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Visit Our Website–www.hoover.k12.al.us/bpes

Paw Prints Volume 20 No. 4 November/December 2011 Bluff Park School–Hoover

Principally Speaking PTO President’s Message

Christmas is almost here!!! Can you believe it???

Thanks to Becky Ferguson for coordinating the Loose Change Week, we made over $2000 and the kids had a great time. A big congratulations to the 2nd graders for winning the Loose Change Drive. They received a pizza and popsicle party and really enjoyed that.

Thanks to Kelly Akers and Wendy Roper for coordi-nating Open House. They did a wonderful job. It is always fun to walk through your children’s rooms and see all of their hard work.

A special thanks to Bonnie Johnson for coordinating Santa’s Breakfast. Please remember to mark your cal-endars for Santa’s Breakfast – Saturday, December 3rd Ms. Portis will have the K-3rd grades singing to kick off the month of December. Make sure you stop by the gym for the vendor booths, cake walk and to have your picture made with Santa Claus.

Look for details in the next few paw prints about the upcoming Read-a-thon—“Reach for the Stars.”

If you would like to become involved in the activities of the PTO, please let me know – we are always in need of parents to help out with different activities. As always, suggestions and comments are welcome.

I hope everyone has a safe and happy Christmas and wonderful New Year.

Mara Swaika PTO President mkswaika@yahoo.com

I want to wish everyone happy holidays on behalf of the faculty and staff. Usually, there aren’t many staff changes at Bluff Park in the middle of the year. This year is different. To fill the vacancy cre-ated by the retirement of Mrs. Morrison, I have placed Mrs. Christy Bosworth in that position. Mrs. Bosworth taught third grade previously and will do a great job. Mrs. Henderson, our PE aide will take Mrs. Bosworth’s place as an instructional aide. Due to the size of our PE classes an addi-tional PE teacher has been hired. Beth Uhlman will be our additional teacher. Ms. Uhlman is transferring from Hoover High to us and will be a great addition.

The recent Open House was a great success! The turnout was wonderful and everyone seemed to enjoy the evening. The shuttle bus seemed to help with the parking problem. I am planning to have a shuttle again for Breakfast with Santa.

Technology keeps improving and getting smaller. This can be a “good and bad” thing. There is a popular “spy watch” that can take secret video and pictures. Because these watches may be a popular Christmas gift, we need to make it clear that stu-dents cannot bring them to school. The video files created by these watches can easily be up-loaded to a computer network and the secret re-cording of our students would violate their right to confidentiality. If your child gets one of these watches I know they will enjoy it, but please keep it at home.

One of our school goals is to construct a walking/running track on the lower field. This would be a valuable resource for the school and community. Our PTO has been working on acquiring the funds to do this since last spring. This week, our State Representative Paul DeMarco arranged for the school to receive a grant of $4,700 to move the project forward. -David Fancher

Continue to read

over the holidays!

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Kindergarten students at Bluff Park Elementary celebrated their favorite fairy tales and nursery rhymes with a Fairy Tales Ball on Friday, October 28th. They enjoyed a visit from Katie Jane Norris of the Hoover Public Library. She shared several wonderful fractured fairy tales including Waking Beauty by Leah Wilcox and The Cabritos by Eric Kimmel. She also shared a bag full of mixed up nursery rhymes that brought laughter from all. Students dressed as their favorite fairy tale and nursery rhyme characters and enjoyed an after-noon of dancing and yummy treats!

Shop for our School

www.innisbrook.com School# 118652 Office Depot gives us 5% of sales. Just use the School ID# 70001398. Publix gives a % of all sales if you use the School ID card. Collect Campbell's Soup labels, General Mills Box Tops, and printer cartridges. Collect Bruno’s green receipts.

Kindergarten Fairy Tales Come True

Usborne Books & More author/illustrator Michelle Nelson-Schmidt visited our Kindergarteners, 1st, & 2nd graders on No-vember 1st. Ms. Nelson-Schmidt is the author of Dogs, Dogs! And Cats, Cats! She shared the story of how she be-came an artist and a children’s book author/illustrator. She also encouraged the students to follow their dreams and never give up. Students were given the opportunity to purchase autographed copies of her books.

Author Visit for K, 1st, 2md

Pictured from left to right: Vivi Shanlever, Payton Morris, Katie Jane Nor-ris of the Hoover Public Library, Noah Simmons and Patrick Williamson

Students pictured with Michelle Nelson-Schmidt are from left to right: Caroline Watson, Tanner White (dog), Tyler Black, Mary Sullivan (cat), Lucy Wills, Marshall Thomley

Happy

Holidays

From the

Faculty and

Staff

Of

Bluff Park

Elementary

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Santa’s Breakfast

Saturday, December 3rd, 2011

2nd and 3rd Grade sing at 8:30am

K and 1st sing at 10 am

Shopping on gym

To celebrate Veterans Day, Mrs. Argo helped our students make posters thanking veterans for their service to our nation. Anna Kay Clark’s poster was chosen to represent our school. Her artwork was displayed in the Hoover Library. On Monday, November 21st, Anna Kay attended the Hoover City Council Meeting where she received a certifi-cate and $50 gift card to Barnes and Noble. Anna Kay is a 4th Grader in Mrs. Adam’s class.

Veterans Day Poster Winner Lost and Found Items Donated

Bluff Park students participated in Red Ribbon Week October 24th-28th. Each day had a different theme. Monday students wore red, Tuesday students wore their favorite team colors, Wednesday was mis-matched day, Thursday students put a cap on drugs by wearing hats and Fri-day students dressed as what they want to be when they grow up. Students in all grades also had the opportunity to make a poster with theme "These Pan-thers Paws Don't Touch Drugs!" Poster winners from each grade are pictured with their winning posters. From L to R: Jalyn Pryor- 2nd grade, Grace Dunn- 5th grade, Carolyne Hecklinski-

1st grade, Lydia Coltrane- 4th grade, and Kate Ryan Black- Kindergarten (not pic-tured: Erika Powers- 3rd)

Red Ribbon Week

If your child is missing a coat, jacket, or hat, check our lost and found! Most of the items in the lost and found do not have a name written anywhere in them. Please remember to write your child’s name on the label or somewhere in the clothing. This will help us get it back to your child.

On December 20th, all items left will be donated to a charity, so be sure to check “Lost and Found” be-fore this date. And remember to label those new items your child gets for Christmas!

Pictured are: Councilman John Natter, Anna Kay Clark, and Mayor Gary Ivey.

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Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat

1 Geography Bee

2 3 Santa’s Break-fast

4 5 6 7 8 9 2nd, 3rd, 4th to Children’s Theater

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11 12 13 14 15 16 17

18 19 20 Sing-a-Long Last Day of 2011

21 22 23 24

25 26 27 28 29 30 31

December 2011

Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat

1 2 3 4 Return to School

5 6 7

8 9 10 Report cards for 2nd nine weeks

11 12 13 14

15 16 No School– MLK Day

17 18 19 20 4th Grade to Huntsville

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22 23 1st Grade to McWane

24 District Spell-ing Bee

25 26 27 28

29 30 31

January 2012

Winter Break

Winter Break

Winter Break