Fun & Games For All!

Friday, April 29th 6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.

With the end of the school year quickly approaching, we begin to turn our attention to the traditional end of the year activities as we make our way to a return to #opcnormal. This year we will finally be able to have our carnival again! With a three year hiatus, it’s been a very long time and is a very welcome return to our lives. Your PTA is trying to have the absolute best carnival possible in order to celebrate this!

This year, we will see two professional face painters, two professional balloon artists, far more inflatables than in years past, live entertainment, several food trucks, games and more. We are working to put on an event that the kids (and parents!) will talk about all summer. We sincerely hope that you can join us and help support the school and the PTA. This our biggest fundraising event of the year!

Pre-order your tickets now to avoid those long lines the night of AND save money! You can order your tickets online here or if you prefer, you can print off the order form and send it to school with your student and pay via check. Prices go up the night of carnival, so don’t wait! Pre-orders close on Friday, April 15th and pre-orders will be sent home with your student the week of carnival via backpack mail.

Here’s a look at projected costs (in tickets) for games, activities and treats at the carnival.

We also need a LOT of volunteers to make this event work. If we don’t have a volunteer for a game or other activity at the carnival, it will be closed. PLEASE use this signup to take a shift at the carnival so that everyone can enjoy all it has to offer!

If you have questions or need anything additional, please contact Lacy Brown at 913-461-8425 or lacyboyd2002@yahoo.com.

#OPCNORMAL

Before the pandemic, OP-C students took field trips, attended STEM Night, participated in Student Council, and met friends over pizza for Chat and Chew. All of those programs, and many more, were funded by direct donations or through our fundraising events, like the yearly school carnival and silent auction.

Over the last year, donations have been down, and we haven’t been able to host our normal fundraising events. We want things next school year to be as normal as possible, but to make that happen we need your help. We need donations – money, gift cards or products – to fill baskets which will be auctioned off between April 30 and May 7.

We hope this auction will boost our shrinking budget so next year we can provide our students and families the normal field trips, enrichment activities and classroom enhancements that they know and love.

If you or someone you know is interested in donating gift cards or products for the auction, contact our Auction Committee Chairs, Suzie Shepherd at whiteroses0918@gmail.com or Lindsay Bucl at lindsaybucl@gmail.com. We will not be collecting items for classroom baskets this year, but parents are welcome to gather items and create their own basket to donate if interested. 

Stay tuned for all the fun auction items for sale to include picnic lunches with teachers, sports gear, restaurant gift cards, and a special handmade OP-C quilt!!

A Most Interesting Year

Obviously, we all know school will look different this year. We just don’t know how yet. In spite of this, the primary function and mission of the PTA has not changed; to support the school and their staff in whatever ways they need in order to continue to provide the absolute best educational experience for our students. Despite the many unknowns in the coming year, your OP-C PTA is positioning itself to provide that support and we need you and your donations in order to accomplish this.

Our goal for this year is to raise $10,000 through memberships and donations. This will allow the PTA to not only fulfill teacher wish list requests but also help us navigate what are sure to be some unique waters this year. We need you more than ever.

If you want to see what your donations have supported in the past, please check out the ‘PTA In Action’ tab. In order to join, please go to the Join tab or click here. This link is also be used to update your family information in the directory.

The PTA thanks you, as always, for everything that you have and you continue to do for our school and our community.

A Call For Help

Family Fun Nights. The yearbook. The school directory. Field trips.

These PTA programs could be in jeopardy during the 2020-2021 school year if we don’t get more parent volunteers now. 

Parent volunteers do everything from sit on the PTA board to chair the committees that organize all of our school-wide events. When you volunteer with the PTA, you give back to the school and make a huge difference in the lives of our students.

We know we ask for a lot of volunteers throughout the school year, and we appreciate how you always come through for us when we need you! If we don’t get some important PTA board and committee chair positions filled with people who are willing to donate a few hours a month, the PTA will lose its ability to plan and manage most of our events we hold every year.  This will not only impact the students of OP-C, but it will also impact our fundraising efforts which fund all these and other wonderful opportunities for our children.

Monetary donations are incredibly valuable to the PTA. Without donations we couldn’t offer all the fun, educational support that our school needs. But it’s volunteers who plan these events and keep our organization thriving and growing. They show up to support our teachers, they give their time at the kindergarten round up, or school parties. They help plan events like Trunk or Treat, Field Day and more that greatly strengthen our school and our community.

We need you. Please contact Kelly Fritz at Kelly.a.fritz@gmail.com before February 28 to see how you can help. There is no greater way to add value to our community and all it offers to our students than to give a bit of your most valuable commodity; your time.

 

 

Your New School Directory

The school directory is a necessary tool in any OP-C family’s life. It allows you to contact other families for birthday parties, social events, play dates, homework help, moral support… whatever you need! Our new online directory, Membership Toolkit, makes finding your school friends quick and easy.

There are so many benefits to the online directory. You can:

• Access the directory from any device via the web or the Membership Toolkit app
• Search by student, grade, parent or family
• Create a list of your most-contacted families
• Directly call, text, email, or map address locations
• Purchase PTA memberships and make donations via the website.

Brand new families:

1. Visit our Membership Toolkit page.
2. Click on the Register/Login button.
3. Select ‘Create Account’ and fill in the name, email and password information.
4. Click ‘Verify My Email’ and then check your email for a link to complete the process. The link expires in two hours. If you do not receive the email, check your junk mail folder.
5. Once you have verified your email address, log in to finish the registration process.
6. Join the PTA through Membership Toolkit to access the directory. The PTA needs your support in order to help fund programs such as field trips, assemblies, teacher wish lists and more.

Existing families: 

If you’re an existing OP-C family who was in the directory last year, you were registered for a MySchoolAnywhere account. Earlier this year, MySchoolAnywhere merged with Membership Toolkit and your account was transferred automatically to the new system.

To verify your information:

1. Log into our Membership Toolkit page using the same email as last year. If you don’t know what email you used last year with MySchoolAnywhere, check for an email about the merger from administrator@opcpta.com. The address that received the email is the one we have on file.
2. Your student information will be in the database, and they will have already graduated to the next grade.
3. Verify your family information to make sure it is correct.
4. Choose your publication preferences.
5. Join the PTA through Membership Toolkit to access the directory. The PTA needs your support in order to help fund programs such as field trips, assemblies, teacher wish lists and more.

For more information or help with the directory, contact Peter Duffey.

Immeasurable Value

What is a volunteer and what is their value? Is volunteering about money? Is it measurable? Most volunteers I know would say “no.” Volunteering is about giving and working with others to make a meaningful contribution. Those contributions are invaluable to our school and our students.

Volunteering has intrinsic value for those who choose to give their time. Volunteers become a part of something larger than themselves; they work toward a common goal. As a volunteer, you can get to know the students in your child’s classroom, get an inside look at the school, and see what your student is learning. You also get to meet and build relationships with other families. These relationships help build a strong community, and the PTA is at the center of it.

While donations are incredibly valuable to the PTA, volunteers are what keep our organization thriving and growing. Without donations we couldn’t offer all of the fun, educational events and support that our school needs. But its the volunteers who plan those events. They show up to support our teachers, they give their time at the kindergarten round up, or the carnival, or school parties.

We know that not everyone has time to be a regular volunteer or has spare time to give during events at the school. Being a parent is time-consuming and hard work. Whether you are an official volunteer or contributing to our community through all the support you give your student, we appreciate you.

The PTA knows that we ask for a lot of volunteers at the end of the school year, and we know you always come through for us when we need you. If you have any free time available, even while attending one of our events to put in a little time to help out, we could use you. There is no greater way to add value to our community.

Right now, we could really use your help at the carnival. Any time you can give. Please consider signing up here.

 

 

 

Spring Training

As we approach the beginning of the baseball season, I wanted to share with you a field trip that was taken by the third graders last fall at Kauffman Stadium, known fondly to Royals’ fans as “The K.”

Baseball comes along every spring, bringing with it sunshine and optimism about the coming summer. It signifies the end of winter and the season of rebirth. The sport is timeless in nature. There is no clock and the game is played until it’s over. There are many things that tie baseball to our daily lives and thus, the Royals to our community. Helping our students understand how important a binding force in our community is to those that make it up is something that’s hard to teach. The feeling you get being at the stadium and being part of something larger than yourself. You can’t get that in pictures; it needs to be experienced.

The kids got to go out to The K and see the locker rooms where the players dress out. They went into the dugout where the team waits their turn to bat. There were other learning opportunities as well, such as measuring the baselines, the length of the bats, the distance from home plate to the pitcher’s mound and more. Also, the entire field was being replaced. Not something you get to see very often! The students all had a wonderful time and here’s to another season, another summer and another great year at OP-C!

The First 100

The first 100 days of school for a kindergartner are magical. When I was a kid, the smell of freshly sharpened pencils, chalk dust and the distinct sound of the radiator clanking away in the back of the classroom were fixtures of the classroom experience. Now, it’s somewhat different with mechanical pencils, whiteboards, digital learning and more. However, there are a surprising number of memories our children are creating that are similar to ours.

At the end of January our kindergartners celebrated their 100^th day of school. During the celebration they engaged in numerous projects which, while being fun and helping them to celebrate, also took the time to showcase just how much they have learned in what feels like such a short time.

The kids counted to 100 using paper pennies which they glued onto a giant dollar. They put together puzzles which were make out of sections of numbered blocks that went up to 100. They made jewelry using 100 (or more) pieces of cereal. The kids delighted in having their photos taken with an app that showed them what they might look like in 100 years. There were so many different projects for them to do during the celebration that everyone seemed to have a great time. The real joy, however, was seeing how many of them can now count to 100, recognize all the numbers up to 100, understand some basic money denominations and more. It just goes to highlight what an amazing job our teachers are doing for our students every single day, even at the very earliest stages of their schooling. Thank you, teachers. For being so great.

Fall Into Fun

Farmer Jeanne talks about the parts of a pumpkin.

OP-C Kindergartners took their very first field trip to Johnson Farms in Belton, Mo. last week where they learned about life on a farm and growing and harvesting pumpkins.

When the kids arrived, they met with Farmer Jeanne. Farmer Jeanne told them about her farm, which she called her backyard. She taught them all about pumpkins. The gooey inside is called “netting” and the walls are called the “pulp,” just like an orange.

Farmer Jeanne went through all the rules of the farm. Most importantly: You can pet an animal’s neck, you can pet an animal’s back, but if they turn their head toward you, you have to pull your hands away! We all practiced petting pretend animals and moving our hands away when its head turned toward us.

After the rules were outlined, the kids all boarded an extra long trailer pulled by a tractor and rode out to the pumpkin patch. Farmer Jeanne told them normally they would have been able to get out and pick their own pumpkin, but it was too muddy because of all the rain. “I wouldn’t want you to bring home pieces of my backyard on your shoes,” she told them. Instead, they stayed on the trailer as the farm hand drove them around.

Next the kids went to the animal corral. They did a great job keeping their hands away from the big boar’s mouth when he wandered close to the fence. They also got a close look at some baby pigs, chicks, rabbits, an alpaca and a cow.

Kindergartners bounce on a giant air cushion.

After all the animal fun, the kids got to play in Noah’s Play Yard where there were attractions like the sand bus (really, a bus full of sand!) and a giant air cushion for bouncing on. Everyone had a great time playing! Then the students, teachers and parents all got together and had lunch outside. After lunch, students received a pumpkin and loaded the buses for the return to OP-C.

 

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To support fun and educational field trips like this, join the Oak Park-Carpenter PTA.

Cultural Art

Larry Yazzie, a Native Pride Dancer from the Meskwaki Nation, visited OP-C students the last Friday in September to share with them some of the vibrant history and culture of Native American life. He wore full regalia for his presentation for the students which was hand beaded especially for him, taking many hours to complete. He talked about Native American music and how his drum beat and music are connected to the Earth. He said he didn’t learn to dance as much as he learned to allow his body to move how it wanted with the music. His flute music was also representative of nature.

Mr. Yazzie performed traditional ceremonial dances for students, including eagle feathers. He told the students how these feathers were obtained through special permission from the USFWS National Eagle Repository. Native dancers can receive the feathers from eagles that die of natural causes to be used in traditional ceremonies.

After his presentation, he took questions from students such as ‘when did you start your culture?’. He took the time to answer all questions as well as he could. The students really seemed to enjoy the stories and the information. Everyone had a great time! You can find more information on Larry Yazzie here.

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To support educational programs like this, join or donate to the PTA today!