Friday, November 4^th

Welcome to the rainy season! Please make sure your student(s) are appropriately dressed for the rainy and blustery weather. Write names inside jackets, sweaters, boots and sweatshirts as these items are often removed and rarely get returned due to a lack of names. And….if your child is in 3^rd grade or lower, please make sure they have a change of clothes with them throughout the winter and spring---it can get really muddy on the fields, and although we do our best to keep kids off the grassy areas, it can be difficult as mud has a particularly enticing quality for little kids. 

As we approach the holiday season, we will be collecting food for the Marin Food Bank. Thanks to Alise Perez’ efforts, we hope to have the entire school participate in filling up multiple barrels for the Food Bank. Dry goods and canned foods are what the Food Bank needs to share with those Marin families who need help feeding their loved ones. Please be generous---we expect to have the barrels delivered sometime next week and will probably be placing one in each commons room---that would be portable 3 and Room 24. In the past we have been able to collect more than 1000 pounds of food---let’s see if we can double that since we are such a much larger school than in the past.

Speaking of holidays…..School is not in session on Friday, November 11^th in order to honor our veterans. Willow Creek has the opportunity to honor veterans, and the Tuskegee Airmen in particular, by joining the Marin City Parade on Saturday, November 12^th. We will be marching, carrying a Willow Creek Banner and I welcome you all to participate. We will be gathering at the Recreation Center in Marin City between 10:30 and 11:00. The parade will start at 11. Participants can stay for a community barbecue as well as a viewing of Lucasfilms “Double Victory”. One can also just walk in the parade and leave when the parade is concluded. Please come and represent Willow Creek.

As many of you are aware, school will not be in session the week of November 21^st through 25^th to get ready for and then celebrate Thanksgiving.   We then return for three weeks of hard work prior to the big winter holiday, December 17^th through January 2, 2012.

We have almost concluded our first trimester of this school year. Procedures and routines appear to be solidly in place in all of our classes.   Students are working hard and hopefully this will be reflected in the report cards you will be receiving the first week in December. If you have concerns about your child’s progress, please take the time to meet with his/her teacher(s). It is important to catch things early that might be interfering with students’ learning. 

I hope that the rain won’t scare everyone away, but we do have an all campus work day scheduled for tomorrow, Saturday, November 5^th. Come to school around 9:30 or so and see how you can help make the campus even better for your student. If you choose to work in the garden, you can get a lesson on how to take good care of 3 chickens, who are now living in their special coop in the garden. We hope to have not only great vegetables in the garden, but also fresh eggs in a few months.

By coming on Saturday, you will also get to see our new Back Yard as I like to call it. We were allowed to start walking on the turf this week, and in just a couple of days, Senora Bravo was holding Spanish class outside; Coach Dave was having PE out there, and many, many students were busy drawing all sorts of lovely chalk pictures and diagrams on the cement “track”. We are also working with creating a hanging garden on a section of fence.   It consists of a series of wooly pockets which we are currently filling with soil and then we will plant them with both vegetables and flowers. We are quite excited to see how well our vertical garden will do.

Have a cozy and warm weekend……and don’t forget to turn your clocks back an hour. Fall back and spring forward-----this is my favorite weekend of the year as that elusive hour returns. 

Carol