AM Announcements - February 19

AM Announcements
February 19, 2009

1. Today is Day 106.

2. It is the mission of Speas Elementary School to provide its students with the tools necessary to successfully meet the challenges they will face in a diverse world.

3. Calendar items for this week:
Thursday: February 19
IEP Training - EC Staff

Friday: February 20

System-wide Spelling Bee - 10:00-12:00

Operations and School Board at Speas - 3:30

4. At the end of each day, please do the following:
a. CLOSE ALL BLINDS
b. TURN OFF ALL MONITORS and COMPUTERS (CPU's)

5.

6. Upcoming dates for your calendar:
a. February 23 - Interim Reports go home
b. February 24 - Technology Staff development
c. February 25 - Author Susan Crummel's visit - 8:15-9:00 - gym
d. February 25 - Jump Rope for Heart - 12:15

7. The Zone Choice period is February 23- March 6. Any parents wishing their children to remain at Speas do not have to do anything. The child will be automatically assigned to Speas. If they desire to switch to one of the other schools in Zone 5, they must request a Choice Card from our office. The out-of-zone transfer period will follow later in the spring.

8. If anyone asks you about registering for Kindergarten, remind them that beginning this year, children must turn five (5) on or before August 31.

9. If you haven't filled out your Art's Council Fund Drive pledge sheet, there is still time. 1005 only happens if each of you take it seriously and make even a small donation.

10.

11.

12. If you are interested in volunteering to work with small groups of tutoring students this Saturday from 8:30-11:30 please send a return e-mail. Our students would really appreciate it as would I.

13. No one is 100% certain of how it originated, but two stories in particular seem to capture some of the mystique surrounding these oddly humorous creations. The first is that folks of Appalachia kept their moonshine in jugs designed with scary faces to keep kids from sampling the jugs contents. (The face jug, different from the other jugs in the house served as an early child proof cap.) The second story has to do with devil jugs, or scary faces jugs with devil horns. The story is that these devil jugs originated in slave communities and when someone died, a devil jug was made and placed on the grave for one year. If the jug broke sometime during the year, it meant that the deceased was wrestling with the devil. (Reprinted from the website of Heather Quinn http://www.polesapartgifts.com/)

(North Carolina Face Jugs by Heather Gwynn)