November 19
Muskrat News
Upcoming events:
November 20 Giving Thanks Celebration 4-8pm
November 23 Next to last SCRIP order deadline before break
November 25&26 No school, Thanksgiving
December 2 ICP Board Meeting (everyone welcome) 7pm
From our Executive Director
This Saturday will be our Giving Thanks Celebration, taking place in the MCCS gym starting at 4:00 pm.
Thursday and Friday of next week is the Thanksgiving break. All of us here at Muddy Creek School wish good quality family time for you.
Next week’s LIFESKILL will be CURIOSITY. We define it as a desire to investigate and seek understanding of one’s world.
Curiosity and creativity go together. It helps students to learn and grow to have both creativity and curiosity encouraged by adults. Constant questions can become frustrating, but the ability and inclination to question is the beginning of intelligence and wisdom.
-Dan
Our Annual Giving Thanks Celebration
Is Saturday November 20th, 4-8pm. This is a family and community potluck event, so bring a dish to share (maybe instead of bringing a dessert, you can plan on buying a pie!) and your own place settings. There will be music, games and crafts for the kids. It is a great way to come together as a community and give thanks to all the people that make Muddy Creek such a special place.
We need pies!!! We will also be holding our very fun pie auction at the celebration. This was a big hit last year! All money raised from the pie auction will go towards supporting the wonderful music program here at MCCS. You can bring your pies to the celebration, or drop them off at school on Friday. Please let us know if you plan on bringing a pie on the bulletin board signup sheet.
We need help with set up, clean up, and face painting. A signup sheet is on the MCCS lobby bulletin board. We look forward to seeing everyone there!
The SCRIPS table will be set up at the celebration to help us in our fundraising efforts and help you with your holiday shopping!
If you have any questions, suggestions or would like to volunteer please contact Kerry Pfeil kerrypfeil@gmail.com /541-207-3562 or Terina McLachlain 8gr8kids@gmail.com /541-829-9847
Classroom News
Room 1 – We have been working really hard raking leaves and cleaning up the area around our bench. The students are learning to cooperate and work together to get the work done. Our buildings are also coming along. Our read aloud book right now is How to Eat Fried Worms. This has encouraged us to write recipes inspired by the book and we will be assembling a class recipe book. – Miss Bridget
Room 2 – Today, Room 2 Homeroom and Room 2 Math Group joined the KEZI Storm Tracker Network. We are recording the high and low temperatures for the day at the school and tracking precipitation. We send our weather report by email to the TV station. Each day, from Monday through Friday, KEZI picks schools from their Storm Tracker Network to feature in their evening weather reports. Who knows, maybe we will be on TV…
Our clay project last Friday was enormously fun. Shari Ame worked very hard to roll out clay and teach us slab building. Thank you, Shari! The clay houses that we built are beautiful. We will keep you updated on when the pieces have been fired and are ready for display.
Lots of children and families from our class have been ill…we hope you feel better and recover quickly. – Ms. Gorman
Kindergarten – On Tuesday the Kinders took the donated food to the Benton Co. Fairgrounds where they sorted and helped fill boxes for the Thanksgiving dinners. Everyone had a grand time, even the parents. The Holiday Food Drive is in its 30th year and last year delivered 14,000 boxes to the surrounding communities. Thank you for helping make this project a success.
Even though the weather is sending us inside, the window birdfeeders are pulling our attention outside. In the Kindergarten room we have just started our winter birding season. This year we will be charting the birds that we see and sending our information to Cornell University twice each month. If you would like to join in the bird gathering information, it is easy to sign up your home location. I will be placing information about the program on the table by the front door as soon as it arrives next week. All you need to do is slow down, open your eyes wide and look around you to see the vast variety of birds that visit the Willamette Valley. This is my twenty-second year of birding with children and their families. If you are interested in learning more about birding in and around Corvallis let me know, and I would be willing to fill my van and head out for a Saturday morning birding trip to Finley. – Miss Jenny
Room 4 – Parents of 4th/5th graders, please check your email for regular updates from me. It was just another, exciting, thrilling, super duper week in the 4/5 classroom. The students were introduced to the Recycling Project which involves helping the school recycle and compost better and after all the hard work of the week; we had a classroom party which was earned by good behavior -Mr. Day
A Note to All our Volunteers
We want to thank all the volunteers who help make our school great every day. If you volunteer, please remember to sign in and out at the office, this includes when you accompanying a class on a field trip. We keep track of our volunteer hours and present the total to the school board at the end of the year. The more volunteer hours we have, the better we appear to the Corvallis School District.
SCRIP
The holidays are quickly approaching, and we have two more SCRIP orders before the winter break, 11/23 (next week) and 12/6. The SCRIP table will also be at the Giving Thanks Celebration this Saturday if you would like to place an order and to answer any questions you may have. Please think about using SCRIP to purchase any gift cards you would give as holiday gifts and for yourself to buy gifts. Online merchants such as Amazon, LLBean, and REI are great places to use your scrip for gifts. The cards you buy through SCRIP are exactly the same as the cards you would purchase yourself at the store and the recipient uses them the same way. SCRIP is a GREAT fundraiser for MCCS — our current goal for the money we raise will be for a running track around the field. The next order deadline is Tuesday the 23rd because of the short week, and we will have someone at the table on that day. Please stop by to learn more and to place an order!
A Big Thanks To:
The PTO for purchasing the 50 Kazoos requested by our music program.
Wish Lists
There has been a request for donations of books about the wee folk of Faerie for our library.
Mr. Day’s classroom is also in need of kid-sized garden gloves, weeding tools and a watering can.
Ms. Gorman’s and Miss Bridget’s classrooms need a few items to help them with their outdoor activities. They are looking for donations of rakes, shovels, a wheelbarrow, kid-sized gloves, seeds, extra garden tools in general and fall bulbs (tulips, daffodils, crocuses, etc.). Anything you can spare would be greatly appreciated.