

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Scholastic Book Fair

• Date of event: Dec.12- Dec.16 (week of holiday show)
• Summary of Event: the Annual Book Fair occurs in December. Students have the opportunity to bring in money and purchase books.  The school earns a combination of money and books based on total sales.
• Co-chairs: Beth Rimas, Kristin Macchi and Michele Sarro

Updates:

• Books have been set up thanks to the volunteers on Friday.
• We are all set on volunteers for this event.
• If you would like your child to buys books at the book fair, don’t forget to send your child to school with money on their designated day. The book fair will also be open immediately following the Holiday Shows on Tuesday and Wednesday for parents.
• Don’t forget to look for the table where you can purchase a book for your teacher! It will be near the double exit doors.

Winter outerwear exchange and drive

• Date: Friday 12/9 (passed)
• Summary: This outerwear exchange included boys and girls coats, scarves, hats. Everything left over will go to Cradles to Crayons

Canned food drive

• Dates: January or February
• Summary: A Canned food drive will be held in January or February together with Ohrenberger School. Gretchen suggested donating some of the food to a local food pantry such as the Roslindale Food Pantry or maybe split the food between the Greater Boston Food Bank and Roslindale Food Pantry. Gretchen can offered to be the contact with Roslindale Food Pantry.

Toy Drive for Room to Grow

• Dates: in the Spring
• Summary: We will be seeking new or good conditioned toys for the Room to Grow toy drive. This includes developmental toys for babies/toddlers, baby gear or any toy that you would deem fit for a friend. Room to Grow is a non- profit that is based in NY but has a Boston office. It targets families with kids 0-3 that are under privileged. Via this program families meet with social workers and receive goods from the Room to Grow program. They help 300 families per year.

Event/Fundraising Recaps  - overall efforts have been successful.

• November bake sale – raised over $500
• Movie Night
• 290 people attended the event
• Families were very generous with many drinks left over which can be used towards future   events
• Thanks to everyone who volunteered their time and donated food. Special thanks to Jill Maguire and Karen Kefalas for organizing this great event!
• “Our Parents Rock” Night
  • This event had a great turn out from parents of both the Beethoven and Ohrenberger schools
  • The raffles raised $4157 between Beethoven and Ohrenberger.
• Kids R Kids Promotion – Final amount raised from this event is still being determined.
• Closet clean-out sale –  raised $200
• Beethoven decals – sold $150
  • Discussed possibly changing the decals to be magnets or stickers so they don’t fall off the car as easily
• Sunny D labels – we collected zero Sunny D Labels
• Top It Off – promotion ended Saturday 12/10

Other Items

• Box Tops Fundraiser – The next and last shipment for the school year will be March 23rd.  It is sent twice per school year (October & March).  October’s shipment earned the school $300.
• Stop & Shop – people need to re-register their cards. As of now, we only have 40 families enrolled in the program! Forms went home with kids so you can enroll/re-enroll yourselves and friends and family.
• St. Stephen’s Church across the street from the school expressed interest in doing something with/for the school.
• Donor’s Choice – Donorschoice.org is an online charity that makes it easy to help students in need through school donations. Last year the school was successful in using Donor’s Choice for several of our teachers. This year, Ms. Mahoney and Ms. Shields has projects on Donor’s Choice.  Ms. Doughty will have hers up after the winter break.
• ACTION: Go to Donorchoice.org  and click on “projects”. Then in the left navigation bar, click on “districts” and choose “Suffolk”, then click on “Schools” and click on “Ludwig Beethoven Elem School”. This will bring up the projects for our school.

Updates from Ms. Nash

• On the wish list for Ms. Nash – new chairs for the auditorium. We need about 150 more chairs.
• This year we have budgeted buses for 1 field trip per grade. Anything beyond we’ll need additional funding

Communication Updates

• Suggestion box – We received handful of suggestions
• School directory – TBD
• Web site – Adrienne working with Mr. P to update site

Future Events

• Craft Fair (Feb)
• International Night (May)
• Teacher Appreciation Day (May)
• Field Day (June)

***Next parent council meeting date is TBD***

Agenda for December Parent Council Meeting:

• Book Fair (Kristin and Michele)
• Movie Night Recap (Jill and Karen)
• Holiday shopping events (Michele)
• Community Activities
• Winter outerwear exchange and drive (now)
• Canned food drive (after December break)
• Toy drive for Room to Grow (in the Spring)
• Cafeteria Upgrades (Monica)
• Communication Updates
• Suggestion box
• School directory
• Web site
• Fundraising Activities
• bake sale recap
• closet clean-out sale
• decals
• Sunny D labels
• Box Tops (boxtops4education)
• Stop & Shop
• growing local earning
• Future Events
• Craft Fair (Feb)
• International Night (May)
• Teacher Appreciation Day
• Field Day