Ashburton Elementary School 6314 Lone Oak Drive, Bethesda, MD *

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1 Ashburton Elementary School 6314 Lone Oak Drive, Bethesda, MD * PRINCIPAL S NEWS Dear Parents/Guardians, December 2, 2013 I hope you had an enjoyable and relaxing Thanksgiving holiday. To those of you who are celebrating Chanukah, have a warm festival of lights. We had a busy November with Parent-Teacher Conferences, several field trips, and the Book Fair. We appreciate all of the work that the Book Fair chair, Katrina Sukduang, and the many volunteers that helped make this important event occur. We were proud of our community and SGA for the successful food drive for Manna Food. We donated over 2300 pounds of food. Manna distributes food to needy families in Montgomery County and was very appreciative of our generosity. Our SGA also ran a collection for funds to go to the American Red Cross to support victims of the typhoon in the Phillipines; again our students and families showed compassion and generosity. In one week the Ashburton community donated over $ ! We value our partnership with Suburban Hospital and are pleased to be able to give back to them. Some of our choral students will sing holiday songs at the hospital bringing cheer to staff and patients. Also on the December calendar is the Winter Choral Concert. All of our students will have an opportunity to hear our chorus perform during the school day (December 11 and 2:00 p.m.); the evening performance is always an enjoyable time for chorus parents (December 7:00 p.m.). The holiday season is upon us and since we have many thoughtful generous parents, we wanted to note the ethics policy for the county. Teachers are not supposed to accept gifts from individuals valuing over $20. Please know that gifts are not expected and staff appreciates your cards and wishes. Due to concerns about safety from parents, we had officials from Montgomery County Department of Transportation, Division of Traffic Engineering and Operations, and MCPS Department of Facilities, Safety Training Unit assess the safety of our walking routes and driving in and near our back drop off loop. In a report on the assessment, there were several recommendations even though signage is currently at code and an all-way stop is not warranted at Ashburton Lane/Pomona Drive/Julliard Drive. In order to improve both vehicular and pedestrian safety, the following recommendations will be implemented: A Right Turn Only, School Days 8AM-4PM sign will be installed on the exit driveway for the student drop-off loop on Pomona Drive. In anticipation of the installation of the sign, you can begin to get used to making the right turn on to Pomona. (Turn right on to Pomona, left on Carnegie Drive, and left on Ashburton Lane and you are back to Lone Oak). Additional School Crosswalk signs will be installed on Ashburton Lane. A School Crosswalk Ahead will also be installed on northbound Ashburton Lane. No Stopping Any Time signs will be installed for a distance of 40 feet on both sides of each street at the intersection of Ashburton Lane/Pomona Drive/Julliard Drive. This regulation prohibits any student drop-off/pick-up activities, halting, or parking at any time. This should improve visibility of pedestrians in the marked crosswalks. December Calendar Updates: Dec. 5 - Dine Out with Ashburton at Hard Times Café in Bethesda Dec. 9 - No school for PEP Dec Winter Choral 7:00 p.m. Dec PTA s Camp Ashburton (Note date change from original calendar) Dec Spirit Week Dec. 23-Jan. 1 - Winter Break Jan. 2, School Resumes

2 An existing No Stopping Any Time regulation on Pomona Drive from the school s northern property line to 25 feet south of the entrance driveway will be supplemented with a missing one for north of the property. New standard signs will replace old school pentagon signs in the area of the school. Current signs for Fines Double School Days 8AM- 4PM will replace old ones on Lone Oak Drive. Crosswalk markings on a number of nearby intersections will be refurbished. Please drive safely and watch out for pedestrians in the area around the school. Continue to follow directions of the school crossing guard on Lone Oak Drive and be good examples to our students by crossing at crosswalks and not making U-turns along this busy road. Please be a good neighbor when parking on nearby streets don t block driveways or make it difficult for residents to get out of their homes. I wish everyone a happy holiday season and a wonderful new year! The school office will be closed over Winter Break from December 23 rd through January 1 st. School resumes on January 2, Sincerely, Charlene Garran, Principal Emergency Closing/Inclement Weather Information Announcements about the closing of schools in Montgomery County, delayed opening or early dismissal due to winter weather emergencies are available through a number of outlets: MCPS QuickNotes news service (subscribe at Or schools-out.com Local radio and television stations WMAL (AM-630), WTOP (AM-1500), MCPS Cable Channel 34, NBC- 4, Fox 5, ABC-7, CBS-9 MCPS website MCPS information telephone line at ASK MCPS at (7:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m. M-F ) Twitter: Decisions to close or delay opening are usually made by 6:00 a.m. When school opening is delayed, it is usually by 2 hours, so that Ashburton opens at 10:50 a.m., with buses making their usual pick-ups 2 hours later than normal. There is no PEP when we have a delayed opening. Decisions to close early are usually made by 11:00 a.m. An early dismissal usually means Ashburton students leave the school around 12:30 Please do not call the school for weather often the news outlets know of decisions before we do. RECESS: Please note that we send children outside for recess every day unless we have inclement weather or below 32 degrees. Please make sure that your child is dressed for going outside. Please mark your child s clothing with his/her name as we accumulate numerous items in the Lost and Found that are unmarked.

3 NEW/KINDERGARTEN PARENT MEETINGS We will hold two informal meetings with new or upcoming kindergarten parents in January and February. This is a time to meet with the principal in a group, ask questions and tour the school. All parents with new students in the fall 2014 are welcome to attend; however, the meeting is geared for parents who do not have students currently at ashburton. We will hold our kindergarten orientation in the spring and will begin to make appointments in late January. All children who will turn 5 by September 1, 2014 will need to be signed up. Please pass this information on to friends and neighbors. Call the school at or Marney Jacobs at Marjorie_E_Jacobs@mcpsmd.org to reserve a spot on either of the following dates: January 29, 9:30 a.m. or February 20, 1:00 p.m. A message from the Ashburton SGA: Between November Ashburton Elementary raised $ to donate to the American Red Cross for Philippines fund after the Typhoon hit. The kids wore pajamas or hats on Friday November 22. Thank you so much for helping a good cause! --- Aleksa Camargo-Cortes, Secretary & Sophie Kotlove, Historian Cafeteria Milk Selection Change: Please make a note that the school cafeteria will no longer offer strawberry milk after January 2, Health Room: A variety of pants for the health room are needed for children who may need a change of clothing. In particular, we need larger size of children s pants; elastic waisted sweat pants in non-gender colors are best but we ll take any donation. Please return borrowed clothes (washed) to the heath room as soon as you can so that they are there for another child. Thanks A copy of the MCPS Authorization to Administer Medication, Form , can be obtained from visiting our school office or on the MCPS website. No medication, even over the counter drugs, can be given without a doctor s authorization. Adults must bring medication to school - DO NOT SEND MEDICINE IN WITH CHILDREN.

4 Dear Families, PEP Newsletter Our theme for the month of December will be "Sports". We will be learning about different sports, sports equipment, and cheering/supporting teammates. Vocabulary: exercise, racquet, different kinds of balls (soccer, basketball, tennis, golf, baseball, bowling, etc.), different kinds of sports (football, soccer, hockey, gymnastics, swimming, etc.), net, goal, base, referee, coach, umpire, players, team, stadium, field, court, teamwork, pass, kick, throw, hit, strike, practice, jersey, uniform, shin guards, helmet, skates, puck, stick, score, glove, trophy, medal, cheer, cheerleader, marching band Suggested Reading: My Football Book by Gail Gibbons My Soccer Book by Gail Gibbons My Baseball Book by Gail Gibbons Little Football by Brad Herzog Little Baseball by Brad Herzog Sports A to Z by David Diehl Elmo s World: Balls! by John e Barrett Kick, Pass, Run by Leonard Kessler The Littlest Leaguer by Syd Hoff Curious George at the Baseball Game by HA Rey Touch and Feel Football by DK Publishing Swim, Boots! Swim! by Phoebe Beinstein Froggy Plays Soccer by Jonathan London Froggy Plays T-Ball by Jonathan London Froggy Learns to Swim by Jonathan London Mia Hamm, Winners Never Quit by Mia Hamm Slip! Slide! Skate! by Gail Herman Angelina Ice Skates by Katherine Holabird Skating Day by Mercer Mayer 5 Little Penguins Slipping on the Ice by Steve Metzger Ten on the Sled by Kim Norman Ben and Lucy Play Pond Hockey by Andrew Sherburne Three Cheers for Tacky by Helen Lester Snowy Sports. Ready, Set, Play by PerHenrik Gurth I Want to Be a Gymnast by DK Readers Songs: Take Me Out to the Ballgame Mr. Touchdown 5 Little Penguins Slipping on the Ice Cheer: Give me a! and spell out student s names ! Chants Other sports-specific cheers and chants POSSIBLE ACTIVITIES/PROJECTS: "Can you name that sport?" Watch video clips & look at pictures of various sports and identify the sports and sport-specific vocabulary. Which Sport Do You Like Best? Graphing activity Watercolor footballs/basketballs - put salt on top to add texture and crayon details to show through. "Medals" craft activity made w/ cardboard, tinfoil, & pipe cleaners Trophies - craft activity made using toilet paper roll, paper cup, & handles Pompoms craft activity made with toilet paper rolls, yarn, tinsel, cellophane, pipe cleaner, crepe paper Sorting balls (by color, type, size) Sorting sports equipment (e.g., football equipment vs. baseball equipment) Ball Patterns make different types of pattern using balls Sports Equipment Sort sports equipment by sport Equipment Match Promethean board activity where children match

5 the sports equipment to a picture of the corresponding athlete. Sports Science activities rolling different types of balls down a ramp (making predictions: which ball will roll faster/farther?), weighing different types of balls (talking about heavy vs. light) Making personal jerseys (craft activity)- focus on last name ID, number ID (e.g., student's age) & add a picture of a favorite animal on the front. Passing games using music(practicing passing balls to peers while sitting in a circle) Cheering Children take turns being the athlete in circle while the other children cheer him or her on. Marching band - have kids play different instruments, march in line, follow the leader, hats, batons, etc. SNACK/COOKING IDEAS: SUGGESTED ACTIVITIES TO DO AT HOME: Kick a soccer ball placed in a ring towards a target. Use an empty liter soda bottle as a target. Practice balancing while standing with 1 foot resting on a soccer ball. It is easier when the ball is placed in a ring so it doesn t move. Practice hitting a whiffle ball off a tee or a cone. Make sure to face the ball, hold the bat with both hands and swing across your body. Hit a balloon up in the air with a ping pong paddle or racquetball paddle. Stand on a designated spot and throw a ball into a basket. Use a trash can or recycling bin as a target. Rice Cake Soccer Ball (w/ cream cheese & raisins or chocolate Chex mix as the soccer ball spots ) Baseball Diamond Edible Diorama (plate, green coconut shavings for grass, cheese diamonds, Chex bases, and Teddy Graham players) Diving Snack (blue Jell-o/cool whip, popsicle stick/pretzel rod for diving board, Teddy Graham divers) Game Day Foods (hotdogs, cracker jacks, oranges) Basketball Grapes and Dixie Cup Baskets NOTES and REMINDERS: No PEP on December 9 th (preschool in-service) No PEP December 23 rd through January 1 st (Winter Break) Thank you for your continued support. Please feel free to us with any news, questions or comments. The PEP Team December Happenings In Kindergarten Science Each class will be bundling up and taking a winter walk. We will be looking at seasonal changes and talking about how the animals adapt to the cold

6 weather. The focus in Science this month will be on the life cycles of different plants and animals. We will also be comparing animal babies to their parents. Social Studies In Social Studies, we will compare physical and human-made features. We will be looking closely at maps, and will describe location using positional and directional words. We will also discuss how we modify and adapt to our environment. Reading The focus this month will be on the comprehension of informational/non-fiction text. We will learn about text features and how they help us learn new information. We will continue to work on identifying beginning and ending sounds, and word families. In small group, we will be working on our specific reading levels that were discussed at Parent-Teacher conferences. Writing In writing, we will continue to practice writing sentences using the Kindergarten words that we know, and also using our letter sound knowledge to stretch out unknown words. The students will write about a memory, and will be able to write about the beginning, middle, and end of a story. As always, we will also be focusing on writing concepts such as using punctuation, leaving spaces between words, starting a sentence with a capital letter, and adding detail and color to our pictures that match our sentences. Please continue to practice these things at home with your child! Math We will continue Unit 2: Exploring Numbers for the second marking period. Over the course of this unit, the students will continue to practice counting up to 100 by ones and tens. They will match numerals to sets, and will be able to represent a number in a variety of ways. It is very important for your child to be able to consistently and accurately count a number of objects, not just rote count. This month we will also introduce ordinal numbers first through tenth. Continue to practice these things at home, outside, and anywhere else you can! You can also help your child by practicing the correct formation of the numbers The Kindergarten Team Dear First Grade Parents, First Grade News The first grade team hopes that everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday and we are happy to have everyone back! November was a very busy and exciting month at Ashburton! The students have been hard at work and are all making outstanding progress. Here is an overview of what we will be learning this month in December. Reading and Writing: Over the past few weeks we have been working on informational text in reading. We will now switch our focus to literary text and the story elements. Students will be asked to compare and contrast the experiences of characters and to identify sensory words that describe the setting. In writer s workshop we will be writing to share opinions. We will also begin writing personal narratives. Science and social studies will be integrated into our writing as we continue to learn about a variety of cultures around the world. Math: In math, we will be working towards answering number sentences with missing addends and practicing how to balance equations. Word problems will have missing addends and students will learn and share the strategies they can use to find the missing part.

7 Science: In science we will soon be learning about magnets! Students will determine which objects that are magnetic and which ones aren t by making predictions and participating in experiments. Social Studies: Social Studies culture projects are due December 9 th! We hope students are working and are looking forward to share their cultural background with their class. Later this month we will begin learning about history by looking at photographs from the past and present. We are excited for all the wonderful learning experiences we have coming in the next few weeks. We would like to thank all of the volunteers! You have all been incredibly helpful and supportive! As winter break approaches the students will become more and more excited. This is a very exciting time of year with the constant possibility of snow and the upcoming vacations! With this in mind, it remains our top priority to continue to hold our standards high for every first grade student. Parents and teachers will continue to expect that each student will put forth their best work and make their best effort to follow all school rules and remain focused in class. If you have any questions, please contact us ( ). We are looking forward to December being a challenging and fun month of learning! Sincerely, The First Grade Team Town News from Second Grade November was a busy month! We enjoyed meeting with you during parent conferences as well as going on two field trips with the students. We hope that you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday. We are looking forward to a productive December filled with new learning experiences. In reading we are continuing work on folktales and fables. Students will be discussing character traits, point of view and how characters respond to problems. They will be comparing different versions of the same story, explaining the moral of a story and retelling folktales and fables by identifying the major events in the beginning, middle and end of the story. In informational text, students are identifying text features and the main idea of a chapter or book. In all literacy areas, students are using context clues and text features to figure out the meaning of new vocabulary words. Please continue to encourage your child to read for at least 15 minutes each night (Monday through Thursday). In writing this month we will be finishing our informational writing on the Wampanoags. Then we will write our own version of popular folktales. Students will be focusing on sentence fluency, word choice and adding descriptive details. As always, we will also focus on editing our work. In math we will be adding and subtracting multi-digit problems with and without regrouping. Students will practice using a variety of strategies including the drawing strategy, using a number line and mental math. We will use these skills to solve word problems, missing number equations and

8 problem scenarios involving money. Many of our math strategies are different from strategies you may have grown up with. If you need help understanding one of the strategies used in the classroom, do not hesitate to contact your child s teacher. In science we are continuing our investigation into how the parts of a whole are important. We will take apart and manipulate smaller parts of an object to see how it changes the whole. We will also design and describe objects created by many smaller parts, such as a mobile. We will be continuing our unit on the Wampanoag and Pilgrims in social studies in December. We will be discovering how they used nature to meet their basic needs and comparing and contrasting daily life in a Pilgrim and Wampanoag village. Later this month we will research characteristics of different geographic regions and how needs are met in different parts of the world. We will also discuss how traditions and cultures are affected by the environment of different geographic regions. Please contact your child s classroom teacher if you have any questions or concerns. We hope that everyone has a safe and happy holiday season. Please encourage your child to read and practice his or her basic facts, even over the winter holidays. Ms. Ashin, Ms. Bouquet, Mrs. Holder, Ms. Fox, Ms. Melendez, Mrs. Murshed, and Ms. Locke Third Grade News We hope you had a great Thanksgiving and enjoyed spending time with your family and friends. Instruction in December will include the following objectives: Math: In Math, we will continue our study of multiplication facts. Students will be working on a variety of multiplication problems including word problems throughout the month. They will also learn about the distributive property of multiplication. This will help with mental math skills. For example: 6 x 4 could also be (4 X 5) +(4 X 1) (students will learn how to break the 6 into smaller problems). We will also be exploring how to calculate the area of rectangles and irregular rectangles. At home, please make sure third graders are practicing math facts each night. Students need to be practicing addition within 20, subtraction within 20, and their multiplication facts This will help them greatly in math class! Reading: In Reading, we will be focusing on Informational Text (non-fiction). Students will be reading a variety of texts including scientific and procedural texts this month. Students will also be asked to compare two texts and answer a variety of comprehension questions related to texts. Students will also be working on determining main idea this month. At home, we encourage you to read nonfiction texts with your child such as Kids Post, National Geographic Kids, Ranger Rick, and other texts having to do with science and technology. Writing: In Writing, students will be working on their Technology Inquiry Projects. Each student has selected a technology tool (i.e., refrigerator, skateboard, bicycle, etc.) and will be conducting research about the history of the tool and comparing it to how the tool is used today. We will be working

9 on introductory paragraphs and concluding paragraphs as well. At home, we encourage students to write in a journal or respond to interesting articles that they have read. Science: In Science, students will be continuing our study of matter, observable properties, and how objects change when heated or cooled. Students will also be looking at technology and how human wants and needs influence technology. At home, we encourage you to try out experiments with heating and cooling different objects (safely) and using science vocabulary to describe the observable properties of objects. You can also work on making mixtures and solutions and discussing which are easier to separate. Social Studies: In Social Studies, students will begin to explore the continent of Africa. Students will be conducting a research project about African regions. They will compare and contrast their findings with their peers. Students will also look at how people modify and change their environment to meet their needs. They will also learn how people adapt to the environment in which they live. We will continue to look at where people choose to live. At home, we encourage you to research different world biomes more thoroughly (desert, rain forest, polar region, grasslands, etc.). Thank you for all of your continued help and support! The Third Grade Team News 4 You Greetings to all 4 th grade families! Here are a few reminders and information about what the month of December will bring! Please remember that students are taking home Friday Folders and weekly TQ charts. Please check for these items, sign off on the TQ Chart, and have your students return the chart and folder to his/her teacher on the following school day. Encourage conversations with your student in regards to the goals they are setting for themselves for the second marking period. As a reminder, please encourage your students to always do their best and put forth 100% effort. We thank you for your ongoing support and appreciate all you do to help us! Happy Holidays and enjoy these specials times with your family and friends! Here is what we will be covering for the month of December: In reading, students will be connecting their reading topics to Social Studies. They will be reading about various explores and their impacts on Native Americans that we already learned about in the first marking period! In social studies, students are completing their study of economics with a review of opportunity costs. Students have learned about important economic concepts including specialization, interdependence, and scarcity. Soon, students will be learning about European explorers and the impact they had on Native American societies. In writing, students are working on drafting a community profile. Students have researched the population and businesses around our area. They will turn the information they have gathered into an informative brochure. This information will help students decide which business should be added to the area. This will be the focus of students next writing assignment. In mathematics, students will be studying the metric and customary systems of measurement and converting between units. They will also convert units of time. Students will then move on to division and work on dividing up to a 4-digit number by a 1- digit number. We will shift our focus to word problems involving division and conversion of units by the end of the month. All of the concepts we are currently working on and will be working on rely heavily on knowing basic facts. Students are reminded that they should be studying basic facts nightly and logging the time studied on their fact calendar. In science students are finishing up their unit on ecosystems and the Chesapeake Bay. One of the last

10 things students will be doing for this unit will be learning about runoff and the impact that different groups (farmers, boaters, land developers and homeowners) have on the health of the Bay. The students will be learning about different sources of runoff and soon will draw murals of each land type. They will have an opportunity to interact with an experiment on loan from the Audubon Society. Students will also be learning about the ph scale and doing some water testing. Suggestions for parents this month which can be used during the days when school is not in session: Have your children review his/her new book in the Writer s Notebook. Take a trip to the library. Read a book together as a family. Have your child help you by reading you a recipe. Check to see if your child is entering new stories, poems, essays, descriptive and informative paragraphs in his/her reading logs. Use transitional words when conversing with your child. Family story hour. Thank you, Mrs. Brenner, Mrs. Imhof, Ms. Leiser, Ms. Schultz, & Mrs. Weaver Fifth Grade s Fabulous News Math In December, the fifth grade math students will shift away from working through division using various models to fraction work. While fractions do represent another form of division, the students will not work on dividing fractions and creating decimals, but rather on getting a sense of the size of fractions. By appreciating relative sizes and equivalence, they will become more comfortable making estimations of sums and differences. Estimations then can provide a basis for comparison when they check the reasonableness of their results in subsequently calculating solutions to problems. The students will develop greater skills adding and subtracting fractions, finding common denominators of fractions with common factors and of those without common factors. They will be using both factors and multiples in finding common denominators. As they become more comfortable with fractions, they will be using their fraction calculation skills to solve word problems. Sixth grade math students are moving towards the second half of Unit 2. Our studies shift from operations with decimals towards operations with fractions. Our focus will be on multiplication and division of fractions. Students will be expected to draw pictures to show the product and quotient, not only to be able to complete the algorithm. The pictures help demonstrate understanding of knowing what the math means. As they saw with decimals, students will discover that multiplication does not always make larger and division does not always make smaller! Reading In the second half of Marking Period 2, students will switch genres once again, back to nonfiction texts. In reading, we were focusing on mysteries in fiction stories like Hugo Cabret; the mystery topic will carry through to the informational texts we will use in class. We will be reading about real life mysterious places like Easter Island and the Bermuda Triangle. Using the nonfiction texts on these topics, we will explore the text structure, the organization of a text. Some organizational text structures are listed below with the graphic organizers that are used to capture the ideas in the text. Example text structure: cause and effect, chronology or time sequence, description, compare and contrast, problem and solution

11 Students will also be studying technical texts, a type of informational text that presents specialized or scientific information in a way that is clear and easy to understand. Examples of these are recipes, game directions, or how to books. At home consider having your child do the following to extend his/her learning: Read a variety of informational texts such as the newspaper, recipes, or How to Write Your Life Story by Ralph Fletcher Ask your child the following the questions: What is the most important point the author is trying to make in his or her writing? What text structure(s) can be found in this text? Does this text remind you of another book you know? Does it remind you of something you have experienced in real life? Writing Our fifth grade authors should be so proud of themselves! After five informative weeks of research and drafting, each student captured a significant moment of change in American history in his/her writing. At home, be sure to ask what your child about the cause and effect relationship between the conflict and compromise of the movement he/she studied. When you read over your child's writing be sure to note the technical vocabulary your child uses and how he/she incorporated the definition into a sentence, without the use of a glossary. In the final weeks of marking period 2, our writers will craft both an opinion and a narrative piece of writing. Science In science, the students have enjoyed designing, troubleshooting and manipulating electrical circuits. They will explore different types of circuitry and understand what differences wiring makes. The fifth graders will then start investigating magnets, identifying the common features of and the connections between magnetism and electricity, understanding how magnets exert forces and how magnets and electricity work together in the form of electromagnetism. That work will complement the power generation work they did in the first unit, as they became energy source experts. Social Studies Students will begin by learning about federalists and anti-federalists during the time that the Constitution was ratified. They will synthesize the influence of Federalists and Anti-Federalists on early government in the United States. Next, students will learn about the promise to add the Bill of Rights to the Constitution, and will describe the individual freedoms that resulted from the formation of an independent nation. After analyzing the Bill of Rights, students will move into learning about Marylanders during the time period and what role they played in influencing the building of our new nation. Towards the end of the month, students will focus on the executive branch and learn how the establishment of the executive branch changed the national government. Happy Holidays, The Fifth Grade Team

12 PTA Insider December 2013 UPCOMING EVENTS Dec 5: Dec 12: Dec 13: Dine Out at Hard Times Café in Bethesda, 5:00 9:00 pm Winter Choral Concert (Gr 4 & 5), 7:00-8:00 pm at Ashburton Camp Ashburton, 6:30-8:30 pm at Ashburton Dec 23-Jan 1: NO SCHOOL Winter Break Dear Ashburton Families, News from our President and PTA Board Happy almost holidays! The holidays and cold weather is upon us, and for many this is a great time to look back upon the year and remember everything we ve accomplished (or not), and look forward to the endless possibilities of the New Year! This December newsletter looks at several of our PTA events and lets you know about our progress. November got off to a running start with our PTA Meeting about Problem Solving. We had our very own special guest speaker Mrs. Andrea Gillespie, who spoke with parents and children about the DEBUG method of problem solving. Mid-month we held the Scholastic Book Fair, which had many Ashburton parents volunteering to make this one of our most successful fairs ever! A special thank you to Katrina Sukduang for organizing and running the book fair. Then, right before Thanksgiving, we held a dine out at California Tortilla, where it was packed! Our Dine-Outs over the past few months have been a big success. Thank you to our amazing Dine-Out Coordinator, Michelle Notley, who has organized these monthly community events. And of course an additional thanks to everyone in the Ashburton Community who has come out to support our school! The money we raise at the monthly dine-outs is close to $5,000 annually. That s money that goes right back into Ashburton for all sorts of things, ranging from community events like the Fall Festival, International Night and Spring Fling, to items like portable computer labs, to assembly programs like our Author series, and so much more. We are able to do things like this because families support the school in so many ways, so again, THANK YOU! Please note our next dine-out, this Thursday, December 5 at Hard Times Café in Bethesda. The dine-out is from 5-9pm (6:30pm is crunch time, when

13 it s super busy), so try and come early or late if you don t want to wait (and who ever does?), or even do take-out! PTA printed directories are in! They went home in backpacks last week, and the new look is terrific. Thank you to Jen Luna and Shannon Ross, Co-VP s of Membership for making that happen. The on-line directory is up and running, accessible to PTA members only. If you have not joined the PTA, you can still send in a membership form, and not only support your school, but also gain access to the on-line directory. And there are additional events coming this winter and spring, including Camp Ashburton (December 13), Bingo Night (January 24), Family Math Night (February 4), International Festival (March 7), Spring Book Fair (April 2-4), Spring Fling (May 10), and so many more. If you haven t yet had the opportunity to volunteer to help out at an event, there s still time, and we could always use a helping hand. Thank you for your continued support of our kids, our school, and our community. Here s wishing the best to all of our Ashburton Families, and we hope you have a wonderful Holiday Season! Have Fun, Make Memories, Get Involved! All the best, Wendy Calhoun Ashburton PTA President on behalf of the PTA Board PS The best way to find out about all of the PTA's community events is to get on the school list serve. We re a green school, and try not to copy too many papers, so by being on the list-serve, and agreeing to receive this monthly newsletter on-line, you support that value as well. Did you know Ashburton has two list-serves? The first one is our PTA listserve, and the only information that will be sent out on this will have to do directly with Ashburton or the PTA, our cluster (Ashburton ES is part of the Walter Johnson Cluster), the Montgomery County Council of PTAs (MCCPTA) or Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS). The second is the Ashburton Community listserve, which was started to allow the Ashburton community to share information about events and issues that are of interest to Ashburton students and parents, but are not related to PTA or school-sponsored activities (e.g., sports teams, carpools, babysitting, yard sales, community events, etc.). The Ashburton ES Community discussion listserv is a forum for the school community on issues that affect elementary school children. The opinions posted do not reflect the official position of Ashburton PTA or MCCPTA; they reflect the opinions of individuals and should not be interpreted or published outside of this forum as the official position of any local PTA/PTSA or MCCPTA. Please follow these guidelines when using the discussion listserv:

14 Messages should be posted directly to and include your name. Refrain from making negative comments about individuals by name. Private matters such as discussions about a particular child(ren) or adult(s) are not appropriate on this listserv. Disagree in a friendly and respectful manner; feels like a private discussion, but it is not. If you abuse your listserv privileges you will be given one warning then removed permanently, should the abuse continue. To subscribe to the PTA list-serve, which only sends out information about school and PTA sponsored events and afterschool activities, please send an to: AshburtonESPTAsubscribe@yahoogroups.com. To subscribe to the Ashburton Community List-serve, which has information for and from the overall community, please send an to: AshburtonESDiscuss-subscribe@yahoogroups.com Support Ashburton Through Grocery Store Programs Every time you shop at Giant, Safeway, or Harris Teeter s, you can help raise money for Ashburton through their grocery store programs. Please look for a flyer to send back in with your information, and our wonderful Bonus Bucks Chairperson Mary Miller can input your data, or you can follow the link provided by the list-serve and register directly. Please keep in mind that you need to re-register each year, so even if you registered last year, you need to do it again. This is such an easy way to support your school, and our goal is to have 90% of Ashburton registered within the next month!