Our Super Lunch Hero

Posters drawn by Ms. V-No
to advertise daily specials.

To kick off "Child Nutrition Employee Week", which begins May 6th, the MA School Nutrition Association is holding an essay contest to find a "Super Lunch Hero."  

Take a peek at the next few blog posts to discover why I am nominating the Sweetsir School Kitchen Manger, Linda Vienneau.  Her contagious sense of humor, tremendous enthusiasm, and dedication make her worthy of such an honor.  Ms. Vieneau (last name sounds like V-No) always has a super clean kitchen and goes above & beyond to promote school lunch as a healthy choice for children.

Career Day
Student inspired by Ms. V-No

In addition to the post below, Ms. Vienneau has been featured in past blog entries.  Follow the kitchen label in right column to see pictures of a brownie troop tour and a video of Mrs. Vienneau making bread.  She is our Super Lunch Hero- Bon Appetite!

Fool's Fun

First grader with Linda Vienneau, our Kitchen Manger.

On April 1st, this first grader made a "Fool's Hat" for Ms. Vienneau, he said it was "to give her a taste of her own medicine."  Throughout the day, Ms. Vienneau had played a number of April Fool's Day pranks on students and faculty.  For example, she cut up the lunch order slips and glued them on to long pieces of paper.  In the morning, when students and teachers went to fill out the order forms they had a good chuckle.

Mrs. V-No has school spirit!

She decorated pumpkins as Ernie & Bert
to decorate the kitchen for fall.

Ms. Vienneau, our Kitchen Manager, has a knack for spreading school spirit!  Her enthusiasm is a perfect fit for prek-2 school.  She even spells her name tag phonetically as V-No.  Here are some examples of the many ways Ms. V-No adds fun to our school:

• Throughout the year, she decorates the kitchen for each season with her own hand-made creations, including gingerbread houses and specially decorated pumpkins.

With students on Book Character Day.

• She randomly surprises students with stickers for eating their vegetables and trying new dishes. 

• She created 'Lucky Lunch Day', to encourage students who might not normally buy a lunch to try school food.  (Students who participate are randomly chosen for prizes she purchased).

• If there is a surplus of a particular side item, she draws funny faces on them to entice students to choose it.  (A clever way to promote white milk over chocolate).

• She not only dresses up for school theme days, i.e., "Career Day" and "Book Character Day," she also creates her own theme days.  For example, on Cinco de Mayo you will find her wearing a sombrero and mustache.

Lucky Lunch Prizes

• On her own birthday, she dons a birthday crown and gives away special pencils.

• She is also a talented cake maker who creates special cakes for staff meetings and retirement parties.

• She participates in school events on weekends and evenings-even bringing along her grown daughter to share a PTO Breakfast with Santa.

Cake she created for staff members
.

• Ms. V-No is always ready with age appropriate jokes. "What do you say if someone tries to take your cheese?....Nacho-cheese."  (Told while serving nachos).

Spending a Saturday morning with
 her daughter at a PTO event.

Posters she created to advertise
lunch menu.

The World Needs All Kinds of Minds

In honor of Autism Awareness month, I am sharing this You Tube video depicting famous people whom many believe had autism based on historical records about their life.  The range of their contributions clearly illustrate these quotes by Temple Grandin:
    

"The world needs all kinds of minds." 

"I am different, not less."

"We need to be developing kids' strengths."

  To view earlier posts about Temple Grandin and autism, 
follow the autism label link, on right, then scroll down.

"Light It Up Blue" Thanks to a gift from one of our preschoolers, the display case in our school lobby will feature blue lights during the month of April.  Blue lights are a reminder to us all to spread kindness, awareness, and understanding about autism. 

PTO Thank You

Thanks to the PTO, students are using
 Ipads to create on-line stories.

A message from the Merrimac PTO~

The PTO Board and members would like to send out a special Thank You to the families and students of Merrimac.

With the support from you throughout the year, by contributing to fundraisers and participating in events that have been held, the PTO was able to award appropriations to teachers from both schools at last month's meeting. (This was the second appropriations of the year).

The total amount awarded was $4,865.86 and included items such as IPADS, Elmos, Weighted lap pads, Rocker Boards, Adventure Bouncer and Crawl Tunnel, Field Day/Relay for life shirts for all students and staff at Donaghue, Balance Balls, and T-shirts for annual bug show for first Grade.

Without the support from families in our community, the PTO would not have been able to increase the budgeted amount of $3,000 to $4,865.86 and fulfill all the requests from our teachers.

Thank You again for your support throughout the year.

-Merrimac PTO  Jen, Crissy, Rebekah, Sara, Julie and Sharon

Cure AT/RT Raffle

Win this Spring basket by donating to the spinathon for Cure AT/RT!
 

 It is filled with seasonal toys such as a butterfly net, baseball bat, frisbee, jump rope, bubbles, watering can, and shovels. The basket will be on display in the Sweetsir Lobby until the raffle on April 26th at 9:00am. 

Raffle for Cure AT/RT

To enter the raffle, make a donation to the "Sweetsir Spinners" team described below.  All proceeds will go directly to Cure AT/RT.  Any size donation is welcome and will qualify you for the raffle!  Donations can be made via the Sweetsir School office (cash or checks made payable to "Cure AT/RT").  If sent via backpack, please use an envelop labeled Cure AT/RT, and include your name for the drawing.  For more information contact Erica Wentworth at ewentworth@prsd.org.

Sweetsir Spinners for Cure AT/RT

Avalanna

As many of you know, at the beginning of this school year Merrimac lost two children to pediatric cancer.  My colleagues and I feel blessed that Emma and Avalanna attended the Sweetsir School.  They were beautiful young girls with amazing personalities.  We have many fond memories of how they, and their families, brought joy to our school community.  For this reason, participating in fundraisers to cure pediatric cancer is a cause near and dear to our hearts.                          

Avalanna's family and friends created a fund to support research and treatment at Dana Farber Cancer Institute to cure AT/RT.  The weekend of April 26th-27th, they will be hosting a second Spinathon and Spa Night fundraiser.  The goal is to have 80 teams, raise $1,000 each, and ride spin bikes for 24 hours at Latitude's in Methuen.  (For more details, visit www.cureatrt.org ).

Last year, a team made up of Sweetsir staff members and parents had a great time at the event and raised $1,675!  (Follow the cure AT/RT label on the right to see pictures).  If you would like to ride with the "Sweetsir Spinners" this year, contact our Team Captain Erica Wentworth at ewentworth@prsd.org.   The Sweetsir Spinners are collecting monetary donations at the Sweetsir School office until April 24th.