Northwood Elementary School


	28 Carson St. Irvine, CA 92620 Phone#949-936-5950 Attendance#949-936-5951 FAX#949-936-5959

A Governor's Reading Award School

Our mission is to prepare our students

to face the challenges of the future

and become their best selves.

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Announcement Board

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Enrollment for New Students

for the 2008/2009 School Year

Please click on the link below to find out how to enroll your Kindergartner or new student for the 08/09 school year.

Enrollment

Star Testing

May 5-16

STAR Testing – All Week – Please make sure your students are well rested, have a good breakfast and are on time for school each day.

Open House

Wednesday, May 21

Pat & Oscar’s Pasta Dinner / Open House / Silent Auction / Book Fair - Wednesday, May 21st - 6:00 p.m. – 8:30 p.m. – This is one of our last major events of the school year. Join us for dinner and bid on one of the great classroom baskets and other items that will be available at our Silent Auction before the classrooms open at 7:00 p.m. And make sure to check out this year’s final Book Fair in the Library. Please see the attached flyer for more information and a dinner reservation/payment form.

No School

Friday, May 23 or Monday, May 26

REMINDER: Minimum Day – Thursday, May 22nd, NO SCHOOL - Friday, May 23rd or Monday May 26th for Memorial Day Holiday

Dads' Club

Attention all Northwood Elementary School dads! Have a talent for flipping pancakes and burgers? Can you move heavy objects? Everwash a car? Here's your chance to show off your skills. Join the Dads' Club! No Rules. No Responsibility. No Commitments. No Moms. NWDadsClub@gmail.com

Win Box Tops for Our School

Enter the Box Tops 4 Education Extreme Dream Sweepstakes at http://www.boxtops4education.com/Promotions and enter Northwood Elementary, Irvine California. Do it everyday to try to win 100,000 Bonus Box Tops for our school! This prize would be worth $10,000 for our school.

Ralphs Community Contribution Program

Ralphs will donate to Northwood Elementary up to 4%

of the qualified purchases.

You need your Club Card number, your phone number associated with your Club card, and NPO (non-profit organization) # 90473.

Go to http://ralphs.com/ccprogram.htm, click on SIGN UP,

and complete the registration.

Any questions or problems, call Customer Service at 1-800-660-9003

Mon - Fri, 8:00am to 4:00pm (Pacific).

Albertson’s Community Partners Registration

Did you know that through the Alberton’s Community Partners’ Program you can support Northwood Elementary School one shopping cart at a time? This is FREE MONEY for our school that costs you NOTHING!!

Here’s how simple it is:

1. Go to http://www.albertsons.com/cp/

2. Click on “Shoppers login or register with your preferred Savings Card first”

3. Type in your Preferred Card Number and your phone number (the phone number associated with the card).

4. Designate “Northwood Elementary” in Irvine.

Our Partner ID # is 49000119328.

If you have any problems or questions call Customer Service at 1-877-932-7948.

When each family at Northwood Elementary School participates in this program, our school gets a HUGE benefit to help everyone.

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Principal’s Message

Dear Northwood Families,

Welcome to Northwood Elementary, a California Distinguished School! As the new principal, my goal is to work with the Northwood community to ensure that we provide your child with the highest-quality education possible. With the California Content Standards as our guide, we will foster your child’s academic success by setting high expectations and creating a caring environment.

As you know, Northwood has an excellent staff of dedicated teachers who are devoted to helping your child grow as a critical thinker and a good citizen. Because the relationship between our staff and our parent community is what makes Northwood such a special place, we depend on your continued support to make sure that your child reaches their highest academic and social potential. To keep this critical relationship a constructive one, we encourage open and honest communication between parents and teachers. If you have any questions or concerns about your child’s progress, don’t hesitate to email your child’s teacher using the staff contact list posted on our website.

Parental involvement is what we make of it. Did you know that the research overwhelmingly indicates that the more parents are involved with their child’s learning, the better children do in school? Conversely, research shows that the less involved parents are in their child’s learning, the more difficulty their child will experience. Put another way, what we do with regard to parent involvement can make a positive impact on the future success of our children; what we leave undone can have negative effects.

Parents make a HUGE difference in their child’s achievement in school. Educational research also shows that the most effective form of parent involvement is working directly with your child on learning activities at home. Specifically, helping your child with their homework assignments or tutoring them with materials provided by their teachers has yielded the most impressive results. Studies reveal that when parents are involved with their child’s learning, their child is more likely to: (a) exhibit a positive attitude about school, (b) display better classroom behavior, (c) spend more time on academic tasks, (d) demonstrate lower absenteeism, (e) have a higher expectancy for success, (f) possess a more positive self-concept, and (g) display a greater motivation to learn.

Here are five ways to optimize your child’s success at Northwood Elementary:

(1) Assist your child in developing a routine for completing homework. This includes providing a time and a place free of distractions such as television, video games, iPods, etc. As an incentive for finishing homework, tell your child that they can engage in an activity they value (i.e., Nintendo DS), only after their homework is completed.

(2) Work side-by-side with your child as needed. Guiding your child through an assignment keeps them on task and communicates to your child that school is important. If your child is self-regulating and able to complete assignments on their own, proof read their assignment after it is completed and discuss the content of their work.

(3) Praise your child’s efforts. Effort leads to success in school and in life. Remind your child that although homework isn’t always fun and exciting, it is essential that they master the concepts they are being taught. Remind them that the knowledge and skills they learn today will lead to a successful career tomorrow. Share with your child that there are aspects of your job that you don’t always enjoy, but that you perform them nonetheless because they are important and need to be accomplished. Again, hard work and effort lead to academic success.

(4) Support your child’s schooling by attending school functions and responding to school obligations (parent-teacher conferences, for example). Did you know that volunteerism is good for your health? As your busy schedules permit, please participate in school-sponsored events. Also, please become active in our PTA.

(5) Make sure your child reads, or is read to, each and every day. Just as we become strong swimmers by swimming, we become strong readers by reading. Practice makes perfect. For beginning readers, choose books with vivid pictures and interesting stories that capture their imaginations. As your child becomes more developed in their reading skills, have your child read to you or take turns reading paragraphs or pages with them. Also, challenge your child’s higher order thinking skills by asking them to reflect on the characters and setting, or predict what twists the plot might take as the story progresses.

For my own part, I will be working hard to ensure that your child not only excels academically, but that they also learn to respect others, make ethical decisions, and develop good social skills. I welcome you to become involved in your child’s learning experience at Northwood Elementary and thank you in advance for your support and cooperation. On behalf of the entire staff, welcome to the 2007-2008 school year!

Sincerely,

Dr. Stuart Payne

Principal of Northwood Elementary School