Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanks to those of you who attended the Community Forum on Education last Monday at Adams School.  There was a good turnout of about 100 parents and educators, of which about 10% were from Charlemagne!  Many folks appreciated hearing our new superintendent Sheldon Berman’s perspective on how we can support teachers through these tough economic times. www.stand.org/or.

We had 20 parents and Tom at our Tuesday, November 15th PTO meeting. We participated in an “interactivity” to help define our vision of our children as global citizens.  Please check out the minutes HERE to read more about what’s happening at Charlemagne!

Our school collected several full bags of candy and a few letters to be given to our troops overseas for Operation Gratitude www.operationgratitude.com
Thanks to Becca Sanghvi for organizing this effort.
You can still order books from our online fair  through today, Monday, November 21st. Your order is shipped free to the school after today. You can find a wider variety of titles online as well as ones that were sold out at our fair.  Access the online fair at  http://www.scholastic.com/schoolbookfairs/2911495.
Please consider giving to our annual Thanksgiving Donation Drive to help  Charlemagne families in need of holiday food assistance.  See below.
Activities to look forward to this week are:
Monday-  Last day to order from Online Book Fair
                  Thanksgiving Donation Drive (donations received in office)
Tuesday-  Open Library 2:45-3:30 p.m. for parents and students
                   Last day to give to the Thanksgiving Donation Drive
Thursday- No School- Thanksgiving Holiday
Friday-  No School- Thanksgiving Holiday
                Spring Creek Holly Farm Holiday Tree Fundraiser begins today
                and continues through 12/23  Click Here for Flyer
Have a great holiday week and may you have much for which to be thankful!

Your PTO Co-chairs,
Becky Smith and Larisa Lilles

An Out-of-This-World Book Fair in Review

This year’s Book Fair was a tremendous success. We raised over $4,800 to purchase new books for our school’s library and put French books into the hands of many families. Charlemagne families also donated $878 of English and French books for our children’s classrooms. That’s 118 new books in our children’s classrooms!

The Grand Lunch and the Saturday Brunch & Books Blast Off were well-attended. It was nice to see grandparents and families on these days.

The One for Books program raised $111.49 for our school library. Scholastic also matches this, donating books to organizations that serve children. The winner of the contest between R2-D2 and Jar Jar Binks was overwhelmingly R2-D2! Votes for R2-D2 raised over $11 for One for Books, and Jar Jar raised less than $1.  R2 was definitely the more popular!

We had two winners of the “Guess How Many Alien Fingers” contest. We had two students guess the correct number of 71! They are Aiden L. and Chloe N. Both won a gift card to Yogurt Extreme.

Special thanks goes to M. Maloney, Mme Heather and M. Kurt for keeping everything running smoothly. None of this could have been possible without our super volunteers who helped with setting up, running and packing up the fair. These stellar volunteers are:  Tabatha Andrews, Katy Brundan, Janet Butler, Olena Dets, Jennifer Duncan, Linda Fossum, Tom Gann, Lisa Ghandour, Marsha Ginsberg, Mandy Hardman, Rosa Harris, JoAnn Hoffman, Madeline Hoffman, Shelli Hopper-Moore, Cindy Matherly, Thishya Narayanan, Carey N., Kim O’Brien, Cassie Peterson, Lori Redding, Kim Robles, June Russell-Chamberlin, Melissa Sikes, Rebecca Stafford, Gina Thompson, Shannon Tom, Hildy Tritch, Becky Trojan, and Alice Webb.  We hope we haven’t forgotten anyone!

We also appreciate Chess Club, Fun Club, and the teachers for sharing the gym with us during the fair. We enjoyed co-chairing this year’s Book Fair and appreciate seeing a community gather together to support literacy and its school.

Thanks again, from Christine Sampley and Rebecca Stafford

Esprit de Corp News

In honor of Thanksgiving, let’s remember those in our own school community. Please give to: Charlemagne’s Turkey Donation Drive, November 7 – 22
Let’s make sure everyone has a feast on Thanksgiving Day!  Please donate cash or checks to benefit Charlemagne families in need of food assistance during the holidays. Look for the orange pumpkin to deposit your donations in the main office 11/7-22. Make checks out to “Fox Hollow PTO.” Note: Any surplus money will be donated to Food for Lane County. Sponsored by Esprit de Corps. For more information, contact Melissa Sikes 683-8384 or Gina Thompson 687-7046.

Confidential: If you are struggling financially, and could use some food assistance this Thanksgiving, please speak up. Don’t be shy (no questions asked), just call us. Please give your name to Heather in the main office (790-3177) or to the Esprit de Corps Committee Chairs: Gina Thompson (687-7046) and Melissa Sikes (683-8384). We will keep your name confidential.

Holiday Craft Fair at Charlemagne-Friday Dec 2nd 1:30-5pm

New this year – display and sell your handmade wares or the company products/services you represent on Friday, December 2nd. T-shirts, jewelry, canned and baked goods, holiday treats, knit items, candles, Pampered Chef, Bandals, etc. It’s all good! We encourage adult vendor tables to pay a suggested donation of $10 to benefit Charlemagne. Kids’ tables are free. A percentage of sales donation is welcome too, but optional. Sign up for a table in the office with Heather! And get crafting! Any questions?

Contact Stephanie Hand 541.510.9595 or stephaniehand@comcast.net

 Spring Creek Holly Farm Holiday Tree Fundraiser ~

50% Give-Back-to-Schools program

Buy a holiday tree from Spring Creek Holly Farm between November 25 and December 23 and Spring Creek Holly Farm will donate 50% of the retail price to Charlemagne.  There are no limits, the purchaser does not need to attend or have an affiliation with the school but they need to tell the Farm to which school to donate the money.  That means that friends, relatives and companies etc. can buy trees to support our school.  For example an 8′ tree would cost (8 x $4) $32 so $16 would be donated to  Charlemagne!

All trees are $4/ft.  They have “You Choose” trees as well as pre-cut trees, mostly Noble Firs.  The sizes range from table top to 9-10′.

They also sell hand-made garlands, wreaths, table decorations and greens to decorate your home.

Encourage your family and friends to head out to the farm for some cider and create a new holiday tradition!

Please visit www.facebook.com/SpringCreekHollyFarm.  They are hoping to add a few pictures of Charlemagne families to their Facebook page as trees are purchased.  For flyer Click Here.

Spring Creek Holly Farm www.schf.com

“You can choose any tree and they will cut it for you. We went last year and they also shook the tree out, tied it up, and put it on our car for us for no extra charge. Honestly, it was the best tree buying trip we’ve ever had.” 🙂

   ~Larisa Lilles, Charlemagne parent and PTO Co-chair

Online Holiday Shopping pays big dividends for Escrip participants!
Did you know that you can earn money for Fox Hollow while doing your online shopping? Online vendors typically donate 2 – 10% of shopping purchases to Fox Hollow when eScrip participants go through the eScrip website for their online shopping. Since it can be hard to remember to go through eScrip’s website, they’ve developed a widget called AutoEarn, that you can download to your PC or Mac (yep, you heard that right, it’s now available for Macs too!) Once installed, the widget notifies you when you’re shopping at an online vendor who gives money back to Fox Hollow. If you haven’t yet registered as an eScrip participant, go to www.escrip.com and sign up. Once you’ve done that, you can download the AutoEarn widget here.

Remember your family must renew by November 1 in order to continue uninterrupted contributions. While you can renew after November 1—contributions will stop until renewed- and with all the potential holiday shopping and winter travel the school could be earning money while you are away!

Electronic Scrip Incorporated (ESI) has made a firm commitment to protect all customer information provided. ESI will not license, sell, exchange or distribute any personally identifying information about eScrip participants to any third parties not directly involved in the eScrip program.

Online Parent Volunteer Checklist sign-up still needs you!  

If you haven’t already, please sign-up now.  Nothing shows your kids how important school really is more than you helping out! To sign-up, click HERE.

UPCOMING EVENTS
11/22  Charlemagne’s Thanksgiving Donation Drive ends
11/24 & 25  No School- Thanksgiving Holiday
11/25  Spring Creek Holly Farm Holiday Tree Fundraiser begins

11/28  Winter Warmth Drive
12/2  Picture Retakes
12/2  Charlemagne’s Holiday Craft Fair
12/2  Johnson Bros. Poinsettia/Wreath Distribution
12/12 & 13 Restaurant-of-the-Month- Dicky Jo’s (both locations)

12/13  PTO Meeting

12/16  Shoe filling Assembly
12/17 – 1/3/12 Winter Vacation
1/4 Classes Resume

Community Events

A Very Special Event . . . “A Christmas Carol for Kids!” 

WHEN:  Saturday morning, Dec. 3rd, 10:30AM (~1 hr) WHAT: Dramatic Reading Benefit Performance!
WHERE: Lane County Historical Society & Museum in Eugene
WHO: Children Ages 5-12, accompanied by an adult HOW MUCH: $2/child & $3/adult
From Scrooge to Tiny Tim, from Marley’s Ghost to Mrs. Cratchit, there’s HOWLS & Growls, BANGS & Bongs, A Dance with a Song, Lively Laughter & Heartfelt Tears! Actor creates all characters, accents and all, plus sound effects — performing as Dickens himself did — simply by using his voice, face and movement, and appears in the character and costume of a Victorian Era Englishman when Dickens himself lived! Encourages younger children to join in by imitating his hand gestures, and challenges older children to try and make sense out of some of the more unusual words used in the story. Special version tells the whole story but focuses on the very concrete, versus the abstract, on smells, tastes, sights and sounds, and the highly dramatic scenes to successfully keep kids engaged.
Actor Al LePage, star of Oregon Public Broadcasting’s new “Christmas Carol” radio program, gives his first and only show in Oregon, and debuts on the west coast his specially created version of A Christmas Carol for young children based on Dickens’ own historic script! And, as always, he’s donating his time and talents for this performance.
HOW: Call 541-682-4242 to Reserve Seats, then simply pay upon arrival IF available, tickets may be purchased at the door, but Reservations Recommended!
WHY: Every penny goes to support museum programs!