Dear Parents and Families,

October is upon us which means the fall season has started and school is in full swing! We have so many exciting events, activities, and learning for our children at Winter Gardens from beginning to the end of this month. We'll begin the month with a special event celebrating our centennial anniversary. Winter Gardens invites our whole school community to our 100 Year Celebration that will take place in our playground area on Friday, October 4th from 9:00-10:00 a.m. You can read more about this event below.

We will also continue with our well-attended parent meetings, Opening Doors on October 2nd and 9th. During these workshops parents are learning about social emotional well-being for themselves and our students. If you haven't participated, you're welcome to attend these sessions as they are informative and helpful to support your child academically and emotionally.

We will conclude the month with our annual Red Ribbon campaign to push against the use of drugs. This year the theme is, "Drug is a Movie, Film Drug Free." We will have a spirit week full of educational anti-drug awareness and fun activities for our students that will conclude with our annual Halloween parade on Thursday, October 31st. You can receive more information below in our flyer. I'm really excited to be bringing all these wonderful experiences to our students and school community. I hope you can join us in some, or all, of our school events.

In Partnership,

Dr. Cortez, Principal

Join us on Friday, October 4th, for the 100th year anniversary celebration of Winter Gardens Elementary School. We have a great program planned out for the whole school community that includes mariachi, special guest speakers, a museum of our school history, and student performances. This is an event you're really going to want to be a part of. We look forward to seeing you!

We are challenging our students to come to school every day and on time. We have an attendance goal of 95% for the school year. So far, here is where we are for the first 2 months of school:

August - 94.28%

September - 94.04%.

This month's student incentive is for the whole class to have DOUBLE RECESS!!

We can reach our goal of 95%...We got this!!😇

👻 🎃 🍭👻 🎃 🍭👻 🎃 🍭👻 🎃 🍭👻 🎃 🍭👻 🎃 🍭👻 🎃 🍭👻 🎃 🍭👻 🎃 🍭👻

We invite you to our annual Halloween parade. This is a time when we will welcome parents to observe the parade from the field area only. Although you will want to take pictures up close, we will ask you to please stay behind the yellow taped areas behind the students' classrooms. Let's keep in mind the parade is for the students and parents are guests of the school. Now here are a few costume rules designed to maintain a student-friendly and safe school environment:

👻 🎃 🍭

1. No scary masks

2. No gory or bloody face painting

3. No play weapons such as plastic knives or swords, toy guns, etc. (even if they are part of the costume)

4. No costumes that obstruct the student's vision

5. Halloween treats are welcome on this day as long as the teacher is aware and has approved

6. Provide a change of clothing for students so that they can be comfortable for the remainder of the day

👻 🎃 🍭

Let's remember that we have very young children (ages 4 and up) attending our school and this will be many of our students' first time with an event of this magnitude. Therefore we want to make it as fun as possible for all. 🎃

👻 🎃 🍭👻 🎃 🍭👻 🎃 🍭👻 🎃 🍭👻 🎃 🍭👻 🎃 🍭👻 🎃 🍭👻 🎃 🍭👻 🎃 🍭👻

From websites to periodicals, and even a scavenger hunt!, this site has great resources for teaching Hispanic Heritage Month, including a worksheet exercise for students to search the database for info about important Hispanic Americans.

⚰️ How can you tell if a vampire has a cold?
– Because of the coffin!

🎃 Find more goofy Halloween jokes here