Rushwood PTA Newsletter

1. Rushwood PTA Newsletter: Issue Four, December 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 Third Vice President Allison Graceffo 216-225-8193 Amgraceffo@yahoo.com Treasurer Andrea Stamp 216-316-9875 astamp75@me.com Recording Secretary Cathy Pendleton 216-215-2041 cathypendleton26@yahoo President’s Message Dear Rushwood Families I cannot believe December is here already, and our Rushwood PTA is busy planning lots of fun activities for our students. First, the second annual Nordonia Winter Festival is Saturday, December 14th . This will include all schools participating in different events to celebrate the talents of our Nordonia students. Our own Rushwood 4th graders will be performing at 10:00am in the auditorium. And please stop by the Rushwood PTA booth where we will offer custom made souvenir Winterfest T-shirts and snack goodie bags! Our PTA is also sponsoring our own Rushwood Holiday Shop for our students on December 13th , Our students look so forward to this event every year. And we are bringing back COSI to Rushwood on Thursday, December 19thth. This is a wonderful, traveling, hands-on science exhibit that our students get to participate in throughout the day. We would not be able to continue these great programs without your dedicated support through out the year, so a big thank you to all our parents for supporting Rushwood PTA. Speaking of that support, included in this communication folder are nomination forms for our Helping Hands and Educator of the Year Awards . Please take the time to fill out these forms to nominate a well deserved volunteer and teacher for this year. We will be voting on them at our Jan. 8th , 2014 meeting. Finally, I wish all of our Rushwood Families a very happy and healthy holiday season! With sincere appreciation, Renee Piper, PTA President

2. Rushwood PTA Newsletter: Issue Five, January 2013 Important Items and Events Student Leadership Team News Our Rushwood Student Leaders showed their caring spirits as they brought some much welcomed holiday cheer to the residents at Elmcroft, Northfield Retirement Village, and Brentwood Senior Living Facilities in December. They sang Christmas carols, read holiday stories and shared cards and conversation. We are so proud of these children! Our next meeting will be after school at Rushwood on January 16th. Our Student Leaders also wish to thank our Rushwood families for your generous support of our Personal Hygiene Items Drive for the Emergency Assistance Center. We filled the backs of two vans with all of the items we collected and EAC director, Joyce Hunt, was overwhelmed by your generosity. We are looking forward to more service projects this spring! Scholastic Book Fair Rushwood PTA is very pleased to bring the Scholastic Book Fair back to you and your children during the week of February 4-8th, This year’s theme is “Story Laboratory…Reading Gives You Super Power”. If you are interested in volunteering for this year’s book fair, please contact Chrisy Siewert at siewertc@me.com or at 216-408-9972. More information will be coming home soon. Race for Education The race is on! We are in the early stages of planning for our second School Wide Race for Education on May 3rd, 2013. In early March, the first information will come home with your child regarding our school’s participation in this exciting event! Thanks to Lisa Kellerman, TriciaWozniak, Valerie Rice, Andrea Stamp, Jennifer Toronski, and Dr. O’Connor for participating on our planning committee. If you would like to volunteer on race day or for other volunteer needs leading up to the race, please email Lisa at RW.PTA@Nordoniaschools.org or Christy Siewert at siewertc@me.com.

3. Rushwood PTA Newsletter: Issue Four, December 2013 Important Upcoming Events School Activities and Events Rushwood PTA Holiday Shop On Friday, December 13th, our PTA will be having their annual student Holiday Shop. This event grants students the exciting opportunity to choose 2 items for their loved ones, as well as wrap and tag them! This is a FREE event so many gifts are donated by our very generous Rushwood community and 900 are needed to ensure every little shopper receives 2 gifts to select. So please take a moment to see if there is anything you can pass on to our “elves” so we can continue this heartwarming student shopping experience. And extra elves are also needed to work our shop. Hours are from 9:00-2:00. The students will be shopping during their recess time. Thank you , as always , for your support! If you can come in at anytime or can donate gift items , please contact: Tammy Guy @ 330-748-4819 or tammyguy@yahoo.com or Linda Imrie @ 330-468-8751 or samloubob2yahoo.com Kalahari Time for Rushwood! Once again Rushwood has reserved rooms at Kalahari resort in Sandusky for some warm water fun! Kalahari has reserved a block of rooms at a great rate of only $119 for Thursday, January 16th(no school Friday, the 17th!). This price includes 4 waterpark passes good until 3:00 the day of check out. This price does not include taxes and other charges. Please do not take your children out of school to attend – they will have plenty of time to enjoy themselves if you leave right after school. Please make your reservations on or before December 17th to guarantee this low rate! You can also ask about other room rates and accommodations. Rushwood will also receive a $10 donation for every room booked! Please call Kalahari at 1-877-KALAHARI (1-877-525-2427) to make your reservations. Please request Rushwood Elementary Room Block when making your reservations. Any other questions? Please contact Renee Piper at 216-577-5644 or DRJTPIPER@AOL.COM. Hope to see you there!!

4. Rushwood PTA Newsletter: Issue Four, December 2013 Volunteering Volunteer News Included in this newsletter is a nomination form for our PTA Helping Hands Award. Can you think of member of our PTA that you feel goes above and beyond helping support our PTA and volunteering their precious time to our school? If you would like that person to be recognized for our 2013-2014 Helping Hand Award , please take a few moments to complete the attached nomination form and return back to school right after our winter break, which would be January 6th, 2014, so we can vote on our nominations at our Wednesday, January 8th meeting. Or you can email any nominations to me, Renee Piper at DRJTPIPER@aol.com and I will be sure to submit your nomination at that meeting. Also attached is the 2013-2014 Rushwood Educator of the Year Award . Do you want to nominate one of our amazing teachers for this honor ? Again, please complete the attached form and send back to school by Jan. 6th or again, you can email me any nominations for Educator of the Year. I feel we have so many deserving people for both of these honors that I don’t know where to begin. So please help our PTA select our deserving recipients. Thank you in advance for your time in submitting your admissions. COSI is coming! Rushwood is happy to present to our students COSI on Wheels on Thursday, December 19th! COSI on Wheels is a high energy assembly program that includes a full day of interactive, hands-on activities. This year’s program is Investigating Energy! As in the past – we are in need of volunteers to help with this great event and assist our students with the stations and their activities. If you can volunteer your time – it would be greatly appreciated! Please keep in mind any family members that may be home from college or grandparents visiting for the holidays! I promise everyone will have fun! If you can help us out – please contact Kim Brown at 330-908-3125 or email at kimbar34@yahoo.com

5. Rushwood PTA Newsletter: Issue Four, December 2012 Fundraising Fundraising News RACE FOR EDUCATION PLANNING SET TO BEGIN! In May , 2011, Rushwood families helped our school raise nearly $30,000 in our first ever Race for Education! As a result of this amazing fundraising event, sponsored by Rushwood PTA , we were able to place Smartboard technology in every classroom in our building. In May, 2013, we will hold our 2nd Race For Education to bring more educational enhancements to our school. If you are interested in being a part of this great event as a member of the planning committee, please contact Race For Education Chair, Chrisy Siewert at siewertc@me.com or 216-408-9972. Our first planning meeting will be held on December 4th. Keep watching the newsletter and your PTA Folders for more information about Race For Education coming soon! More Fun-draising! I just wanted to update our families on our recent fundraisers. Thank you for buying our Entertainment Books in September. We earned over $5700 from the sale! Thanks again for your purchases! Also thank you for ordering Pizza during our Marco’s Pizza Night Sales! What an easy way to order pizza during your busy week for dinner and help us earn money for our PTA. Mrs. Glorioso and Mrs. Goodson’s class both won Pizza Party’s with their class participation for each night . The next Marco’s Pizza Night for Rushwood is Thursday, December 20th.

6. Rushwood PTA Newsletter: Issue Four, December 2013 Fundraising Market Day December is Market Day Cookie Month! If our school sells just 100 boxes of Market Day cookie dough, Rushwood will make an extra $435 profit on top of the regular Market Day grocery earnings! Market Day cookie dough is delicious and conveniently pre-scooped and divided for easy baking. The pre-cut holiday sugar cookie shapes are my favorite! (rolling cookie dough out is over rated – am I right???) And I love ordering the yummy appetizers to have on hand for holiday celebrating! To encourage reaching this goal, PTA sent home a Ginger Bread Market Day flyer to decorate. The Cluster with the most turned in will receive a PJ/cookies and milk party on Jan. 16th provided by Market Day . Also, PTA is asking if you could also please send in at least a $1 to add to our “Cookie Dough jar” to be able to purchase cookies for our Rushwood families in need for the holidays. Please return Ginger Bread sheets and your donations by Friday, Dec. 6th. Please place your orders by Dec. 7th By going to www.marketday.com and use account #14025. Market Day Nov. Pie Month We wanted to send a HUGE thank you for your support for last month’s Bonus Pie Month! Rushwood had a profit of almost $1000 ! And our grand prize seller was AGAIN second grade student Alexis Barnes who sold a total of 65pies! Alexis received a $50 gift card to Cinemark! Also, a huge thank you goes out to our other top sellers: Mark Hupecy who sold 18 pies – he received a $25 gift card to Target – and Taylor Piper and the Morabito Family each received a $10 gift card for each selling 8 pies. We also had so many volunteers that helped out the day of our sale – we were all pitching in and setting up - it was a huge accomplishment, but it all went so easy and smoothly , we deeply appreciate everyone’s help!

7. Box Tops and Labels We are ALWAYS collecting Box Tops for Education, Campbell Soup Labels and Tyson Labels. This school year, we will be rewarding the class that turns in the most with a pizza party at the end of each quarter/grading period. This is instead of the erasers from last year. The first winning class this year was Mrs. Soukup’sKindergartenclass! Congratulations and keep them coming in. Please be sure to include your child’s name and grade and teacher on each sheet or bag you turn in so that class gets the credit they deserve. Thanks again for your continued support with this program! Save the Date! Rushwood Family Fun Night is planned again this year for Thursday, February 13thfrom 6-9pm at Fun and Stuff in Macedonia. (No school Friday, Feb. 14th!) Wristbands will again be $10 per person - $15 at the door. Fun was had by all the past few years and we look forward to another great night! More information to come in January! Other Information Yearbook Contest Thank you to all the students who submitted their entries for the Rushwood Yearbook Cover. We received some great art work! Entries will be judged by our Rushwood Staff. Winners from each grade level will receive a free year book. This year’s theme was The Best Thinks About Rushwood! Spiritwear Orders Thank you for ordering your Spritwear . We received over 100 order forms! That is great! The merchandise is being processed – and will be in within the next couple of weeks. You will be notified when it comes in for those who asked to be able to pick up your orders. Thanks for your spirit!