Denali Montessori School

Picture Day is tomorrow!! These are the pictures that just show up in a few weeks and you can decide whether or not to keep and pay for them. Please feel free to leave any unwanted photos in the PTA box in the workroom. If you keep the photos, please remember to send in payment. Denali PTA makes a commission on paid sales, which we then use for school programs and events.

PTA will require three new officers for the 2008-2009 school year. The current board is busily preparing for a smooth transition and hopes to spend most of May working closely with new board members. In order to do that, we need to have three officer candidates at our May 6 meeting. We also have many more specific openings, planning events and such. If you would like more information about what is entailed, or would like to jump in a volunteer, please call Jessica Horwatt at 441-8196.

HUGE thanks go to Jackie Morrissey and Linda Klinkhart for taking on the job of coordinating our Spring Book Fair! Denali PTA earned just over $2000 from book sales, but more importantly, a total of nearly $1500 in books were added to class libraries via family donations and product earnings from Scholastic. Incredible!

PTA also provided snacks for our testing kids last week, again thanks to parent volunteers. Thank you Jackie Morrissey, Jim Lee and Jessica Horwatt for making Costco runs. Thanks to all the parents who stayed in the morning to deliver snacks to classrooms. And, special thanks to Carla Williams for coming in early all four days to prepare snacks!!

Thanks to Julie Pierce for coordinating our annual cookie dough sale. Denali PTA made about $1,800 profit. Thanks also to those who helped sort the products for pickup: Scott Irwin, Linda Klinkhart, Jessica Horwatt, Julie Pierce and her first assistant, Adler!

Many thanks to Kim Robuck for remaining our Life Touch point of contact and handling all coordination for Fall and Spring school pictures and for completing our yearbook!

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Our Fall Carnival was a great success. Thanks to everyone who pitched in – we were fortunate to have a full sign up sheet for this event, plus many parents who showed up to help unannounced!! We needed everyone to make it work. Special thanks goes to Toni Walker for providing several wonderful large door prizes. For fun, you can find the list of door prizes and who won them at denalischool.org. Overall, we made a profit of $3500 at this event, which is a 45% increase over last year, largely due to the door prize donations. Another win for PTA at this event is that we have a Fall Carnival Coordinator for next year, none other than Toni Walker. Please thank Toni for her willingness to help when you see her!

Our Book Fair Blizzard happened last week. Many, many thanks to Jackie Morrissey and Linda Klinkhart for chairing this event and for the excellent promotion they have done. We made $2400 in profit, up 30% from last year. Almost $8000 worth of books were sold and $530 of books were put into classrooms, not including family donations. WOW!!

This week, we have W.E. C.A.R.E. Sports in the school working with students during gym and music with their self-esteem building message of Cooperation, Communication and Commitment. Denali staff asked PTA to fund this program as an Artist in Residence at a cost of $2000. Special thanks goes to Robin Walker and Gretchen Nelson for making this happen.

There will be a Family Fun Night on Friday, November 16 from 6:30 – 8:30, hosted by W.E. C.A.R.E. Sports as an opportunity for the Denali Community to work interactively with the group to see what they have been doing with the kids. Pizza will be available for purchase. For more information about the program, please visit their web site at www.wecaresports.com. The toys that are being used this week will be available for sale at Family Fun Night. Proceeds will be used to purchase W.E. C.A.R.E. materials for us in the P.E. class. See you there! <http://www.wecaresports.com/> .

We have mentioned that we had expected to participate in Bell’s Nursery’s poinsettia sale fundraiser this year; however, we overlooked signing up on time so we will not be offering poinsettia certificates this year. We would like to try again next year. This fundraiser involves selling gift certificates for the plants that are redeemed directly at Bell’s. We would like to have a chairperson for this fundraiser for next year – it’s one of the easier ones to coordinate, provided, of course, that we sign up!!! If you’re interested in helping with what would surely be a profitable addition to PTA fundraising, please contact Jessica Horwatt at 441-8196.

Contact PTA anytime at denalipta@hotmail.com.

Friday, October 26th 6pm till 8pm

Early ticket sales before and after school
Monday, October 22nd thru
Friday morning October 26th
8:15am to 8:50am and 3:30pm to 4:00pm.
(Also available at the door)

Tickets are 25 cents each

Games!! Prizes!! Food!!
Fun for All!!
Cake Walk!!!!!!

Bring your family!! Bring your friends!!

Just a reminder about costumes. There will be families attending with young children. Please do not bring scary masks or wear frightening make-up. We want everyone to have fun, including the young children.

Thanks for all the help in making our first meeting successful.

A sign up sheet for Fall Carnival booths will be in the downstairs workroom. Please list the booth name, your name as a contact and anything you need from PTA in order to make your booth work. Parents, please check with your classroom teacher to see if they need assistance. We will alos be requesting cake walk items and door prizes in the next couple weeks.

The carnival is Friday, October 26 from 6:00 to 8:00. We plan to serve hot dogs, pizza, chips, and/or fruit and veggies, and bottled water.

October 26 is also picture retake day, in the morning. We are inviting parents of the preschoolers to drop in for their pictures as they were not here on picture day.

Busy day - October 26 is also tie-dye day. Students are invited to wear tie-dye to school that day.

The Pumpkin Carvind display will be Monday, October 29 through Wednesday, October 31. Everyone will receive a participation prize.

We are still working on the reading program. Matching up times takes a little back and forth. Volunteer and tutoring needs info are still trickling in. Thanks for your patience.

Jessica Horwatt for Denali PTA