Henry David Thoreau Elementary

We have all groaned at our children’s corny jokes. But when children start exploring humor, a whole new set of skills are built. They boost their reading ability by learning new words and exploring their meaning. Here are some tips to take advantage of a child’s budding sense of humor.

* Tell knock-knock jokes.

These jokes play on the meanings of words. Start with a few at a time and let your youngster repeat them until she understands them. When your child tells the jokes a few times, she stretches her ability to understand how words can have several different meanings at once.

* Read funny poems and nonsense verse. Look for children’s poetry books by authors like Lear, Nash, and Silverstein. These types of poems are great vocabulary builders and fun to read.

* Share riddles and puns. By reading these short jokes over and over, your child will exercise her reading skills and boost her memory.

* Be a humorous role model. Let your youngster see how much you enjoy reading, sharing, and hearing funny things from television, radio, books and magazines.

WASL TESTING

Our 3^rd, 4^th, 5^th, and 6^th graders will be working on the WASL tests April 18 through May 6. Please do not schedule outside appointments during this time. Also, please remind your students to get a good night’s sleep and have a healthy breakfast before they come to school. Testing often begins first thing in the morning, please remind your students to arrive on time to get into their classrooms without feeling rushed or harried. Thank you for your help!

“THANK YOU PTA”

A great big “Thank you!” to our PTA for the donation to replenish and expand our playground equipment. We have a lot of finger grabbin’, hip swivellin’, foot skippin’, hoop tossin’ FUN on our playground, thanks to the new equipment PTA purchased for our students! Thank you!!!!!!!!

ALL-SCHOOL BARBECUE

Thoreau’s All-School Barbecue will take place during lunchtime on April 8. Please look for the flyer to come home and return the bottom portion of the flyer no later than April 5 if you can attend. Note: When filling in the “Number attending”, please do NOT count your students enrolled at Thoreau. We need only the number of parents, siblings, etc. who will be attending. Also, we will be entertained with blues music from the band “Free Reign”, lead by one of our own, Karl Larson, a parent at Thoreau. Please plan on joining the fun!

Check out our website for the latest information!

schools.lwsd.org/thoreau

PLAY STRUCTURES FOR OUR PLAYGROUND

As a result of the positive response from the playground survey sent out last fall, the playground committee and the PTA have been working diligently with the district to come up with a plan of action! This is very exciting but the price tag is heavy and this is only possible with your support!!!

The district will allow a 40'x40' area to be developed west of the existing play structures. This area can hold about 7 new play structures. The district has approved bounce buttons, a critter crossing, wobble wheels, cosmic warp, two babble on stations, lift me up, and a monorail. The area just to the south of this area will be a concrete pad with three new benches and engravable tiles. Pictures will be on the website soon, and also posted in the lobby, by the gym, and of course the flyers sent home. The goal is to be able to have this done Spring 2006. Together we can do it!!

TACO TIME

Brenda has sold about 150 coupon books and has about 150 more to sell. Yeah Brenda!!! This is a 100% fundraiser for our PTA. We get to keep all the money and the coupons cost us nothing. The coupon book is $1.00 and has a value of $5 in coupons. This money will go into our playground fund. Please send a note marked "attention Brenda Nunn”, or call her at 821-5054 if you wish to purchase coupon books.

OUR STUDENTS DO BENEFIT! - THANK YOU!

The district provides some funding for classroom support, but teachers end up having to purchase many needed items with their own money or students go without. Thanks to our PTA efforts and your contributions we are able to budget $6.00 per student to supplement each classroom, totaling about $2,000.00 for the year. Items are purchased according to the teacher’s requests. Some items already purchased this year are: a white board with erasers and pens, classroom chapter books, student planners, compasses, plastic food for kindergarten, spellcheckers, student dictionaries, clay pots, owl pellets, new set of jeweler’s loupes, felts, tissue paper, puzzle rack, and other misc. supplies! Thank you for continuing to enrich the student life at Thoreau!

CREATE A LASTING MEMORY

The PTA and the playground committee would like to invite you to join us in honoring Thoreau Elementary students, staff, and community supporters in their own "memory lane". One way we are fundraising for the additional proposed playground structures is by selling engravable tiles. These will be placed on a concrete pad just south of the additional play structures. The cost of a 6"x6" tile is $45.00 and the 12"x12" tile capable of a corporate logo is $250.00. There will be three commemorative benches that can be bought for $500.00. They each will have a 4"x6" brass plate that can be engraved. More information is available at school or you can call Polly Blanchard at 820-8909 polly@mccarthygmac.com, or Valerie Quinn at 398-7239 rvquinn@comcast.net.

KUDOS

Thank you to Mrs. Freese for teaching art classes this year! She taught students how to make clay pots, taught a drawing class, and a painting class. The classes were full and the students enjoyed them and made some outstanding projects!! Look for highlights from these classes in an Art Display at the Carnival, May 20!

STAFF APPRECIATION WEEK IS APRIL 4-8! !

Remember Staff Appreciation Week is April 4-8. There are still opportunities to help! Contact Kim Blackburn at (425) 821-2721.