Dear Parents,

Our Fall Fundraiser went

extremely well this year. The

overall sales were over $23,000,

and we received 40% of the

profits. Thank you to all who

took part in the fundraiser.

Remember, the money from the

PTO fundraisers provide for many

of the activities that we put on

during the school year including

special assemblies, our annual

Cookies and Crafts night, the

Brantwood Bash, and many

other classroom projects and

field trips.

Your efforts benefit every

child at Brantwood, so thank

you for your continued support.

I also enjoyed seeing so many

families at Math Night this

past month. It is always

exciting to see students and

their families spend time here

at Brantwood learning and

having a great time.

Mr. Borchers

A Message From the Principal Issue 2

Brantwood Briefs A Title I School

Jay Borchers, Principal Lori Carr, Secretary

November/December 2013

Brantwood Elementary

2013 “Learning for all,

whatever it takes!”

Important Dates

11/7 P/T Conf. 5 - 9 pm

11/7 Fall Fundraiser pick-

up from 5-9 pm in the BW

Cafeteria.

11/8 No School P/T Conf.

11/11 No School

11/14 Picture Retake Day

11/14 Parent/Teacher Con-

ferences 5 - 8:15 pm

11/19 2nd Grade Music

Program 6 pm

11/21 Texas Roadhouse

Family Night 4 - 10 pm

11/27 - 12/1

Thanksgiving Break

12/4 Canned Food Drive

Ends

12/4 - 12/10 Fall Book Fair

12/5 PTO Meeting 6:30 pm

12/10 Choir Concert

6 - 6:30 pm

12/10 PTO Cookies and

Crafts 6:30 - 8 pm

12/10 Fall Book Fair Fami-

ly Night 5 - 8 pm

12/16 - 12/20 Brantwood

Secret Santa Shop

12/20 End of 2nd Quarter -

11:45 Early Release

12/21 - 1/5 Winter Break

1/6/13 Class Resumes

PTO Upcoming Events The Brantwood PTO will sponsor the following activities for our students and parents:

Fall Fundraiser Pick-up November 7 5:00 - 9:00 p.m.

Cookies and Crafts Night December 10 6:30-8:00 p.m.

Secret Santa Shop December 16-20 School Day

Volunteers are needed to assist Santa’s helpers. The Shop will be open during your child’s

library period. The gifts range in price from $1.00 - $5.00 and Santa has sent many different

items for the children to choose from this year. Please send cash with your child on his/her

scheduled day. More information will follow on these events.

The PTO wishes each of you a Happy Holiday and a successful New Year. We sincerely

thank you for your continued support.

DEAR PARENTS/GRANDPARENTS/GUARDIANS – REMINDER

If your student has a change in afternoon plans, please send a note with

your student or call the office BEFORE 1:30 p.m.

Brantwood Briefs Page 2

Fourth grade students just celebrated the October AR reward with ice cream floats and extra recess. The monthly goal is five or more AR points. Thank you to PTO and parents for donating the supplies for this awesome activity. Most of the fourth grade students have participated in book studies this quarter. The two books studied this quarter were Because of Winn Dixie and Frindle. Students will be participating in book studies during their

reading intervention groups. Also students are able to use the IXL program at home. Most of the students should know how to log on at home and work on math skills at home. Conferences are coming up soon. Make sure to be on time for your conference. Due to the number of students, conferences will be teacher led so students will not need to come this year.

Info from 1st Grade: The first graders have had a busy month!! We have finished reviewing all of the short and long vowels. We’ve been adding more “hunks and chunks” to our Phonics Dance, so we’re getting better and better at reading. In writer’s workshop, we are working on small moment personal narrative stories. The students enjoyed sharing their stories at our second publishing party. We’re looking forward to conferences coming up!! The first graders will be attending conferences with their parents, so they can share their da-ta folders. The students will be discussing class goals, and how they are doing on each of them.

News From 4th Grade

We have been so busy in third grade. The time is flying by and it is hard to believe it is November. The students have been work-ing hard in math on fractions and measure-ment. Students are expected to measure to the nearest 1/2 and 1/4 inch. You can prac-tice this at home by measuring everyday ob-jects!! Students could also use continued practice with subtraction. In science, we have been learning about rocks and minerals. The students are excited to learn about the three different types of rocks and how they form. Do you know how igneous, sedimentary and metamorphic rocks are formed? Have your student share our song with you to learn! Finally, the third grade teachers are extremely proud of the Cafeteria Character the students have been demonstrating! They were the first grade level to achieve 50 days in a row of good cafeteria behavior and were rewarded with ice cream from Dairy Queen. We hope the students keep up their streak and make it to 75 so they can pie Mr. Borchers in the face!! Way to be great role models third graders!!!

3rd Grade News

Issue 2 Page 3

float! We are now working on easy subtraction. The math goal for the second quarter is for all students to score 90% or higher on their weekly timed test three times during the second quarter.

The students really enjoyed sharing and seeing the variety of leaves from the fall leaf projects. Most

Conferences are coming up on Nov. 7, 8, and 14. We look forward to meeting with each of you and your child to discuss their progress at this time.

We are proud to announce that 71 out of 75 second graders met the first quarter math goal for easy addition! Those students celebrated with an ice cream

students put a lot of time of effort into their projects. Thank you for your guidance and help.

2nd Grade Briefs

Title I News

Brantwood Family Math Night

On Wednesday October 2 Brantwood held its annual Family Math Night. The theme was “Math

Comes Alive” and over 150 people attended the fun filled evening. There were different math sta-

tions for the students and their families to do including making a tangram robot, graphing the differ-

ent colors of skittles, adding up menu items at the “Brantwood Roadhouse” restaurant and estimat-

ing how many pieces of candy corn in the jar (total 355 pieces and the winning answer was 359!).

Thank you to Stebbins High School teachers Mr. Prater and Mrs. Boyce and their students from the

Stebbins Career Technology department for showing the Brantwood students and families how math

really does come alive through their displays and activities. Their booths were a big hit and well at-

tended! Also, a big Texas sized thanks to the Texas Roadhouse Armadillo who was on hand to greet

students and hand out free kids meal tokens to those who completed adding up their menu items.

Door prizes were given away and 1 lucky student from each grade level won a math game to take

home! Kudos to the Brantwood Math Committee for planning this awesome event. It really was a

fun night learning how “Math Comes Alive” in our everyday lives.

Kindergarten Briefs Kindergarten has been working very hard learning their popcorn words. We have introduced thirty words so far and have 11 more to go! The children have been searching for these words to read in our library books, classroom books, on papers, and all over the school. It’s amazing how quickly some of the students have mastered their words. Let your children look for their popcorn words at home during their bedtime stories.

All the kindergartners should now be able to identify 2-D and 3-D shapes. The ones they should know are square, rectangle, triangle, circle, hexagon, sphere, cylinder, cone, and cube. Look for these different shapes in your home.

Bad Weather? Here is what you do….

In the case of inclement weather, please tune to the local television stations to keep

up to date on school closings. You can also log onto the internet and check

www.whiotv.com or www.wdtn.com. Please make sure you watch for Mad River Local

Schools. In the event of a weather delay, there will be no breakfast served. And

students may arrive at 10:00 am. Please note that during any weather delay, the morn-

ing BASE program is closed. You can also be notified of weather delays by subscribing

to the district email “Alert Notification” system. To subscribe to this service, log onto

www.madriverschools.org and follow the “E-mail Alerts” link. This will allow you to re-

ceive email announcements from the district. In addition to all of these ways to get

this important information, we also use the OneCallNow system to make notifications.

Please let Mrs. Carr know if you have any changes to your phone number so we can

update your information in the system.

Canned Food Drive

It is that caring and sharing time of the year to help some of our community families. Brantwood will be assisting the Mad River Lions Club in collecting canned and non-perishable food items for the yearly Project Share program. We would like to have food items donated between November 5 and December 4. (The classroom with the most items will win a pizza party sponsored by Mr. Borchers.) Thank you for your generosity!

Fall Book Fair

Book Fair Family Night is December 10, from 5:00 – 8:00 PM during the PTO Cookies & Crafts Night. Please stop by to see our great selection of books and to enter into a couple of drawings for prizes!

The Scholastic Book Fair is coming to our school starting on December 4! It will be open from 8:00 AM – 3:00 PM on December 4, 6, 9 & 10. Your child will have a chance to visit the fair during the school day, but there is an opportunity for you to come as well.