311 W. Seminary Avenue • Wheaton, Illinois 60187 • 630-682-2080

Save the Date

February

1 Heart Adventure Week

7 Fun Fair 11:00am-2:00pm

9 Cooks’ Night Off – Chick-fil-A

13 St. Valentine Day Parties 2:15 pm

16 NO SCHOOL – Presidents’ Day

20 Market Day pickup 3:00-4:00 pm

20 International Night 6:30-8:00 pm

23 4/5 grd Brunch/Show at COD Mac

26 Kindergarten Roundup – 7:00 pm

27 NO SCHOOL – Institute Day

March

8 Daylight Saving Time Begins

10 PTA Meeting LLC 7:00 pm

19 Parent Night All Day Kindg at Whittier School PM

20 Market Day pickup 3:00-4:00 pm

21 Spring Fling – 6:00 pm

24 All Day Kindg Registration Open at 8:00 am

30-April 3 NO SCHOOL – Spring Break

______________________________ Deadline for March 2 newsletter

is WED., Feb. 25 at NOON ______________________________

Spring Fling Save the Date March 21 from 6:00 pm to 11:00 pm or later. We will start selling tables in January.

Please note the unusually- early newsletter article submission date above.

From The Principal’s Desk

Dear Longfellow Families, At our last PTA meeting I announced some upcoming teacher retirements and would like to share them in this newsletter. At the end of this school year Longfellow School has three teachers retiring, Ms. Athans, Mrs. Curphey, and Mrs. Mulholland will be retiring from teaching. These three wonderful women have many, many years of teaching behind them and have contributed in immeasurable ways to the Longfellow Community. Hundreds of boys and girls have benefitted from their skills and talent. There is no easy replacement for experience and they will be missed! The Longfellow PTA will be holding an after school celebration tea for our retiring teachers this spring! Also, as many of you know this year is my final year in teaching as well. The process for selecting the new Longfellow Principal is underway with the anticipation of announcing the new principal by mid-March. I will save my good bye comments for later in this school year as I still have much to accomplish for Longfellow School! Longfellow Elementary School has been once again nominated for the National Blue Ribbon Award!! This is wonderful news and I will be working with our staff to complete the necessary paperwork for the nomination process. District 200 will be notified in August regarding the outcome of our nomination. Regardless of the outcome, this is recognition of the strength of our school program in teaching and learning. It is also recognition of the strong Longfellow Community of parents, staff, and students as we work toward providing our children with all of the tools to become successful learners with a balance of academic and social and emotional intelligences.

The weather has been rather mild for a Midwest winter and yes I realize it is only the beginning of February! Please remember students are asked to wear boots everyday as even our blacktop area can be very wet during the winter season. We want to help prevent wet

shoes! Winter is holding on strong and we still may have very cold temperatures. Remember that students will be going outside unless the temperature or wind chill is below 0. Please dress your children for the anticipation that they will be going outside. Patrols will still be asked to go outside for their duty unless the wind chills are too low for them to do their 15 minutes of outside duty. Spring will be here before we know it!

District 200 PTA recently held a wonderful ceremony at Hubble Middle School recognizing six of our Longfellow students whose Reflections projects were selected to advance to the District 36 level in the PTA Reflections Program. Congratulations to Cole Stetina, John Mazzarella, Annelise Mazzarella, James McGraw, Gray Cicmanec, and Katie Ferguson. Please remember to check the E-School Bag (electronic school bag) on the District 200 and Longfellow websites for new postings! This is where you will find flyers for outside activities held at Longfellow School or in the immediate area for our students such as; scouts, Park District programs and the DuPage Children’s Museum. Also, if you are interested in receiving E-alerts you will need to register on our website. The Register tab is located in the upper right area of the webpage.

Lastly, did you know that our school is a No Idling Zone? The state of Illinois has designated all school areas as no idling zones. We have signs posted around the school building as reminders not to idle. Please turn off your car to support clean air for our students.

I cannot wait for our PTA Fun Fair!! See you on Saturday, February 7th from 11:00 – 2:00pm!

Fondly, Mrs. Dianne Thornburg

President’s Message

PTA Thank You:

Hello everyone! Hope you're all staying warm this winter! There are many upcoming exciting events here at Longfellow.

Hope to see you at next week's Fun Fair this February 7, 11:00 am - 2:00 pm. It's always a fun event for the family with Carnival games, animal shows, photo booth, pizza, and much more. If you're able to volunteer to help out for the event, please email or call me or anyone in our executive board.

We are also planning for the Spring Fling, our biggest fundraiser of the year. Please save the date, Saturday, March 21, 6:00 - 11:00 pm.

Thanks to Becky Lewis and team for all of their continued hard work at planning and organizing for our Spring Fling event. See you at Fun Fair!

Warm regards, Tess bradley

Fun Fair 2015 Mark your calendars now for Saturday, February 7 from 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. when Longfellow opens its doors for Fun Fair. We'll be taking an old-fashioned carnival approach to games, activities and more! This event is open to all Longfellow families and staff. If you are interested in helping out, please contact Tess Bradley mercadotessb@gmail.com

4th and 5th Grade Breakfast Attention Parents of 4th and 5th grade students, please use the following link to sign up to help with and donate food items for the breakfast held on Monday, February 23. Emails were also sent out this week with the link. The students are treated to a delicious continental breakfast before heading out to a play with their classmates. We need lots of parent help with decorating and serving as well as providing food. http://www.signupgenius.com/go/10C0944ADA82FABFF2-longfellow If you have any questions, please email Betsy Rothery at dbrothery@comcast.net.

Battle of the Books Congratulations to Longfellow's Battle of the Books team. They are off to a great start. In the first meet of the year, the team only missed one question, racking up a score of 74. In their second meet, the team brought home a perfect score!

This year's team includes 5th graders Bailey Witter, Audrey Belford, Conner Robbins, Ellie Stetina, and Yvanna Tica, and 4th graders Clara Delzell, Addy Henninger, Grayce Murphy, Kitty Noland, and Jillian Paulson. Way to go Battlers.

You Are Invited to: International Night - 6:30 to 8:00 pm

International Night will be Friday, February 20 and will feature family-hosted Cultural Tables, each of which represents a country or region and can include costumes, decorations, food samples, historical pieces, knickknacks and what-have-yous! Please join us as we celebrate Longfellow’s diverse community by sharing a taste of your heritage. Volunteers, please contact Tess Bradley at 630-776-0089 or mercadotessb@gmail.com.

Cooks’ Night Off at Chick-fil-A February 9 Mark your calendars for Longfellow's next Cook's Night Off. The next CNO will be at Chick-fil-A on Monday, February 9 from 5:00 pm to 8:00 pm. Chick-fil-A is located at 301 E Loop Road, in Wheaton. Be sure to check out the spinning wheel where you have the chance to win some great food and beverage items and help our school at the same time! Volunteers (adult and child) are needed for the spinning wheel. Please contact Julie Donovan at juliedonovan80@hotmail.com if

you or your child(ren) are able to volunteer for a 30 minute or 1 hour shift during our Spirit Night. Your help is greatly appreciated and thank you for your support! We hope to see you there!

Longfellow Running Club returns We are so excited to offer another year of Running Club to Longfellow Students. The club will be offered to girls and boys in grades 2-5. We will be meeting once a week after school starting after Spring Break until the end of the school year. We will be following much of the same plan as last year but are hoping to add in some speed work (for those that like sprints better) and also an option for kids to do more endurance work (for those that are eager to run just a little bit longer). After completing the club, students will again have the option to run the Cosley Zoo 5k in early June. Whether you love to run, are curious about running, or just want to try something new, we hope to see you at Running Club! If you missed our booth at the Ice Cream Social in the Fall, and would like more information about Running Club, please contact Julie Donovan at juliedonovan80@hotmail.com or Cassie Capp at cassie@jccapp.com. Spring Fling wants you Dear Parents, Grandparents and Friends: Ticket sales have started the clock ticking, so please bring as many friends and grandparents and neighbors as possible. Alumni are always welcome. We want to make this good year for Mrs. Thornburg and our new principal in 2015-16 school year. There is still time to donate wine, sporting tickets, summer/winter homes and if you would like to help the day of the event please let me know. Thank you for your support of the kids and their future… Becky Lewis 312-804-0701, blewis907@gmail.com

Patriot Express

Did you know that the Longfellow PTA sends out an email newsletter each Sunday morning? It’s called the Patriot Express, and in it we try to update you on all that’s going on in and around Longfellow ― so make sure you read it each week! And if you aren’t getting it, be sure to let Kerry Mansour kermansour@gmail.com know, so that she can add you to the list! May we also suggest that you add longfellowschoolpta@gmail.com to your contacts so that your Patriot Express doesn’t get filtered out of your inbox. Thanks!

WDSRA Disability Awareness Program for Longfellow’s 3rd grade

The Western DuPage Special Recreation Association is a cooperative extension of member park districts providing recreational opportunities for individuals who have special needs. The agency serves more than 8,000 individuals in more than 1,000 programs, special events and trips each year.

WDSRA’s Disability Awareness Program is a hands-on training experience that helps community members explore their feelings and values to become comfortable with the special needs of others. The program helps dispel myths and provide facts about various disabilities. WDSRA promotes sensitivity, acceptance and understanding of different perspectives as these issues relate to individuals who have special needs.

On February 13, the WDSRA will put on this program for all of our 3rd graders. This is the third year we have had this program come to Longfellow and our intention is to continue to do it for all 3rd graders each year. Through hands-on activities, our students will get a feel for what being disabled means. During the training they will learn:

• How it may feel to have a disability

• How to interact with someone who has a disability

• How to reduce the fear of the unknown

• How to recognize a person's abilities

• Proper terminology to use The disability stations include: Physical Challenges, Visual Impairments, Hearing Impairments, Developmental Delays, and Autism. Thank you to the Longfellow PTA for sponsoring this.

Playground Supervision Longfellow has need for an additional part-time lunchtime playground supervisor. A lunchtime supervisor has the responsibility of keeping our Longfellow students safe while at play on the playground. We presently have a great group of women working as supervisors, but have need for at least one more, for one day a week and/or substitute position. Lunchtime supervision begins at noon and ends at 1:00 p.m. The position of supervisor is an important position and we are hoping some of you will be generous enough to fill the need. This is a paid position. Please call for more info 630-682-2080.