Make sure to mark your calendars for the following events at Roosevelt this week:

Monday, February 20
President’s Day – No School

Tuesday, February 21
Beginning of animal toy drive by Room 2. Send any new or gently used animal toys or supplies to school with your child.

Wednesday, February 22
Happy Birds assemblies. Leading up to Friday night’s showing of the movie Rio, there will be an assembly at Roosevelt featuring Amazon parrots, Macaws and Cockatoos. The students will all learn about the different types of parrots, where parrots live all over the world, how and why they talk, what they eat, what makes parrots different from other types of birds and what they can do with their beaks.

Friday, February 17
Student of the Month Assemblies

Movie Night! The PTA will be presenting the movie Rio! Doors open at 6:30, movie starts at 7:00pm. Wear your pajamas and bring your blankets and pillows and enjoy the show! More details below…

Important Dates…
February 28 – PTA Meeting at 6:00pm
February 29 – Restaurant fundraiser – Pasta Pomodoro
March 2 – Free Dress Friday
March 2 – Coffee with Principal Girardi at 8:00am
March 2 – Lockdown Drill at 10am
March 2 – Last day for animal toy drive
March 12 – 16 – Parent / Teacher conferences

Drop off and Pick up News…
At last Monday’s Site Council and ELAC meeting, we received the plan for drop off zones from the district’s facilities manager and Redwood City’s traffic department. The city’s plan is to paint drop off zones on the curb beside the lower playground on both Vera and Euclid. At this time, we’re not sure when that will be done. We’ve been told that in addition to the drop zone curb painting, the city will be repainting the staff parking spaces and making them diagonal so they will only be accessible by driving down Vera from Alameda de las Pulgas. They will be repainting the staff parking spaces over this long weekend, so please be aware that you will not be able to make a left turn into one of the parking spaces in front of the school if you drive up Vera from Upton on Tuesday. We’ll let you know when the official drop of zones are going to be painted.

On the Parent Blog…
A lot has been happening all over Roosevelt! I posted pictures from Ms. Paulette’s Accelerated Reader goal party in the library, the 4th grade field trip to Ano Nuevo, a 2nd grade Art in Action lesson, the 6th graders making models of the Nile River, Valentine’s Day celebrations, and the 4th graders starting to practice their word fluency with iPods. Take a look around on all of the classroom pages on the blog and you’ll see some really cool stuff happening!

Movie Night!…
Roosevelt’s PTA will be celebrating Mardi Gras and Carnival on Friday, February 24 by presenting the movie Rio! So come and enjoy the fun! Doors open at 6:30pm for popcorn, candy and hot chocolate and the movie begins at 7:00pm. Movie nights are always so much fun and a great way to end the week! If you can help with any part of the evening, please contact Kim Schiff at kbschiff@sbcglobal.net

She needs:
1 volunteer to start popcorn machine at 5:30pm.
2 volunteers set-up at 6:00pm-7:00pm
4 volunteers to sell concessions 6:50-8pm
Volunteers to help clean up 8:30-9pm.

Jiji Math at Home…
Don’t forget – your child can log in to Jiji Math at home! Your child can log into his/her Jiji Math account and complete any assigned homework added by your child’s teacher. Go to www.stmath.com, click on Jiji and enter homework activation code: ROO79A-HS9-ZE-TRG. Your child will then be directed to enter their password. If you want to know how effective Jiji is for math scores, here’s another Jiji Math success story from a school in Nevada – http://youtu.be/ViG8bzmoqa0 Roosevelt’s math scores have also shown improvement since implementing Jiji. Second grade scores went up by 26% from 2010 to 2011, 5th grade scores went up by 18% since 2009. The Jiji Math representative in the video said it best when he said “They believe video games can be beaten, so they believe that this math game can be beaten.”

Toy Drive for Homeless Animals…
As part of their PBL study of how ordinary people have changed the world, the 2nd graders in Room 2 have chosen to organize a toy drive for the animals that are brought to Animal Services. The students are looking to donate gently used or new animal toys or supplies to the shelter. If you want to participate, please send your donation to school with your child. The 2nd graders will be putting collection bags in each classroom. Toys can be donated starting Tuesday, Feb 21 and ending Friday, March 2.

Save the Date…
Our Rummage Sale’s rescheduled date has been confirmed and it will now be combined with a Cinco de Mayo celebration on May 5, 2012! Our PTA president, Aurora Gallardo needs help sorting and pricing the donated items that have been stored in the PTA room and selling booth space. Parents are also needed to help cook a Mexican meal for the festivities. — Carnes asada, frijoles (beans), arroz (rice), elote (corn) and nachos

If you can help, please contact Aurora at aurora.gallardo@star-vista.org

Do You Have a Smartphone?…
Keep up to date about what’s happening at Roosevelt on your smartphone. Make sure to bookmark our parent blog on your phone and then you can check out what’s going on anytime! www.rooseveltparents.com

Have a great week!