Mary Woodward PSO

There are so many fun and exciting things that have happened at Mary Woodard since the last PSO Newsletter! First off, we had a phenomenal turn out for the Fall Scholastic Book Fair and put so many wonderful books in the hands of our young Eagles. That same week, we also all enjoyed the annual Jog-a-thon. This is one of the largest fundraisers for the PSO and Mary Woodward family and friends did not disappoint (neither did the weather)! It was so exciting to watch the donations add up each day! We want to give a HUGE shout-out to Kacie and Costa Capellas for all of their time and effort in making this year's jogathon happen. We appreciate you very much!!!

The PSO has some fun activities planned for our students over the next several weeks, including a family movie night coming up on November 18th. At this event, families are invited to watch the movie Minions: The Rise of Gru (rated PG) with other Mary Woodward families. Flyers will be coming home with students in the coming weeks, but mark the day on your calendar. We have several “No School” days next month, including teacher conferences, so be sure to pay close attention to the school calendar.

Our next PSO meeting will be held via Zoom on Thursday, November 3rd. Mr. Nihill will provide an update on everything happening around Mary Woodward and additional details regarding Art Rutkin, the new TTSD elementary school opening next fall. Everyone is ALWAYS invited to join our PSO meetings.

Finally, we want to say, “Thank You” to all of our Mary Woodward families for all of the support they have given and continue to provide the PSO. We Appreciate You!!

--Susan Purfield, PSO President-Elect (president-elect@marywoodwardpso.com)

After a long Covid pause, the carnival is finally returning this year! While the event won't be until spring, there is work to be done before it gets here. The carnival storage area is a bit of a mess. If you love organizing and decluttering, please come help us!! The organization party is Monday, November 14 from 9a-12p. Volunteers are asked to come in at 9a and stay as long as they're able or until it is done. We expect everyone will be out by noon. You can sign up here or the button below. Any questions can be directed to Liz Young at carnival@marywoodwardpso.com. See you there!

I don't know about you, but I am always eager to get rid of that Halloween candy just as quick as it showed up. Luckily there is a great way to do it that will also benefit the school. Wilson Orthodontics will pay Mary Woodward $1 per pound of candy turned in. If we turn in more candy than any other group we will also get a bonus of $500! Mary Woodward has won this competition many years already. What's even better is that Wilson Orthodontics has teamed up with local charities to donate the candy to families over the holidays, so it definitely isn't going to waste.

This program is run by the 5th Grade Ambassadors who will have buckets in each classroom to collect candy November 1-9. The grade with the greatest donation gets a popcorn party! Let's go Eagles!!

With the return of class parties, comes the need for room parents! Thank you to everyone who has stepped up to help out. You are so appreciated and the kids are going to love seeing what you have in store for them.

There are three classes still in need of Room Parents: Langeliers, Hutchins, and Jurinek. If you're able to help with one of these, please contact Shawna Romanelli, Room Parent Coordinator, so she can get you up to speed. You're also welcome to contact Shawna if you'd like to get involved with another class.

Shawna can be reached at roomparent@marywoodwardpso.com.

The auction committee still has a few large volunteer needs for the Spring Auction 2023. We are in need of a parent from Cox, Thompson, Allen, Kemper, and Jurinek to head up the donation of a classroom basket & art project for the silent auction. We are also searching for a well organized and connected person to head up the sponsorship committee for the auction. In addition, we are accepting any donations people have to offer for the live and silent auction. Contact the Mary Woodward Auction committee with any donations, questions or interest in volunteering. Thanks for the support! auction@marywoodwardpso.com

Katie Hughes, Morgan Fricke, Kelsey Paldino & Debbie Shurson

Mary Woodward Auction Committee co-chairs

September's dine out event at Mod Pizza was a great success despite (or thanks to) being the same night as Back to School Night. We kept them busy and our share of the day's sales was $562.73. Not a bad start to the year!

Our next event will be with Beach Hut Deli on November 8 from 4-8pm. More details will be coming soon, but plan for a night off from cooking!

If you have ideas for other dining events or specialty fundraisers, contact Monica Bjers at dineout@marywoodwardpso.com

Art Lit has officially launched and it's great to see student art covering the hallways at school! This month students learned about the French Impressionist, Berthe Morisot, a female artist who primarily used paint and pastels. Morisot's work focused on finding beauty in everyday life and common objects. Students created a chalk pastel pumpkin, inspired by impressionist techniques, including completing their art outdoors (as weather permitted).

In November, students will learn about the modern artist, Jen Stark, who uses color, repetition, and patterns with simple mediums like paper and ink to create optical art including mural installations and sculptures.

We can still use more volunteers! Please reach out to Claire Juarez at artlit@marywoodwardpso.com if you're interested in joining the Art Lit team!

Mary Woodward Elementary is excited to participate in the 2022-2023 Oregon Battle of the Books! Students in grades 3-5 will read books, form teams of 4 or 5, and participate in “battles” where teams answer questions about the books and earn points. Look for sign up sheets to come home soon. In the meantime, find more information at: https://woodwardobob.weebly.com/ or contact obob@marywoodwardpso.com with questions.

This year the yearbook will be for the students by the students! The 5th-grade ambassadors have accepted the challenge of creating the yearbook this year! We are all so very excited about this!

If you order your yearbook by October 31st, you get 10% off! Purchase Here!

It's a perfect time to begin building your custom pages for your students. There will be tons of photos this year to add to your student's book.

We captured some amazing photos from Jog-A-Thon and would also love to see yours too!

Head over to your TreeRing account and upload them to the Jog-A-Thon folder. Be sure to set your photos to public so the school can view them. That way other students could use your photos in their personal yearbooks or be picked for the entire yearbook.

Upload your photos here!

Questions, see this post or email the yearbook at yearbook@marywoodwardpso.com

Did you know Mary Woodward PSO charters a Cub Scout pack? Do you have a child in kinder through 5th grade? You are welcome to connect at our next Pack meeting December 5th in the Mary Woodward cafeteria. Want to learn more sooner? Shoot us an email at cubscoutpack690tigard@gmail.com!

New this year!!

We will be offering punch cards to be used for concessions at Mary Woodward family night events. These punch cards will be good for $10 of food, snack, and drink but only cost $8! This will allow for much faster checkout lines, not to mention being a great deal! They will be sold at our upcoming movie night and can be used at November movie night, February bingo night, or March movie night. I'm sorry, they cannot be redeemed at the family dance or carnival.

If you choose not to purchase a punch card, we can still accept cash and credit card payment at concessions.

The PSO is trying to keep the staff breakroom stocked with snacks and drinks to show our staff how much we appreciate them and to keep them fueled. To help us out, we're asking for donations from one grade each month. For the month of November, we are asking for donations from 4th grade families. Please drop off your donations in the wagon in the breezeway any time during the month. Popular items include individual snack bags, fresh fruit, seltzer water, and diet and regular soda to name a few.

Thank you 5th grade for the October donations! The staff loved the drinks and snacks.

Mary Woodward PSO collects donations in a variety of ways that you might not know about. The two below are especially important as the holidays (and holiday shopping) approach!

AmazonSmile: Did you know that you can donate a portion of every Amazon purchase you make to Mary Woodward PSO on AmazonSmile? It is so simple and doesn't require anything extra once it is set up. Start by going here and searching for Mary Woodward PSO Foundation. Then when you're shopping, be sure you're at smile.amazon.com and the rest happens automatically. We collected $467 last year!

Box Tops: Box Tops have gone completely digital along with the rest of the world. Instead of collecting those little rectangles, now you can submit copies of your receipt and any earnings are awarded to the PSO automatically. The easiest way to do this is to download the Box Top app and use your phone to photograph your receipts. To make it even easier, you can teach one of your helpful kiddos to do the photography. The app shows fun graphics that make you feel like you win with every submission.

Hopefully, everyone had a chance to make it to the book fair this month. It was more spacious than ever, taking up most of the library! We sold enough for Mrs. Stewart to spend over $5000 on new books for the library! Thank you all for shopping to support our school and for all the generous donations of books and money. And thanks to Mrs. Smart and all the volunteers for keeping this busy fair moving smoothly.

Can you even believe the weather that we had for the Jog-a-thon?! It was incredible watching those kids run their hearts out with Baldy and tons of family members cheering alongside them. The kids also worked hard off the field, raising over $34,000! Just a few more hours left to hit our $35k goal!

Thank you to Kacie and Costa Capellas for running this event once again. It went seamlessly. And thank you to all the family members who came to cheer for students, tally laps, volunteer and supported students in fundraising. The Jog-a-thon truly takes a village to be successful and our village served us well once again!

Safe Routes to School encourages more kids to walk, bike or bus to school. The organization held Walk and Roll to School day on October 5th which is a competition between all participating schools. TTSD had 8 elementary schools and 1 middle school join in. Mary Woodward won the Golden School Bus Award for having the largest percentage of kids riding the school bus. We are also one of the only schools that had "walking school buses" which the kids really loved. Thank you Deanna Parrott for organizing this!