Dear Family,

Welcome back to school and Happy New Year! I want to thank all of you for your generous donations to our food and toy drives. The Student Council set a goal of collecting one food item per student (476 total). We received more than 600 food contributions! And they also collected more than 200 toys--that's more than double their goal of 100!

After a lovely break, we are back in full swing. This Friday, January 14, is a professional development day for our district's teachers. We will focus on technology integration and building our classroom websites. In addition, teachers will work on writing curriculum instruction for their grade levels. These are very valuable days for our staff to collaborate and make our school even better!

Please save the date for another valuable event, the Lawrence Hall of Science's Art of Math program. It's happening in the multi-purpose room on Thursday, January 27. Students will work their way through a series of interactive stations, such as Quilt-O-Rama and Kaleidoscope makers, that intertwine art and math concepts. The program is geared to students in kindergarten through fifth grade. I hope you'll join us for this fun, engaging evening!

If you purchased or received new electronics over the holidays and need to get rid of old ones, bring them to our Green Team's E-Waste Drive on Saturday, January 29. (see the Green Team's article for more details). It's a great way to declutter your home or office for the New Year, protect our environment and raise money for our school.

Finally, if you resolved to make your life easier in 2011, I encourage you to bookmark ednamaguire.org. Doing so will provide you with easy access to all the latest school-related information and news--at your convenience.

Best to you,

Lisa Zimmer

Posted by Dorothy Odonnell on January 11