The generosity of the North families are amazing. The beginning of the month brought about our Birthday Boxes. The end of the month brings the conclusion of the Akron Children's Hospital book drive. Our Kindergarten, 1st, and 2nd grades collected over 500 new and used children's books. The books are being delivered on Monday. I cannot express my thanks enough for the willingness of North families to give to others. Thank you and have a great weekend!

Tomorrow evening is our PTO Father/Son Night. Please plan on arriving at 5:30 to have your pictures taken. Dinner will be served at 6:00 and the Survivor stations will begin immediately after dinner. The dads and their sons will rotate through the 4 stations with their assigned group. Please remember to pay the $3 per family as you register at the door. The PTO has an exciting night planned! See you tomorrow.

Today our Grand Prize winner for our PACK lunch program was chosen. A 1st grade student was the lucky winner of an Edible Arrangement gift card and a YMCA Family Day Pass. This concluded a fantastic program of encouraging students to eat more fruits and vegetables.

The PTO is raffling off 2 baskets this week for our Father/Son Night. One basket is themed for the Dads with a gift certificate from Lowe's and the other basket is for the boys with a DVD and books in it. Tickets are $1 each or 6 for $5. Tickets will be sold during lunch this week and also Thursday evening during our special PTO night. Thank you for supporting the PTO.

Our day was filled with lots of laughter and writing! We had a mime, "Toma" act out some stories for us this morning. He encouraged the students to write their own stories following his 3 P's and S guideline. These stand for People, Place, Problem, and Solution. The students wrote stories as a class or in small groups as "Toma" traveled to the classrooms to help with suggestions. The day ended with "Toma" acting out some of the exciting stories our students wrote. One of the stories was about a mom trying to wake up her son for school as he keeps falling back to sleep. Finally the mom gets the child out the door for school, closes the door and then goes back to sleep herself. The creativity and originality was quite evident with the fantastic stories that the students wrote. Our Young Author's Assembly was a hit thanks to our students and special guest, "Toma".

Tomorrow is our last Tae Kwon Kids after-school program. Yesterday, the students involved, received a letter explaining the graduation taking place this Friday, March 23rd. The first session will be for those students with last names beginning in letters A-M from 5:00-6:00 p.m. The second session will be 6:30-7:30 p.m. for students with last names beginning with N-Z. The program will be held at the Martial Arts Training Center behind Friendly's.

Red is the color for our P.A.C.K. lunch program tomorrow. Pack your red fruit and veggies.

Today was day #1 of our P.A.C.K. program in the cafeteria. This is a program to encourage students to eat more fruits and vegetables. All students who ate a fruit or vegetable that was blue or purple entered their name in a drawing. Four lucky winners won a poster. Each day there is a different color assigned. The students have to eat at least half of the fruit or vegetable to enter the daily poster drawing. At the end of the week, there will be 1 Grand Prize Winner. The winner will receive a gift card to Edible Arrangements and a Family Pass to the YMCA. Tomorrow's colors are white, tan, or brown.

A BIG thank you to Dr. Logan and his wife for visiting our school today. The Kindergarten, 1st, and 2nd grades all enjoyed a lesson on keeping their teeth healthy. Dr. Logan taught them how to brush correctly so that all plaque is removed. He also talked about healthy food and snack choices to keep their smiles perfect. We appreciate them taking time to visit us.

Our Gorant candy and Cookbook fundraiser is coming to a close. Please turn in all orders and payment by Friday, March 16th. We will not be able to accept orders after tomorrow morning to ensure the delivery before Spring Break. All orders will be available for pick-up on Monday, April 2nd. Thanks for supporting the fundraiser.

Tomorrow, Mrs. Hay's 3rd Grade will be selling popcorn for 50 cents a bag. This is part of an Economics Unit. The students completed a job application and were hired for certain positions. Some of the positions are advertisers, salespeople, accountants, and supervisors. Please help support their business, "Poland Poppers" and buy a bag of popcorn for 50 cents tomorrow. Thank you!

Our first Tae Kwon Kids program was a success. The students learned front kicks, self defense, and respect. It was nice to hear the large group of students in unison saying "Yes sir" to Mr. Ritchie. Our next session will be Wednesday after school where the focus will be on cooperation. A big thanks to Miss Kathy and Mr. Ritchie for donating their time.

During lunch next week, the students have a chance to guess some favorite things of our staff. The staff answered questions about favorite color, vacation, subject, etc. The guessing will take place in our main hallway. A $1.00 donation for Relay for Life is asked to participate. The top guesser in every grade will receive a prize. Good luck.

The rain today has forced us to have indoor recess. Kindergarten and 1st grade enjoyed working in small groups in their rooms. The 2nd and 3rd grades were challenged with putting together a United States floor puzzle. Our 4th grade participated in our school's Bulldog Fitness Trail. We kept busy as we watched the raindrops fall, hoping tomorrow will bring the sunshine back.

Our school has teamed with the Mahoning Valley Scrappers to encourage reading outside the school day. The Scrappers are asking that each child read at least 5 books through April. The books need to be on their grade-level. Each child who accomplishes this will receive 2 free General Admission tickets. At the game, the students who participated in the reading program will be recognized on the field. All your child needs to do is return the bookmark with 5 book titles and your initials on it to their teacher. The Scrappers will also reward two classrooms with a pizza party and a visit from Scrappy. The classrooms that have the highest participation of students and the highest number of books read will be the winners. Thank you for encouraging reading in your house.

Our Kindergarten, 1st, and 2nd Grades are beginning a wonderful service project. They are collecting new or gently used children's books through March 19th. At that time, the books will be donated to Akron Children's Hospital to be used by patients. We are off to a great start with the book donations. This is a great way to spread the joy of reading and kindness. Thanks to all who help with this project.

Welcome to our snowy start to the week. During morning announcements, we talked about the birds having trouble finding food on a snowy day. Our 'Kindness Assignment' is to put something out for the birds to eat. There were many great ideas on how to make a homemade bird feeder using pine cones or an old tray. Another suggestion was using bread that may not be eaten, such as the crust. Even though we may not get a 'thank you' or a smile for completing this assignment, the songs the birds sing will show they are happy for what we did.

The "Birthday Boxes" were delivered this morning to the Beatitude House. The 3rd and 4th Graders were able to put together 46 "Birthday Boxes". Each box was wrapped and contained a cake mix, frosting, plates, napkins, candles, and decoration. Thank you to all who donated items for this service project. Many children will be celebrating their birthday in style thanks to you.

Earlier this week, the students brought home a green paper about Tae Kwon Kids. It is a unique opportunity for our students. The Martial Arts Training Center is offering a 4 lesson after-school program at North. The classes are March 12th, 14th, 19th, and 21st from 2:30-3:30. The registration fee will be donated to our school. If you are interested in your child participating, please return the permission slip and money by March 9th.