Weekly Newsletter (December 16 – 20)

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Posted by MrLynch | Posted in Weekly Newsletter | Posted on December 15, 2013

I want to give a big thank you to everyone for all the help and support with our Holiday Project. So many people helped in a variety of ways – student donations for doing extra chores, family donations, business donations (both checks and gift cards), providing extra wrapping paper & tape, driving students to Walmart, driving gifts back to school, and wrapping gifts the next morning.
Through the checks that came in, I was able to buy a little over $100 in Walmart gift cards to use for our shopping spree. Including those, we had about $365 to spend on the two kids to buy essential items and also threw in a $50 gift card to each family (DeCapo’s Restaurant and Big Y), $10 for each to The Meat House, and a couple free ice creams each from Carvel.
Students received a lesson on the technical art of wrapping presents, both rectangular prisms and odd shapes, and they did a great job wrapping all of them up. Don’t let them try to convince you they can’t help you wrap presents from this point forward. They know how. Avon Social Services came by to pick up the gifts.
Each year, I learn new things when I take students on this shopping journey. Here’s what I learned this year:
1) Girls walk around Walmart quietly, as if they are trying to sneak up on a buffalo. Boys stampede through the aisles like they are buffalo.
2) If there is a giant, high-walled container of ridiculously sized plastic balls in the toy section, the boys will try to remove all of them.
3) You are bound to run into one cranky old Walmart employee who hates kids and will follow your groups around with a scanner – as if she hoped to zap them, making snarky comments every time they smile.
4) Once you choose the group that will pay at the checkout with the giant bag of quarters you collected, you have chosen the line where all the people behind that group will scowl.
5) The girls carts will be filled with pink, glittery dolls and such. The boys carts will be filled with things that can destroy or run over anything pink and glittery.

 
In summary, girls are far superior to boys when it comes to shopping. Shopping is embedded in their DNA Double Helix. They can smell out a clearance item from 80 yards, they will coordinate the colors of everything in the shopping cart, and they will spend almost every penny of the budgeted amount. Boys? Well, who else would discover that Aisle 7 makes a great football field?

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Upcoming Events

Winter Break – December 21 – January 1

Weekly Newsletter (December 9-13)

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Posted by MrLynch | Posted in Weekly Newsletter | Posted on December 7, 2013

We’re back to a full week, but we are also winding down the end of 2013. These are the last two weeks of school for 2013. It was great seeing all of you at parent/teacher conferences last week. Students have a math test on Tuesday. Unfortunately, I can’t offer an extra math review session on Tuesday morning (like I normally do before school on test days) because I have a meeting at the high school that morning. To compensate for this, I’ll offer more time in school for review than usual.

We are off to do a little shopping after school on Wednesday (optional) for our Holiday Project. Here’s the background: through Avon Social Services, we are sponsoring two children (an eight-year-old girl and a three-year-old girl) whose families are struggling a bit and could use a little boost this time of year. In class, we discussed needs (blankets, jackets, gloves, etc.) vs. wants (toys, books, music, etc.) and if possible we are going to try to fulfill both for these children. In addition to this being a great lesson in empathy, we’ll also twist it into a math lesson with budgeting and tax rates. Students were asked to come up with some jobs they could do around the house to earn a few dollars to collect for our shopping trip. We also worked on a script, researched local businesses, and started making calls last week asking for small donations as well. Students who wanted to make calls started doing this on Friday with my supervision.

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Upcoming Events

Holiday Project Shopping Excursion (after-school) – Wednesday, December 11, 2013

Winter Break – December 21 – January 1

Weekly Newsletter (December 2-6)

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Posted by MrLynch | Posted in Weekly Newsletter | Posted on December 1, 2013

We have half days on Thursday and Friday this week for Parent/Teacher conferences. Students were also introduced to the Holiday Project this week. I sent out an e-mail to all parents, but more details will follow on next  week’s newsletter.

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Upcoming Events

Parent/Teacher Conferences – Thursday, December 5 and Friday, December 6

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