THE BURR PTO PRESENTS 

2019-2020 BURR PTO BOARD ELECTIONS

PTO Board elections will take at Burr on Tuesday, June 11 at 7pm

The election of new Burr PTO board members is just around the corner. We have a number of vacancies and hope you will consider getting more involved with the PTO during the 2019-2020 school year. 

The success of our organization depends on parent involvement. This is a great opportunity to make a real impact on your child's school experience, build a vibrant community, and make a lasting impact on Burr School. The responsibilities of the officers are detailed here. If you have the time and interest to serve, please send an email to Co-President Spencer Poole at spencer.poole@gmail.com by no later than Friday, June 5th.  

Elections will be held at the last PTO meeting of the year, which is scheduled for Tuesday, June 11th from 7-9pm at Burr.

 THE BURR PTO PRESENTS 

CAS Welcomes the Discovery Museum’s Sound (4th Grade)—June 3

What is sound? How is it made? How does it travel? Why do different objects make different sounds? Why do things sound different underwater? Plunging a vibrating tuning fork into a bowl of water creates quite a spray as students learn that sound is vibration. Students actively engage in exploring sound, creating unique sound makers with household materials.

June 3, 2019

8:35-9:20  --  Ms. Tice
9:35-10:20  --  Ms. Li
10:35-11:20  --  Ms. Bapat

Presentations will take place in the Library. 

Join us! Parents are encouraged to attend, but no younger siblings, please. Thank you for your cooperation. 

 THE BURR PTO PRESENTS 

CAS Welcomes Caterpillar Lab (2nd Grade)—May 28

Metamorphose from an egg to a moth or a butterfly with the Caterpillar Lab! Working in groups we will act out the steps of metamorphosis and learn about the survival and adaptation methods used by caterpillars. Then the Caterpillar Labs presenters will help us see and hold the caterpillars, moths and butterflies they have brought with them. 

Join us! Parents are encouraged to attend, but no younger siblings, please. 

Thank you for your cooperation. 

 THE BURR PTO PRESENTS 

Move-a-thon Volunteers!

The Move-a-thon is back with proceeds to benefiting both Burr School technology and the Iron Giraffe Challenge, which helps bring water to South Sudan.

This year, in addition to the lap running area on the field, we are also going to be incorporating some fun non-running options for kids on the black top, like hula hooping, jump roping, etc.

We could use parents to set up, help monitor the black top games, pass out water, and cleanup. 

Volunteer here:
https://www.signupgenius.com/go/30e0d45aeae2ca5ff2-moveathon1

Burr Parent Principal Coffee — New Date 5/28

May 20, 2019

Dear Burr Parents/Guardians,

We are postponing Friday’s Parent Principal Coffee. We have some conflicting activities going on this week and feel it would be best to have the Parent Principal Coffee when more people can attend. The new date is Tuesday, May 28.

The agenda will be:

Plans for the 2019-20 school year
Review of the Family Connectedness Survey
Open Discussion – Group generated topics

I hope to see you there!

Best,

Mindy

New Afterschool Care Option!

Great news for parents who have struggled with options for afterschool care!  Next fall, the West Suburban YMCA will be providing transportation from Burr School to the YMCA each and every day for their afterschool program, Out of School Time.  

Many other Newton schools have been utilizing this program for years, and it’s exciting that it will be available to Burr families next year. Please visit the website https://www.wsymca.org/child-care/after-school-care or contact the director Jillian Finnegan at JillianF@wsymca.org for details re: pricing, schedule, etc.

 THE BURR PTO PRESENTS 

Mayfair Wrap-Up

The Mayfair Committee would like to thank all of the parent volunteers who helped make Saturday's event a successful one! We couldn't have done it without your help! Thank you to all of the parents, 5th Graders who ran activities and games and Bake Sale bakers. We had beautiful weather and the kids had a blast!

Dunk Tank Teachers: Thank you to the courageous teachers who bravely volunteered for the Dunk Tank: Ms. Gersh, Ms. MacNeil, Ms. Shiner and Mr. Diaz.

Cake Decorating Contest Winners/Judges:

We would like to thank Mayor Ruthanne Fuller, City Counselors Joshua Krintzman and Jim Cote, Annan Walker and Matthew Gioia (New owners of Wally's Wicked Good Ice Cream) who had the difficult task of judging the cakes in our Cake Decorating Contest. 

The Winners:   1st Place: Jillian Fialkosky and Scarlett Krikorian

                         2nd Place: Sophia Fialkosky

                         3rd Place: Morgan Olszewski

The Raffle Winners: Principal for the Day: Naya Billick

PE Teacher for the Day: Sophie Finklestein 

A special shout out to Aiden Vahey, Burr Alum was our rockin' DJ! 

Corporate Sponsors

Please thank the following Burr parents and business owners for their support!

Justine and Gary Fialkosky of Gary Fialkosky Lawn Sprinklers Inc

Hannah and Jay Ryan of Parallel Sound Studio

Deanna Salemme and Valerie Wastcoat of Coldwell Banker Real Estate.

We also want to thank our other corporate sponsors who made generous contributions!

Dewire Bros. Auto Body

Honda Village

Just Next Door

Regan's Service Inc.

The Village Bank 

Wally's Ice Cream 

Best,

Sloane

Burr School Newsletter

May 13, 2019

Dear Burr Families,

I hope all Burr moms were completely spoiled yesterday and had a wonderful Mother’s Day.  I’m sure many of you were recovering on Sunday from all the work done to plan and organize the very successful May Fair! The weather on Saturday cooperated, and children and adults all had a fun time.  I want to thank Kara MacNeill, Lian Gersh, Dan Diaz, and Allison Shriner, the brave Burr staff members who signed up to be in the dunk tank this year. It was a popular activity.

I want to thank you all for providing the Burr staff with such an amazing Teacher Appreciation Week. The school was overflowing with delicious foods, flowers, and tokens of appreciation. On Tuesday, we enjoyed a fantastic breakfast spread, and on Thursday, we had a taco/burrito luncheon.  I know it takes a lot of planning and organizing to pull off such events and I want you all to know your kindness touched the staff.

Going into the last weeks of school, we have a few community activities with which we hope you’ll support us. The Student Council members voted to use some of the proceeds from Move-a-thon pledges towards meeting our school goal of donating $1,000 to the Iron Giraffe Challenge. This challenge helps provide fresh water to villages in South Sudan. We currently have $650, so we’re close!

A Burr School alum, who is currently at Newton North, has asked us to help her collect gently used clothing for children in Nigeria. The clothing should be for children ages 6 to 12. We have a collection box in the lobby. You can send your donations into school with your children, or drop them off yourself. Please keep this in mind as you Spring clean.

Lastly, I have some staffing news to share. This year we will be losing two teachers at Burr due to a decrease in enrollment. Next year, we will have three sections of 5th grade and two sections of 3rd grade. We currently have four 5th grade teachers, so Ms. Bordman will not be at Burr next year.  Our current 2nd-grade classes have low enrollment numbers for next year, which means we will have two sections in grade 3. Unfortunately, this means that Ms. McConnell will not be at Burr next year. Ms. MacNeill, currently a grade 3 teacher, will join the 2nd-grade team next year.

The classroom teachers at each grade level will be:

Kindergarten:   Ms. Frail, Ms. Mc Mahon, Ms. Russo

Grade One:      Ms. Espinal, Ms. Fitch, Ms. Golden

Grade Two:      Ms. Field, Ms. MacNeill, Ms. Roberts

Grade Three:   Ms. Canning, Ms. Oh

Grade Four:     Ms. Bapat, Ms. Li, Ms. Tice

Grade Five:      Ms. Cooley, Ms. Harris, Ms. Robinson

Please feel free to email me if you have any question or concerns. The next Parent Principal Coffee will be on May 24 at 8:30 AM in the Burr Cafetorium.  I hope you can join me for a discussion about planning for next year.

Best,

Mindy

Burr Garden

Hello Burr community! Spring has sprung and soon all classrooms will visit the Burr Garden on either May 21, 29, or 30. Once all teachers have signed up for their classroom's specific time in the garden, we will post the schedule. For now, though, please start chatting with your kids about the garden and consider helping out both when your child visits and anytime over the course of those three days. We work hard to match each grade's garden themes to their curriculum - the themes for this year are:

Kindergarten: Rainbow flowers
First: Sun and Moon (getting excited about 2nd grade science topics)
Second: Ghana, Mexico, and China (the countries studied this year)
Third: Three Sisters (dead fish, corn, squash, and beans)
Fourth: "Bigs" & sunflowers (things that grow tall/big like these students will be when they are 5th graders)
Fifth: Graduation (wheat grass in the shape of 2019, their graduation year, flowers, and painted rocks to decorate the garden)

We look forward to working with your children in the garden!

Best, Kim Tulimieri and Marni Goldstein Caputo