Book Fair Update - Used Books Wanted

Used Book Donations for Book Fair

We are in need of your used books to sell at the King School Used Book Fair.

We accept toddler, children, young adult and adult books...both fiction and non-fiction. DVDs, VHS tapes, & CDs are accepted too. Please do NOT send in any text books or magazines. Please also do not send any books that have sustained water damage or mold.

USED BOOK DONATIONS will be accepted Monday, March 3 - Wednesday, March 12.

Books may be sent to school with your child OR you may drop them off in the "Used Books" boxes by the school office and front door.

King School's Scholastic & Used Book Fairs will be held on...

Thursday, March 13th 3:30 p.m. - 8:00 p.m.

Friday, March 14th 8:00 a.m. - 10:00 a.m.

THANK YOU! We look forward to seeing you at the Book Fairs!

Please contact Susan Gechter (susbg@comcast.net) or Diane Alson (alsondia@yahoo.com) with any questions you might have.

Parent Orientation at Clague

An orientation meeting for next year's 6th grade Clague parents will be held at Clague Middle School on March 6 from 6 - 8 PM. If you have questions, please call Clague at 994-1976.

MLK website updated - news headlines and calendar

In an effort to give parents easier access to the most important information about school, the MLK website has been updated so that:

1. Headlines from the MLK News blog show up automatically on the front page of the MLK site.
2. There is a new calendar page that will be updated regularly with all MLK Events. We hope it will be useful.

If you have further suggestions, feel free to share them.

Kindergarten Round Up Info

Prospective MLK School parents are invited to our annual Kindergarten Round Up presentation on February 20 from 6 - 7 PM. During the presentation, parents will receive information about:

• Kindergarten registration for the 2008-09 school year
• The Half-day Kindergarten and Extended Day Option (EDO) Kindergarten at MLK
• The Ann Arbor Public Schools Kindergarten curriculum

If you need FREE childcare during Round Up, please call 994-4485 to register. The childcare is sponsored by the MLK PTO and the KingCare childcare program.

After Round Up, families are invited back to MLK with children to several school events to help your child continue their transition to MLK School--and to showing their MLK PRIDE! Dates include:

• Thursday, March 13 from 4 - 8:30 PM for the MLK PTO Book Fair in the multi-purpose room
• Friday, April 18 from 6 - 8 PM for the PTO Silent Auction
  
• Thursday, April 24 at 7PM for a concert from the 2007-08 Kindergarten students in the multi-purpose room followed by an Open House in the Kindergarten classrooms with the Kindergarten teachers
• Friday, May 16 from 8 - 9:15 AM for Bagels and Buns Breakfast, a monthly MLK community event in the multi-purpose room
• Friday June 6 from 6:30 - 8:30 PM for the MLK Ice Cream Social on the MLK playground

We're looking forward to seeing you at Kindergarten Round Up 2008! If you have any questions, please call us at 994-1940.

Science Olympiad Parent Meeting & Registration

Submitted by Amy Cell

We are having a parent meeting to discuss Science Olympiad, answer questions and to distribute coach information this Thursday, February 21 at the school in the library at 7:30pm.

Registration is still open, too: Do you have a child in 2nd-5th grade? Do you want your child to participate in a fun and educational experience? If the answers to those questions are yes, be sure to sign up now for the Washtenaw Elementary Science Olympiad! Read all about the details of this fabulous event - the biggest in the country - athttp://www.aaps.k12.mi.us/wesowizards.home/events_2008

To register, you will need to complete a registration form for each child at the following link by February 20. Practices will start in March, and the practice dates and times during the week are listed below and on the registration form at the attached link. (Note that there are new practice times for Science Jeopardy and Wright Stuff. Practice times listed below are correct.) All students are welcome to join where they can attend multiple practices, order a t-shirt, receive a medal and participate in Science Night! (There will be 20 students per grade that will represent King on May 3rd at a competition with around 20 other schools. Additional parent meetings will be scheduled in March to explain more about WESO and the selection process. Children of volunteer coaches and committee members get priority to participate in the event on May 3rd - contact Amy Cell atAmyECell@yahoo.com to volunteer!)

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=x8_2bvnqDpV8qcLYDgFd65Aw_3d_3d

Boatmania	Monday after school (3:30-4:30)
Barge Building	Wednesday evening
Circuit Wizardry	Thursday 6:30-7:30
Estimania	requ
Map Reading	Wednesday evening
Mystery Architecture	Tuesday after school
No Bones About It	Tuesday evening
Pentathlon (spectators)	Monday evening
Puff Mobiles (spectators)	Monday after school
Rock Hunter	Wednesday 6:30-7:30
Science Jeopardy	Wednesday 5:30-6:30
Sink or Float	Monday 7:30-8
Straw Tower	Wednesday after school
Water Rockets (spectators)	Wednesday evening
What Went By?	Friday evening
Wright Stuff	Monday 6:30-7:30
Write It, Build It	Friday after school

If you have any questions, feel free to contact AnnMarie Sastry or Amy Cell.

Green Team Update

by Linda M. Ryan, landscape chair

To the Parents:

As you may recall, every student at King Elementary School is called to serve on the Green Team. Being on the Green Team initially meant keeping King School clean and litter free. Good, clean, responsible fun, right? Yes! Well, the Green Team met their goal to keep King grounds clean for a month right before winter break, and everyone went home with a green pencil as a reward!

The 4th grade girls in Mrs. Knorr's class who have chaired this Team, namely Zoe Zimmerman and Michi Ota can't rest with just this monumental task completed. They have forged ahead with additional ways to help the environment. They needed help to do this, so Laura Hanselman and Christine Jahn have joined in on the leadership. They have made initial plans to ask the students at King to do 5 or 6 tasks at home. They will present one task per week through the end of March. The tasks include turning down the thermostat, carpooling more often, changing light bulbs to fluorescent bulbs, reusing paper, and cutting back on junk mail. The challenges aren't meant to be burdensome, just practical and "green!"

Watch your e-notes for each new task. Point it out to your child, if you can. Also take a look at the green posters in the halls for encouragement. We will be taking anonymous surveys to measure our change in environmental savvy and willingness to become more "green!"

To the Students at King:

Challenge #1 Cutting back on JUNK MAIL!

Is your mailbox filled with more catalogs than personal mail? Do you often see lots those same catalogs piling up in your recycling bin? Well, if you want to get rid of that junk, then go to www.catalogchoice.org.

Follow their directions, saving the backs of the catalogs to remove each catalog company by name. In a month or so, those catalogs will be out of your waste bins and back at the factory!

The Book Fairs Are Almost Here!

From Susan Gechter & Diane Alson

We have a lot of information to share with you regarding King School's upcoming Scholastic Book Fair & Used Book Fair.

We will be collecting used booksMonday, March 3^rd through Wednesday, March 12^th. There are two ways you can drop off your donated books. You may send your donated books with your children to school to drop off in their classroom collection OR you may also drop off your used book donations in the boxes by the school office or the front entrance. This year we will be counting the total number of books donated by the entire school.

A reminder to students who are making "Take a Reading Road Trip" posters for the Book Fairs. Posters are due Monday, March 3^rd. Flyers were sent home last Friday about making posters. Those students who turn in a poster by March 3^rd will receive two coupons for two free used books from the King School Used Book Fair.

King School's Scholastic Book Fair & Used Book Fair will be located in the Multi-Purpose Room. King families and the community are welcome to shop on:

Thursday, March 13^th 3:30 p.m. - 8:00 p.m.

Friday, March 14^th 8:00 a.m. - 10:00 a.m.

***Cash and checks will be accepted at both book fairs. Additionally, credit cards will be accepted but ONLY for Scholastic book purchases.***

Families should look for the Classroom Wish List Board when shopping at the King School Book Fairs. The Classroom Wish Lists will be located on the wall as you walk onto the stage for the Scholastic Book Fair. Look for the envelope with your teacher's name. In it will be a variety of books that he/she is wishing to be added to his/her classroom library.

We can't wait for you to join us on a Reading Road Trip!

Questions? Contact Susan Gechter (susbg@comcast.net) or Diane Alson (alsondia@yahoo.com).

Meat Recall FYI

Dear AAPS Parents and Guardians,

This past weekend the USDA issued a recall on meat products that were distributed as a commodity item through the United States Department of Education’s school lunch program.

The Ann Arbor Public Schools does have some of this meat product (beef patties and taco meat) in our possession but it has never been served to any student in this district.

On January 30th the USDA informed food service providers across the nation, including Chartwells the AAPS food service provider, to place a hold on this meat. Immediately Chartwells employees marked the meat “DO NOT USE” and stored it in freezers until further notification. With the recall issue this weekend the meat will now be gathered and placed in a separate freezer away from all schools until the supplier picks it up for disposal. Since this meat was a commodity product many districts across the nation have some supply of the product.

The safety of our students is our number one priority. Chartwells is in full compliance with government safety and sanitation codes and regulations as well as local health codes. In addition Chartwells practices a sophisticated food safety, sanitation and Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point program that assures quality service. Chartwells will continue to monitor the situation for any further instructions from the USDA.

For further information you may refer to the release from the Secretary of the USDA concerning this recall: http://www.fsis.usda.gov/PDF/Recall_005-2008_Release.pdf.

Sincerely,

J. Todd Roberts, Ed.D
Superintendent

International Night a HUGE Success!

Thanks to everyone in the King Community for making International Night such a great success (again)!

The snow held off, 1000 or so people ate an incredible gourmet meal, 300+ kids learned and performed 24 music/dance/martial arts acts representing 20 cultures from around the world, the technical and logistical details held together, everyone pitched in and helped where needed, and we even finished 4 minutes ahead of schedule! It was crowded and hot and chaotic and wonderful, but I hope you all felt it was worth it. We will see the real results in the weeks and months to come in terms of individual growth, school spirit, and community pride. (Did you notice how many middle school alums chose to come back for this event?)

Thanks to our approximately 200 volunteers for working all year to make this event a great success. I want to take a moment to thank all our committee chairs and team leaders, without whom we could not have accomplished what we have accomplished for our children and our school:

Queen of the Feast: Lisa Kohn (3)

Tech Team Leader: Kun Yang (4)

Security and Parking Czar: Carl Ryan (2)

Stage Managers: Sujata Shetty (3), Wayne Millette (2, 4), Lingzhi Chen (2, 4), Maneesha Gulati (3)

Music Maestro: Mrs. Barb Vanek and Mr. Vanek too

Special Guest Pianist: Corky Landes

Display Divas: Padma Anupindi (1), Sandra Wong (1)

Stage Decoration Team: Hiroe Peterson (1), Margot and Hao Hao Wang Pontius (alums)

Red Envelope Team: Lei Ding (4), Yu Tang (4), Lingzhi Chen (2, 4)

Photographers: Mauricio Moeller (3), Thomas Kanjirath (3), Chung Choi (4), Randy Karr (Mr. Karr's Dad!)

Drinks Sales: Mrs. Knorr, Mrs. Shafie, Mr. Petty, fourth grade families

Technical Advisors: Kaori Ohara (Angell School International Night Chair) and Linh Song (Mamnon Organization)

Custodians (please thank them when you see them): Greg Harris, Cliff Williams

Performance Team Leaders: Mrs. Jones, Mrs. Jarjoura, Lily Au, Stephanie Kearns, Yongchu Lee, Amy Meltzer, Zoe Koosis, Lei Ding, Donna Chen, Julie Li, Raphaela Luzio, Fu You-Yin, Sujata Shetty, Kirti Karia, Jon and Laurie Galia, Line and Michiel van Nieuwstadt, Yu Tang, Xuhong Cao, Heather Schweitzer, Ksenia Kosak, Eileen Rich, Anna Yan Yu, Padma Anupindi, Rachel Sabb, Sarah Liang, Jen-Hwen Wang, Mrs. Vanek

Dance, music, martial arts teachers: Mrs. Jones, Mrs. Vanek, Mrs. Jarjoura , Hiroko Ohsako, Noriko Miyaji, Kazuko Kawai, Stephanie Kearns, Katie Radoluvic (Clague), Percy Pryor (Clague), Julie Li (who came back from Shanghai to teach her students this dance!), John Sanderson, Raphaela Luzio, Amy Meltzer, Zoe Koosis, Aviva Gordon, Emily Gitlin, Li Ai, Jennifer and Jeffrey Pan (Greenhills), Kirti Karia, Sun Ok Kim, Jon Galia, Michiel van Nieuwstadt, Sarah Malick , Rec and Ed class teacher (sorry I didn't catch her name!)

Supporting Organizations: King PTO, King Care, Ann Arbor Public Schools Rec and Ed, Ann Arbor Chinese Center of Michigan, Ann Arbor Chinese Dancing School, Ann Hua Chinese School, Language Adventure, Ann Arbor Public Schools.

More thanks to our Special Guest Superintentent Todd Roberts,Principal Karr, Mrs. Greene, Ms. Basta, Ms. Houser, Mrs. Vanek, Mrs. Jarjoura, Mrs. Jones, Mrs. Knorr, Mrs. Shafie, Mr. Petty, Ms. Hughes, Ms. Wayne, Ms. Lake, King teachers and staff, fourth grade families, Greg Harris, Cliff Williams, King Care staff, King PTO Board and members, Maneesha Gulati, Alisha Fenty, Kea Berry, Camille Ziolek, Matt Schuster, Susan Aaronson, Laura Boudette, Cynthia Gur-Arie, Sassa Akervall, Lily Au, Linda Ryan, Susan Gechter, Melanie Snook, Laurie Barnett, Lola Killey, Beth Kelley, Corky Landes, Margot and Hao Hao Wang, and EVERYONE on the International Night Committee (sorry, too many names to list)!

And of course A BIG THANKS to all the performers, students, parents, teachers, families, and friends who helped with performances, posters, food, drinks, clean up, set up, security, parking, lunchtime enrichment, and of course attending! We could not have done it without you all.

As my four year old said at the end of the night, "We Rock!"

--Frances Kai-Hwa Wang, International Night Chair (Margot, Hao Hao, Niu Niu, Di Di's mom)

School Closed - February 1, 2008

The Ann Arbor Public Schools are closed on Friday, February 1 due to inclement weather.