Farmland PTA

The April edition of the Farmland PTA “Harvest” Newsletter is now available for download.  Print it here: April Harvest Newsletter

Last chance to order your 2011-12 Farmland yearbook!  All orders MUST be in the PTA box in the main office this THURSDAY,  MARCH 29.  No late orders will be accepted. $33 payable to Farmland PTA.

Do you have great photos from school activities to share for the yearbook?  Please send them to farmlandphotos@gmail.com

Dana Hirsch, Yearbook Chair

Calling all young writers and artists! DEADLINE EXTENDED!

 We want your stories, your poems, or your drawings for the

 “Scarecrow’s Corner”

 Farmland’s annual arts magazine

All entries will be published 

Please follow these guidelines:

•  All entries should be on a single piece of unlined 8 1/2 x 11 white paper.
•  Stories or poems should be typed and no longer than one page.
•  Please use pen and ink in your artwork – this is not a color publication.
•  Please include your name, grade, and your teacher’s name as well as your work’s title on the work.
•  Please have an adult proofread and spell-check your work before submission.
•  NEW this year! Digital submission – scan your artwork and send as .jpg file, stories and poems can be send as .pdf or .doc file.
•  Turn your entries into the Scarecrow’s Box in the main office by Wednesday, March 28 or send via email by Saturday, April 7.

If you have any questions, please email Natalia Grishina at ntl.ntl@gmail.com

A special THANK YOU goes out to Jodi Rose, Robin Blackman and Peggy Ellett for the many hours of planning and preparation that resulted in an amazing Bingo Night for Farmland PTA!  It looks like we have far-surpassed our anticipated fundraising goals for this event, so thank you to all the families who came out and joined in the fun!

Bobby Epstein was a fantastic Bingo-Caller for the evening and kept the games fun and fast-moving. Special thanks goes to Matt Wellen of KAH for providing the bingo equipment and for serving as “Tech Support”.  This event happens only with the support of many generous volunteers who shared their time setting -up, cleaning-up, selling tickets, managing the prize table or collecting donations for the raffle.  Thank you to Steve Rose, Kim Dettelbach, Beth Blake, Kate Heald, Christina Dorrer, Karen Opdahl, Monique Anderson, Shannon Buskirk, Caroline Cooksey, Cara Schorr, Andrea Nadelman, Becky Hutton, Cheryl Hughes, Dori Morper, Carol Lange, Julie Yang, Lisa Garson and Maria Rouco!  Flippin’ Pizza donated a generous portion of the evening’s food and beverage sales to Farmland PTA.  We’d also like to thank the following community supporters of our Bingo Night:

• Kids After Hours, Lifetime Athletics, Bach To Rock, Amazing Arts Studio, Potomac River Running Company, Kindle and Boom Salon, Hard times Cafe, The Bottle Shop, Shadowland, California Tortilla, Regal Cinemas, Ben & Jerry’s, Elevation Burger, Zoe’s Kitchen, Brooklyn Deli, Cabin John Ice/ Montgomery Parks, California Pizza Kitchen, Cake Dreams, Bounce U, First Watch, Lebanese taverna, Toy Kingdom, The Mosquito Authority, Dr. Howard Budner, Silver Diner, Noodles and Company, Mamma Lucia’s  and Robek’s!

Many thanks to Shelly Lipton of Montgomery County Police Department for sharing some valuable information last night at the PTA meeting on Internet Safety.  I wanted to share some resources for parents who were unable to attend.  Cyber bullying and online predators are prevalent issues that parents should be aware of and while you might think elementary school-age children may be a bit young,  it is not too early to start the conversation with your children about safely navigating the virtual world.  Our kids in some ways are more savvy than we are… they are accessing technology and social networks via computers, cell phones, hand-held gaming devices and home game consoles.

• www.netsmartzkids.org  or www.netsmartz.org/Parents
• www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/info/cybersafety/
• www.commonsensemedia.org - Reviews of games, websites, media, books & more so parents can make informed decisions. Tools and advice to help teach kids to become responsible digital citizens.

Dori Morper,  Farmland PTA President

On behalf of Farmland PTA, a HUGE thank you goes out to all of the volunteers who helped make our 2012 Science Fair such a wonderful success!  The team was lead by our dedicated chairpersons, Caroline Cooksey, Lisa Peterson and Amy Chang who devoted many hours to the planning and preparation for the event.  Anne Constantino was a star in recruiting our many scientist reviewers:  Greg Agoston,  Eyal Amitai, Lakshmi Appalla, Geentanjali Agarwal, Yaniv Barad, Itsik Ben Dor, Michelle Chaikin, Denise Chambers, Eric Forsythe, Miriam Graham, Tom Jin, Renuka Limgala, Sujoy Lahiri, Dror Luger, David Mamagadze, Alexander Matschiner, Matt Nadelman, Lazaros Oraiopoulos, Weiming Ouyang, Yaron Rotman, Jodi Rose, Edina Rosta, Jeff Rabin, Marlene Skopec, Doug Stewart, Oren Shriki, James Warren, Mike Wagner, and Yan Zhang. We are so thankful to Tammy Sickels and Matt Wellen of KAH for the wonderful poster and help with set-up and clean-up.  Maria Rouco, Andrea Nadelman, Sari and Jess Tublin, Jay Matson, Jason Silberberg went above and beyond to help out throughout the evening  and Tim Jarmon of Farmland’s Building Services was unbelievable with the massive set-up and tear-down required!  A special thank you goes out to Bobbie Boland who made an extra effort to make sure we had plenty of tables available for the record-breaking number of student entries this year.  We had the pleasure of seeing some Farmland Alum’s come back and help out as well!  Thanks to Julie, Hannah, Dana, Carolyn, Samson, Stefan and Sam for your assistance!

It is because of these amazing people that we can produce such fun enrichment events for Farmland students.  Thank you for your continued support of PTA programs!

Dori Morper,  PTA President

Family Literacy Night  celebrating Dr. Seuss’ Birthday                                               

Thursday, March 1, 2012 at Farmland ES from 6:30 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.

Look out for an R.S.V.P. in your child’s back pack mail and RSVP to your child’s teacher by Friday, February 24, 2012. We hope you can come!

Families are invited to participate in an interactive, informative evening all about reading!  Some of the highlights will include seeing your favorite teacher dressed as book characters!  Some of the other fun will be:

• Playing games involving literacy skills for readers at all levels
• Fun with Mysteries
• Interacting with your child in fun ways to increase their comprehension
• Reading Trivia Game
• Puppetry, Speed Words & POW! Word game
• Dr. Seuss Room

*Book Swap*

Bring gently used books to school on 3/1/12. You will receive a ticket for each book brought.  Tickets will be redeemed at Literacy Night for another book.

Farmland was well represented in the 2011-2012 PTA Reflections program.  We had entries from the Visual Arts, Literature, Musical Composition, and Photography  categories supporting the theme, “Diversity Means…”.   It was amazing to see how the children took the theme and created such unique and beautiful projects.  We truly have a talented group of kids.

Thank you to all of this year’s participants and a special thank you to Sonya Karpishpan who judged the visual arts category.  Grades K-2 Participants:  Jessica Kim, Alex Morper, Carolyn Lee, Navya Shukla, Sakash Khanna, Tong-tong Ye, Shani Barad, Mridvika Sahni.  Grades 3-5 Participants:  Donna Mbulaiteye, Alexander Constantino, Chloe Leverson, Jessica Lee, Erin Forsythe, Emilia Ochoa.

The Montgomery County Council of PTAs recognized four students from Farmland:  Awards of Merit were announced for 4^th grader Alexander Constantino (Literature) and 5^th graders Emilia Ochoa (Photography) and Chloe Leverson (Musical Composition).  An Award of Excellence was announced for 1^st grader Tong-Tong Ye whose visual arts entry will be moving on to the Maryland state competition.  We wish her luck!  The County will be announcing the date for their awards ceremony soon and all participants will be recognized at Farmland at a future date.

Liz Leverson, Reflections Chairperson

Last Friday night over 200 Farmland kids and their families attended the 2012 Family Dance  sponsored by PTA and it was a HUGE success thanks to our amazing volunteers.  Special thanks to Lizzy Menard and Shannon Buskirk for planning this fun social event and leading our team of parent and student volunteers: Kristen Parker, Katherine Walsh, Rintaro Kato, Caroline Cooksey, Sam Cooksey, Andrea Nadelman, Liz Leverson, Andrea Leff, Denise Chambers, Dori Morper, Chris Menard, and Bill Buskirk.  A big thank you to Matt and Courtney from KAH who provided temporary tattoos!  Did we catch you doing the Electric Slide or the Cuban Shuffle? Check out the poster of photos from the event in the breezeway of the school.

On Thursday morning, Farmland students will have the opportunity to be dazzled by acrobatic stunts and feats of balance, flexibility, coordination and strength!

The Fabulous Chinese Acrobats give audiences an unforgettable experience.  The acrobats will be accompanied by an interpreter who enriches the performance with fascinating information about Chinese culture, customs, history and school life. These talented athletes tumble and flip, twist and bend in mesmerizing ways, demonstrating how practice, concentration and hard work turn their bodies into moving works of art. They skillfully balance or juggle items such as porcelain jars, silk umbrellas, tables or each other as they share this ancient and colorful art form.

With the continued support from you, the PTA is able to sponsor performances such as these.  If you have any interest in getting involved with the Cultural Arts program please contact Yvonne Levine at ylevine@verizon.net.