dec07-pg1

www.southmountain.somsd.k12.nj.us

south

mountain

dec

december calendar 1

WINTER FESTIVAL & HOLIDAY STORE

Saturday, December 1, 2007 11:00 am - 3:00 pm Celebrate the holiday season with us South Mountain School and bring your family and friends!!!

There is something for everyone so join us for some shopping & fun!!!

Gift wrap a Pair of Mittens or Hats for Donation

25

Christmas Day Happy New Year School Reopens!

School hours:

in this issue:

@ Presidents

PAGE

Full Sessions First Bell 8:40am

AM Kindergarten 8:40-11:30am

PM Kindergarten 12:30-3:15pm

Grades 1-5 8:40-3:15pm

4-hour Sessions First Bell 8:40am

AM Kindergarten 8:40-11:30am

PM Kindergarten 10:00-12:45pm

Grades 1-5 8:40-12:45pm

★★★FUN FOR KIDS★★★ Craft Projects Music w/ Marilyn Lehren & Her Band Magic Show Sign-a-long with Ms. Wiggins Face Painting Get Your Holiday Photo Taken

★★★COAT DRIVE★★★ Bring New or Slightly Used Coats in for the Coat Drive

★★★Cookie Bake Off ★★★ Yummy Sweets!!

★★★Bake Sale★★★ Main Dishes/Sides

School Closed till New Year!

2

★★★SHOPPING★★★ Handmade Jewelry Toys Holiday Giftware Candles Art & Frames Handmade Clothing Books Homemade Sweets Stationery Home Decorating Scrapbooking Gift Baskets Refreshments & Much More!!

24

Jan 1

Winter Festival & Holiday Store

Column Library News

# SOMEF 3 More Library News 3 OOPS!

$ Contact Info 4 Advertising

% Elementary School

Newsletters

5 Lunch Program 5 SoMo Merchandise

First Night 2008

A Night of New Year’s Eve Entertainment for the Whole Family Buttons for Maplewood/ South Orange First Night 2008 go on sale on December 1, 2007. For more information, visit www.firstnightmwso.org

There’s been a great number of parents signing up for the electronic PDF version of this newsletter.

Help us reduce the paper we use to print.

Sign up now and go green! Contact:

Enjoy the Holidays, and a Happy New Year!

SAVE our PLANET

Rhonda Johnson rjohn74077@aol.com

www.southmountain.somsd.k12.nj.us

south

mountain

12/07

superstar

merry christmas!! presidents column

page

@

Carlene Brumant & Sandi Brand PTA Co-Presidents

We hope that everyone had a very Happy Thanksgiving!

Now that we are getting into the holiday spirit, mark your calendars for our Winter Festival and Holiday Store on Saturday, December 1 starting at 11:00. It will once again feature fun crafts, lots of music, tasty treats, boutique shopping and our very own cookie bake off. Thanks to the many volunteers that for all of their hard work to plan this event.

library news

Now that winter is upon us the possibility of school closings or emergency closings are here. We will be using the district’s Call ‘em All system to let our parents know when school will be closed. We will use the system for a delayed opening as well. The PTA will activate the phone chain should the school close early due to the weather. The district’s system is only able to call one phone number. In the case of an unexpected, early dismissal we want to be sure that every child returns home safely. That being said, please make sure that we have your current home, work and cell phone numbers on file.

feature: battle of the books

“Battle of the Books” is returning to South Mountain! The Battle of the Books program, which was successfully reinstated with last year’s 5th graders, will be expanding this year to include grades 3-4 as well. It is a quiz bowl type program, pitting teams of students against their classmates to answer questions relating to the setting, plot, characters, etc, of books on a pre-selected list. Each grade has a cycle of approximate 6 weeks in which the Battle program will be conducted. Third grade will begin the cycle in January. The program will be explained to the students before it starts, and information will be published in the PTA newsletter as well as sent home with the students.

We are very happy to announce that new child friendly, furniture has been ordered for the library. Once that is delivered and in place, we will work on creating a warm, inviting environment for the kids to enjoy.

Lastly, we would like to say thank you to the members of our PTA Executive Board for all our volunteers for the many hours of that they have spent working on all of the fundraisers and events this first half of the year. We look forward to a fabulous 2007.

Enjoy your winter break and we wish everyone a very Happy New Year!!

Carlene & Sandi The emergency phone chain was tested on October 16th.

If you did not receive a call from one of your class parents, please contact Sandy Sandoli. ssandoli@comcast.net, 973-275-3856.

Also in January, the Six Flags Read to Succeed program will begin. Students who read recreationally for 6 hours during the program, and return a signed reading log by the announced deadline, will receiver a free child’s ticket to Six Flags. The program is expected to begin in early to midJanuary, and all forms must be in before the February break. Students cannot earn additional tickets by reading more than 6 hours. More information about this program, including specific starting and ending dates, will be in the January newsletter.

www.southmountain.somsd.k12.nj.us

south

mountain

12/07

superstar

page

#

SOMEF The South Orange-Mapleweed Education Foundation

Directory Corrections

----OOPS!

Thank you for your understanding; please forward any other requests for correction to:

There were a few errors in the South Mountain Directory.

Please make note of the following few changes and update them if need be.

Rhonda Johnson rjohn74077@aol.com

box tops:

Please keep bringing in those Box Tops!

The correct phone number for Longreth in Mrs. Murray’s 1st grade is 761-4951.

Kindergartners T. Thibodeau and A. Stephan, have not joined Mrs. Simon’s 5th grade, but will remain in Ms. Soriano’s am class.

The library has recent purchased 35 audio books to correspond with the books read each year in the classroom for either small group novel studies, or class-wide instruction. This purchase more than doubles the size of our audiobook collection. The new audiobooks are mostly on CD, with a few in audiocassette format. A list of the items in our current audiobook collection can be found on the OPAC, our online public access catalog (aka the card catalog), now accessible from home: http://destiny.somsd.k12.nj.us > South Mountain > Catalog > Resource Lists > Public Lists > Audiobooks

New titles recently added include: several Beverly Cleary and Dr. Seuss titles; Cricket in Times Square; Tale of Despereaux; Bunnicula; Frindle; On My Honor; Artemis Fowl; Bud, Not Buddy; From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs Basil E Frankweiler; Lily’s Crossing; Number the Stars; Brian’s Winter; Because of Winn-Dixie; Maniac Magee; and Castle in the Attic. The audiobooks are available to teachers to supplement classroom libraries and in order to help differentiate instruction.

The library’s collection is now searchable from home! The district has recently switched over to a more userfriendly library catalog program. You can now search for books from home.

Students in grades 2-5 have been introduced to the new OPAC (online public access catalog) since the start of the school year. We can now see which school has an item we need, and usually borrow it from another school.

Visit http://destiny.somsd.k12.nj.us (no “www”), and click on the school’s name to search its collection. Please note that the entire collection is included, and as such, not everything listed is available for student checkout. ✪

OPAC

The South Orange-Maplewood Education Foundation (SOMEF) raises funds to support a wide range of programs in our schools every year, including the SOMEF Teacher Grants Program that has awarded $177,000 for almost 300 grants among all nine schools since 2000. Watch upcoming bulletins to find out about grants that will be awarded to South Mountain/ANNEX School for projects to be carried out this spring. The good news and the bad news is that SOMEF always receives more grant applications from teachers than it can fund. You can help SOMEF maximize its funding potential by going to www.somef.org between December 15th and January 31st to see which approved grant proposals are still waiting for funding through the “Late-Funding Initiative.”

Another way to support Teacher Grants, the ACHIEVE Volunteer Tutor Program, and all of SOMEF’s programs is by hosting or attending a party in connection with the 2008 SOMEF Night of 100 Dinners on January 26. For more information, go to the website or contact 100 Dinners Chair, Joy Markel at joy@joymarkel.com or 973-763-3267.

Volunteer tutors are still needed for the ACHIEVE Program this year. Adults and high school and college students may serve as tutors to students in the SO/M Schools who need extra help with their school work. No teaching experience is required. Just complete a registration process, attend a training workshop and make a commitment to work with a student in one of our schools for at least one-hour-per-week during the school year. To find out more about becoming an ACHIEVE tutor, please contact Lindsay Scott at achieveprogram@yahoo.com or 973-762-5600, ext. 1847.

more library news

www.southmountain.somsd.k12.nj.us

south

mountain

12/07

superstar

page

$

advertisement: advertisement:

www.hidef-av.com

audio

see what you’re missing.

video

home theater

CS M ART

2 01 . 25 9. 8 42 6

&

F RAM E

161 SPRING STREET MILLBURN, NJ 07041 • 201 - 486 - 5899 • CARYN@CSM - ART.COM

&

PA I N T I N G S P R I N TS PO S T E R S L I T H O G RAPH S COL L EG E A N T I Q U E P R I N TS P H OTO G RA PH Y S C U LT U R E M I RRO R S

C U STO M F RA M I N G CO RPO RAT E RE S I D E NT IA L CO NS U LT I NG A RT PLAC E M E NT I N STA L LAT I O NS M U RA L S ART ACC E S SO RI E S AP P RA I SA L S

SHOWROOM BY APPOINTMENT • ENDLESS POSSIBILITIES WITH ART

Give the gift of Knowledge this Holiday Season!

TURNOFF RETURNS Our third annual TV Turnoff Ultimate Challenge was a success!

More than 200 students signed up in October 2006, and over half of those completed the challenge in June. 126 students returned their forms indicating they had completed one of the three levels, and prizes were awarded during the last week of school. Due to the positive feedback we received, we will be having our 4th Ultimate Challenge beginning in October. More details will be in the November newsletter and pledge forms will be sent home in early October. Volunteers are needed to help with this year’s challenge...making copies of all the forms needed throughout the year, organizing lists of participants, creating a display of participants names, creating/organizing awards in June, etc.

If you can help, please contact Mrs Ng, the librarian, at sng@somsd.k12.nj.us as soon as possible.

Plans are in the works for another great reward in June for students who completed the Gold level (no tv/video games from Sunday night through Friday AM, ALL YEAR!).

Usborne Books offers an award-winning series of over 1400 titles, with a heavy emphasis on non-fiction.

Contact your local Usborne Books Representative Today!

Annélisa Blake-Wasden booksforkidz@myubah.com (973) 820-1267

View titles or shop on-line: www.ubah.com/K1923

contact info: South Mountain PTA Executive Board Co-Presidents Carlene Brumant (973) 761-7764 (973) 762-5333 Sandi Brand

Vice Presidents, Administration Rhonda Johnson (973) 762-2940 (973) 275-3856 Sandy Sandoli Vice Presidents, Fundraising Maria Shapiro (973) 761-4779 (973) 313-2296 Kara Erhamza Vice Presidents, Programming Lisa Nolet (973) 761-7531 (973) 763-8014 Letitia Campbell Treasurers Jill Johnson Louise Finkelman

(973) 378-3441 (973) 378-2313

Corresponding Secretary (973) 763-6905 Laura Reichgut Recording Secretary Mercinth Pearce

(973) 762-6889

www.southmountain.somsd.k12.nj.us

south

mountain

elementary school newsletters

dec 2007

After School Movies for elementary school kids (parents must stay) Dec 11 Disney’s Sky High 4 – 6 pm Sign up at Hilton Branch: 973762-1688

Needlecraft Club Grades 3 + up Monday, Dec. 10 3:30 – 4:15pm

Practice or learn to do all types of needlecraft, begin with knitting and crochet, and move on to needlepoint, embroidery, appliqué, cross stitch. Sign up at Main Library 973-762-1622 ext 5005

ADVERTISE

for $2.00 you can place an AD. (business card, birthday wishes, etc.)

Size: 2.75" x 1.75" For larger sizes and display ADs, please inquire. Submissions by email only.

Electronic PDF version will be in color.

Printed version will be B&W.

get involved: lunch program volunteer for crafts and games

South Mountain Merchandise Car Magnets $5.00 Water Bottles $3.00 South Mountain Tye-Dye T-shirts Youth XS,S,M,L

Adult S,M,L,XL South Mountain Tye-Dye Tank Tops Youth XS,S Adult South Mountain White Short Sleeve T-shirts Adult South Mountain White Long Sleeve T-shirts South Mountain Flannel Boxer Shorts Youth S,M,L

Name

%

The cold weather is almost here and we are busy putting together a great recess program for all the kids. This program can not be a success without YOUR help. We are looking for volunteers once a week, every other week or even once a month.

If you are flexible, you can even sign up to be a substitute. We have lots of suggestions for activities or share a special interest or talent of your own with the kids. The kids get really excited for the different activities and they love to see parents come and spend time with them during recess. The more volunteers we have for this program will help us to eliminate movies during recess.

Sign up to volunteer for one or both of the following lunch hours: 2nd/3rd grade lunch 11:15-12:15 or 4th/5th grade lunch 12:15-1:15

page

south mtn pta lunch program

Kids’ Programs at the Maplewood Library

Good Germs, Bad Germs: Health & Survival in a Bacterial World.

Thursday, December 6 7:30 pm in Memorial Hall With MRSA infection rates

climbing, people

want to know

what they can

do and what

the government

should be doing

to prevent the

spread of MRSA

and other

“supergerms.”

Guest speaker Jessica Snyder Sachs has argued that “good bacteria” are our staunchest defenders against infection, and that more careful use of antibiotics can help prevent “bad” bacteria from becoming unstoppable. She is the author of the new book Good Germs, Bad Germs: Health & Survival in a Bacterial World. Copies will be available for purchase.

12/07

superstar

$15.00 $15.00 $15.00 $ 5.00 $10.00 $12.00

Suggestions for activities: homework help, knitting, lanyard, BINGO, card games, crafts, theater games, scrap booking, jewelry making, chess, yoga, photography, journalism (student newsletter), dance, movement games (hopscotch, knock hockey, Chinese jump rope), origami.

Call: Sandi Brand 762-5333 (sandibrand@verizon.net), Amy Forman 763-5669 (amygarysamlily@aol.com) or Laura Reichgut 763-6905 (feissgut@yahoo.com) with any questions or to volunteer.

Teacher Phone/email

Please make check payable to: South Mountain PTA

Send your payment to the PTA via your child’s backpack in an envelope marked T-shirts.

Questions?

Contact Kara Erhamza 313-2296 or Maria Shapiro 761-4779

classifieds: Advertising Policy Deadline: the 15th of the prior month when you wish your AD to appear. South Mtn Families ONLY.

credits: Design William Kochi KODE Associates, Inc.

Printing Mary Jo DeFranco Signal Graphics