Predators on the Internet: A Cobble Hill Association Meeting, Wed., May 12th, 7PM

The Cobble Hill Association extends an invitation to the parents and staff of PS 29 to an important meeting on internet dangers for school-aged children. Kevin O'Donnell, Chief of the Brooklyn D. A.'s Cyber Crimes Unit, will discuss various ways that children old enough to use the internet and into their teens can become victims. The meeting will take place on Wednesday, May 12th at 7:00 PM at the Kane Street Synagogue. Childcare provided. FREE. Please click on the flyer for more information.

Greening Your Everyday Life: Lecture Tomorrow, 4/30, at PS 321!

Our PTA is in the early stages of launching a PS 29 Green Committee to serve as an umbrella for the many green initiatives that already take place at the school and to expand on our momentum. The Green Committee at PS 321, Park Slope, has graciously offered to share info to help us kick start a committee and has extended an open invitation to their first Green community event, Greening Your Everyday Life, featuring activists and educators from PS 321's parent body, on Wednesday, April 30 7-9 pm. Childcare provided. 

Topics include:

• Healthy Child/Healthy Home -- Alex and Andy Postman, environmental authors, discuss findings about detoxifying your home from their new book, Healthy Child/Healthy Home.
  
• Square Inch Organic Gardening -- Claudia Josephs, permaculture expert and lead gardener of the Garden of Union and Old Stone House gardens, shares secrets to luxurious, organic yields in containers and other small spaces;
• We All Live Downstream -- Katie Mosher-Smith and Helen Forgione, environmental educators and activists, reveal how we, as island-dwellers, can positively affect the health of our waterways by the way we utilize them.

Feel free to pass this info on to your environmentally-minded friends. If you are interested in participating in the PS 29 PTA Green Committee, please contact Caroline Petersen. 

Shop for Mother's Day And Support PS 29!

Mother's Day is May 11 and your gifts to Mom via Amazon or GoodShop will benefit PS 29!

The stores at GoodShop have some great deals for Mom:

• Martha Stewart at 1-800-Flowers: Save $10 on a purchase of $59.95 or more when you use promotion code MARTHA10 at checkout (expires 5.31.08).
• Macy's: Free Shipping with $100 purchase with guaranteed Mother's Day delivery from macys.com! Exclusions apply. See details. Enter promo code MOMSDAY at checkout (expires 5.05.08)
• Clinique: Receive free shipping on orders over $25 when you use offer code 4MOM (expires 5.02.08).
• Cooking.com: $40 Off $300 Shipments. Use Coupon Code C94832 at checkout (expires 12.31.08).
• Giftbaskets.com: 10% off all Gift Baskets with promo code ZK-8978 (expires 12.31.08).

To take advantage of these deals, go to GoodShop, click on the vendor's logo, shop, use the promo code at checkout, and your purchase will automatically benefit  PS 29! It's extremely easy!

Sign Petition to Support NYC Council Resolution Calling on Mayor to Restore Proposed DoE Cuts!!

NYC Councilmember Bill de Blasio contacted Natalie Green Giles, chair of the PS 29 School Leadership Team, over spring break to update our school community on the status of proposed Department of Education budget cuts. In short, $500 million in proposed NYC DOE cuts are still on the table, despite the recent success of the reinstated funding in the state budget. Councilmember de Blasio, along with several other councilmembers, has passed a resolution fighting future cuts and demanding that the money from the midyear cuts get restored.

To sign the online petition to express your support of the City Council Resolution, and to read its full content, click HERE.

PS 29 will receive its '08-'09 budget in mid-May, and it's now vital to keep pressure high on our politicians to uphold their promises to our children.

Enjoy Spring Break! School Resumes on Monday, April 28th!

If You're Here Over Spring Break, Check Out Pippi on the Run!

BIG MOVIES FOR LITTLE KIDS @ Cobble Hill Cinemas
Monday, April 21st, 4pm
PIPPI ON THE RUN!
Ages: 2-7 (all kids welcome)
Location: Cobble Hill Cinemas, 265 Court Street @ Butler
Cost: $6.50/pp (for all walking humans)

If you're sticking close to home over the break, check out Pippi, one of children's literature's most endearing heroines and our favorite red-headed scamp, as she takes her pals Tommy and Annika on a series of exciting adventures. Inger Nillson stars as the one-and-only Pippi. (1977, Sweden, color, in English. Total running time: 96 minutes.) Click for more info.

Let Us Protect Our Lettuce! Volunteer Needed To Cover/Uncover Lettuce Seeds Over Spring Break!

From the Food and Farming Initiative:
Thanks again to all who helped make the PS Children's Garden possible, and please see the note below from science teacher Tina Reres! It has been an amazing community effort. The kids have already planted carrots and peas and more of the beds will be filled this week with spinach and other goodies!

If you will be here over the spring break, can you help with a small task? The kids have planted lettuce in front of the school building (on the Kane Street side), and the containers must get covered by window panes at night. Is there anyone who will be here over the spring break who can lift off the panes each morning and place them back over the containers each evening? Please contact Caroline Petersen if you can handle this! Looking forward to a big salad in June!

From Tina:

Ciao,
I just wanted to THANK EVERYONE for all you have done to make our beds complete. At one point during Super Science Saturday, I looked up from my worm station and I was amazed to see the amount of parents and children standing by our beds. I thought to myself this is really happening! Nancy and I could not have done this without all your hard work and dedication. We look forward to planting in some of our beds this week and watch our garden grow.

Thank you, thank you again.
Tina

Earth Day Celebrations in NYC

New York Magazine's Green Top Ten.

Thursday, April 17th: A Benefit Screening of In-Between & Talk-Back With Filmmaker Deborah Twiss

7:00 PM to 9:00 PM
PS 29 Auditorium
Film is for adults only; Childcare provided!

The PTA is pleased to present In-Between, a benefit film screening and talk-back with filmmaker and PS 29 parent Deborah Twiss (pictured). Tickets are $10 and available HERE.

Synopsis: Sometimes when a tragic event occurs, it takes time to come to terms with the magnitude of what has happened. Diane and Tommy are a Wall Street couple planning their wedding. Allison and Peter, a married couple starting a family, struggle with the decisions facing most career-driven people. Kima longs to be a well-known writer. Their mundane lives take a radical shift when a catastrophic event leads them down a new and strange path intertwining their destinies. Deborah is the co-writer/producer/star of riot grrrrl revenge film A Gun for Jennifer (1997), and producer/actress of Molotov Samba (2005). Check out the In-Between trailer! Running time: 93 minutes. 

Fill Out Your Survey By This Friday, April 18th!

The DoE annual parents' survey, which you should have received by mail in a bright green envelope, must be submitted by this Friday, April 18th! Click HERE to take the survey online. You will need the bar code from the survey you received by mail. If you do not have the survey, call 311 to obtain your bar code or for any other questions you may have. Ten percent of PS 29's Progress Report score derives from our survey responses!

Author Richard Lewis Visits PS 29's First Grade!

The first grade, in conjunction with their April poetry unit, had a very special workshop today with Richard Lewis, a teacher, author, and founding director of The Touchstone Center for Children.

In addition to his teaching, Richard Lewis has edited and written many books about the poetic and imaginative life of childhood, including Miracles: Poems by Children of the English–speaking World; There Are Two Lives: Poems by Children from Japan; and, most recently, When Thought is Young: Reflections on Teaching and The Poetry of the Child and Living By Wonder: The Imaginative Life of Childhood. 

Mr. Lewis has collaborated with many well-known illustrators, including Ezra Jack Keats (In A Spring Garden), Ashley Bryan (Moon, For What Do You Wait?), Ed Young (All of You Was Singing and In The Night Still Dark) and Debra Frasier (In the Space of the Sky, which he read with the children today, and pages from which are included above).

Touchstone Center Publications recently published a number of original poems that Mr. Lewis created for his work with children, including Each Sky Has Its Words (illustrated by Gigi Alvare); The Bird of Imagining (illustrated by children from New York public schools); Cave: An Evocation of the Beginnings of Art (illustrated by Elizabeth Crawford), and A Tree Lives (illustrated by Noah Baen).  

Parents, if your child came home today with a tiny envelope full of light and air and a head brimming with playful thoughts, Mr. Lewis and the Touchstone Theatre Ensemble will present Wondrous Light, Wondrous Air, a poetry and art-making workshop, on Saturday, May 10th at 2:00 PM at Poets House @ the Mulberry Street Branch of the New York Public Library, 10 Jersey Street (between Lafayette Ave. and Mulberry St.). Free Admission. For information: 212-431-7920, Ext.2219.

How to Support PS 29 — Without Even Trying!

Here are a bunch of effortless ways to support PS 29:

• Buy PTA Events Tickets: Get your family tickets to: Super Science Saturday, April 12th from 12-4 PM. ($7/family recommended donation); and your tickets ($10/each) to next week's Special Benefit Screening of In-Between with a Talkback with Filmmaker Deborah Twiss, Thursday, April 17th at 7 PM. 
  
  
• Shop on Amazon: We earn 6.5%-7% from your Amazon purchases - books, DVDs, games, toys, electronics, software, groceries, you name it! - including from third-party vendors. Last month, PS 29 supporters made 150 purchases on Amazon, and a single software purchase yielded $80 for the PTA! Bookmark the link to keep it handy!
  
  
• Spring Cleaning or Moving: It's that season! Are you on the verge of a spring cleaning? Or are you or a friend moving (hopefully locally)? PS 29 now earns 5% from a partnership with a local mover, A+M Moving Service (managed by a PS 29 parent), for any A+M service that you use or refer (except storage)! See earlier post for more details.
  
  
• Donate Online: PLEASE FORWARD this link to a family member, friend, neighbor or alumnus.  Any donation helps!
  
  
• Discounted Magazines: You get deals, the school gets 40%-50%. QSP has over 50 kids' titles, including Ranger Rick, Sports Illustrated Kids, National Geographic Kids, and  Highlights.
  
  
• Book Theater Tickets at Big Discounts: Get great Broadway and Off-Broadway ticket deals via Givenik; the school gets 5%. Check out Fuerzabruta, Glory Days or Laurence Fishburne in Thurgood. The Givenik website is newly re-designed this month, now more user friendly, and registration is no longer required!
  

• Enroll in Target's Take Charge of Education Program: If you shop at Target, enroll in Target's Take Charge of Education program for Target RedCard and Target Visa and designate PS 29. It's just takes a minute and the support adds up!
  

• Buy Airline Tickets, Book a Hotel or Rent a Car: Are you headed out of town over spring break? Buy plane tickets, book a hotel or rental car - and support PS 29 with your vacation! When you send flowers, order photo prints, or buy from hundreds of online vendors - Beauty.com, Drugstore.com, iTunes, Hotels.com, and Wine.com, and lots of others - you will be supporting PS 29. No signups, just shop!  
  

• Search the Internet: GoodSearch, a Yahoo-powered search engine, earns PS 29 a penny per search!
  

• Subscribe to Time Out New York Kids: Subscribe or renew; 12 issues for $10; PS 29 gets $5. Stay up one what's happening. Give a subscription to a friend! 
  
  

• Help Another School and Earn $500 for PS 29: Do you have a friend at another school who wants to organize a fundraiser? If you refer another PTA to QSP, the company behind our successful Candy Sale, the partner school will earn good money and we'll get a $500 referral fee! Our account number is 710305868 and Liz DiMartino is this year's coordinator.

Super Science Saturday Is The Day After Tomorrow! Help Needed!

Super Science Saturday is the day after tomorrow, from 12 noon-4 PM!! Please have a look HERE for Super Science Saturday news — plus tons of other cool science resources for your family!

To volunteer, contact Elizabeth Kiem!

Rub Your Eyes!

EDUCATION
New York City and Long Island Schools Benefit From Deal in Albany
By NICHOLAS CONFESSORE
Published: April 10, 2008
A deal between Gov. David A. Paterson and state lawmakers increased total school aid to New York City and Long Island by a record $1.75 billion.

Read the article!

Did You Know Your Spring Cleaning or Your Friend's Move Can Now Benefit the PTA?

The PS 29 PTA is proud to announce a new partnership with locally-based A+M Moving Service, whereby A+M will donate to the PTA 5% of any moving or cleaning job that originates from the PS 29 community, either directly or via recommendation. This is a potentially lucrative arrangement for PS 29, and could result in the donation of thousands of dollars over the next year. While the PTA of course hopes all of our families stay in the neighborhood, if you, or people you know, are moving, either locally or otherwise, please consider using or referring A+M's services. The company is experienced in handling moves in all five boroughs and along the eastern seaboard from Maine to Washington DC.

On April 1, A+M also launched a new cleaning-services division. While the company does not offer weekly or bimonthly household cleaning at this time, they do offer spring cleaning. If you’d periodically like someone to come in to clean your refrigerator, oven, the inside of cupboards, drawers and closets, under beds and furniture, window blinds and light fixtures, A+M's services are a great option. The 5% donation applies to any A+M service with the exception of storage.

This is an easy way to help raise money for the school. PTA funding helps pay for teaching assistants, supplies, class field trips, enrichment activities, materials and other things that are of primary importance to providing outstanding educational opportunities to our children. With the recent budget cuts, the school will rely on PTA funding more than ever in the coming year. Any questions about this partnership, please contact PS 29 parent Ariane Ben Eli, who is the new manager of A+M's day-to-day operations.

If you are a local small-business owner or manager interested in offering a similar program to benefit the PS 29 PTA, please get in touch with PTA co-presidents Jeanmarie Giordano or Annie Meek Montgomery.

Click the button to find out more about A+M's services.

In-Between: A Screening & Talk-Back With Filmmaker Deborah Twiss

Thursday, April 17, 2008
7:00 PM to 9:00 PM
PS 29 Auditorium
Film is for adults only; Childcare provided!

The PTA is pleased to present In-Between, a benefit film screening and talk-back with filmmaker Deborah Twiss. Tickets are $10 and available HERE.

Synopsis: Sometimes when a tragic event occurs, it takes time to come to terms with the magnitude of what has happened. Diane and Tommy are a Wall Street couple planning their wedding. Allison and Peter, a married couple starting a family, struggle with the decisions facing most career-driven people. Kima longs to be a well-known writer. Their mundane lives take a radical shift when a catastrophic event leads them down a new and strange path intertwining their destinies. Deborah is the co-writer/producer/star of riot grrrrl revenge film A Gun for Jennifer (1997), and producer/actress of Molotov Samba (2005).Check out the trailer!

SAVE THE DATE! Poetry Reading, May 2: Edwin Frank, Susan Kaplan, Sarah Browning

Poets Edwin Frank, Susan Kaplan, and Sarah Browning will read from their work on May 2 at 7:00 P.M., the last evening of the 2008 PS 29 Literary Salons. In case you have missed the last evenings, the events, which take place at the school, showcase fiction, non-fiction, and poetry by new and established authors from Brooklyn and beyond. The $5 admission includes babysitting and refreshments. Discussion and booksales by local book seller, Bookcourt, follow. On-line ticketing will soon be available for this event!

Edwin Frank is the author of two chapbooks, Stack and The Further Adventures of Pinocchio, and his work has been published in Agni, Bomb, Epiphany, The New York Review of Books, and Threepenny Review. He is the editor of the New York Review Books Classic series.

Susan Kaplan is an award-winning poet and an attorney. Her work has appeared Poetry, Pegasus, Boulevard, Another Chicago Magazine, and the New Orleans Review, among others. She has won awards from the American Academy of Poets and the Poetry Society of America.

Sarah Browning is the director of the Split This Rock Poetry Festival: Poems of Provocation and Witness. She’s the author of Whiskey in the Garden of Eden, and coeditor of D.C. Poets Against the War: An Anthology. A recipient of an artist fellowship from the D.C. Commission on the Arts & Humanities and a Creative Communities Initiative grant, Browning hosts the Sunday Kind of Love poetry series in Washington, D.C.

For more information, please contact event organizer, Julia Lichtblau, 917-547-4721.

Ticketing Now Available Online for Super Science Saturday!

Don't miss Super Science Saturday on April 12th, 12 noon-4:00 PM! Recommended donation per family is $7, which you can make right now to avoid lines and help the PTA plan in advance. Many helping hands are needed to make this event happen. If you can volunteer, please contact Elizabeth Kiem. 

Activities will include:

• The American Museum of Natural History's Moveable Museum,
  Dinosaurs: Ancient Fossils, New Discoveries. In the newest Moveable Museum, families will explore an array of interactives to understand dinosaur evolution and the possible causes of the mass extinction 65 million years ago. They will examine dinosaur nests and trackways to interpret social behavior and investigate the latest feathered dinosaur fossils from Liaoning, China, which reveal the connection between dinosaurs and modern birds. This walk-in, hands-on exhibition will be parked out on Kane Street from 1:00-3:00 PM.
  
• The Prospect Park Audubon Center's Birds of Prey.
• Mad Science's spectacular "Fire and Ice" extravaganza: Discover the cool chemistry in the states of matter and learn the basics of air pressure. Scissors will unexpectedly sizzle and carbon dioxide bubbles will pop as the chilling properties of dry ice are revealed. Be amazed when a ball is suspended over the audience and marvel at the strength of your own lungs with these radical air-pressure experiments. One show only, from 2:00-3:00 PM in the auditorium.
• A Greenmarket to help inaugurate the new PS 29 Children's Garden (an official GreenThumb site);
• Plenty of hands-on experimentation with hot-air balloons, periscopes, oobleck, volcanoes, rain sticks, obstacle courses, skyscrapers, and marble runs;
• A collective recyclable sculpture!
  

Please click the ticket button to make your family donation today, so we can get an advance headcount! (Please note that if you are unable to attend, you can still support the event by making a tax-deductible contribution through the ticket link to help the PTA defray our costs.)