May 2018

Meet The Principal Candidates

Monday May 14, 2018, 8:00-9:30 AM at Bowman Library.
Mark your calendars, more details to follow.

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Book Swap And Ice Cream Social

Tuesday, May 15th, 6:30–8:00 pm.
The Bowman Book Swap and Ice Cream Social is back for another year! Do your children have books that they’ve outgrown and are ready to pass on? Are you constantly in search of new books for your children to read? If so, participate in the Bowman Book Swap! Here’s how it will work:

6:30pm – 7:00pm: Bring up to 5 books per student directly to the gym on Tuesday, May 15th. At the event, you and your child will sort your books by grade level or genre.

6:30pm – 8:00pm: Head to the cafeteria, meet up with friends, and enjoy a cup of Abbott’s frozen custard or sorbet.

7:15pm – 8:00pm: Return to the gym to select your new books.

Books must be appropriate for grades K–8 and be in gently used condition (no tears or missing pages, no board books). A special thanks to the Denoncourt Family and Abbott’s Frozen Custard for their generous donation of frozen treats this year!

Want to help out? We are looking for a crew of volunteers to help with book organization, set up and clean up. Volunteers will be given priority access to the Book Swap. To volunteer, visit the Sign-Up Genius link: http://bit.ly/BowmanBookSwap2018.

Questions? Contact [email protected]

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Passport To The World

The Passport to the World Committee invites all Bowman families to celebrate the diversity of our community and present their favorite cultural traditions through food, display tables and performances. Come to Bowman Thursday, May 31st from 5:00-8:00 pm to enjoy and/or share the experience!

FOOD
Our event will begin at 5:00pm, under the outdoor Bowman shade structure, with a wonderful array of foods from around the world! Please sign-up to contribute a dish to share with the Bowman community: http://www.signupgenius.com/go/70a0c4daca928a57-food.

Due to allergies, please make sure you are able to list and share the ingredients in your dish. We are also looking for volunteers for the food area on the Sign-up Genius.

Please direct questions to Jaclyn Anderson ([email protected])

CULTURAL BOOTH
The cafeteria will transform into a Hall of Nations where students and their families may visit tables representing the many countries of the Bowman community. Students will have a paper passport and receive a flag sticker for each country table they visit. Please sign-up to host a table: http://www.signupgenius.com/go/70a0c4daca928a57-passport.

More than one family can work together per booth. Past ideas include: posters, postcards, maps, flags, art, hosts wearing clothing representative of the country, music, a travel video or slideshow quietly playing on a laptop, students learning a greeting in the country’s language.

Please direct questions to Suzanne Udell ([email protected])

PERFORMANCE
We are excited to bring to the stage our wide range of traditions! If your family has songs, dances, skits or instrumental music from your culture you’d like to share, please submit your proposal: http://www.signupgenius.com/go/70a0c4daca928a57-performance

In the spirit of Bowman inclusion, we will consider all proposals and then make choices representing a variety of cultures in each performance. Performance may be up to 5 minutes in length. We will offer two programs during the evening (6:00-6:45 pm and 7:00-7:45 pm).

Please direct questions to either Martha Rogers ([email protected]) or Vibha Singhal ([email protected]).

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Art Room News – Note From Ms. Goldfarb

It is time for the Lexington Public Schools, Visual Art Department, annual art exhibit. Work from every grade in each school is on display for a number of days. This year, the show will be up at the Lexington Public Schools Central Office, 146 Maple Street, Lexington, MA, from May 2nd through the 17th, with viewing times from 8:00 am until 4:00 pm, Monday through Friday. The exhibit opening is, Wednesday May 2nd, from 6:30 pm until 8:00pm. All are invited.

Sometimes there are questions regarding how work gets chosen. I would like to share some of the process. The procedure hasn’t changed much over the years. I use a variety of methods to select the pieces to be viewed. At the completion of art projects, I often ask if anyone would like to have their work put in the art show. Most children choose to take their work home after it is documented for Artsonia. When it comes time to put the exhibit together, much of the artwork can end up from the same students. I encourage everyone to let me keep work, but May can seem like a long way off. In addition I look to see who has not shown their work in the past. I keep records every year. Art is also chosen when it attains the goals of the lesson. And there are times when a student needs to know that their work merits being seen. I invite all 5th graders to participate if they have not shown in the recent past. With so many things to think about, it is always a daunting task to select the pieces for the show. I try to put as many pieces of art that will fit the allotted display. This year Bowman will have over 140 pieces of student work.

Finally, I never want to leave anyone out. That is the most difficult of all, because ultimately sometimes someone’s work can get left out and for that I am truly sorry. Frequently when I go to look for a piece of artwork, it is incomplete because the student was absent.

I love working with your children, and seeing the beautiful work that they do. How lucky we are in Lexington to have this opportunity to show and to view student work from across the system!

Sincerely, Ms. Goldfarb

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Behind The Scenes – Our Bowman Volunteers

The Bowman PTO (and all of the PTA-run community and enrichment events) is run entirely by volunteers. We are so fortunate to have so many terrific volunteers and we’re excited to introduce a couple of them to you each month.

There are many ways to get involved at Bowman. Please check here to see a list of open PTA positions: http://bit.ly/bowmanptapositions

Drew Pomerantz – Room Parent & Big Backyard Volunteer

I volunteer as a room parent and with the Big Backyard because I want to be involved in my daughter’s education. We’re fortunate to have not only wonderful schools and teachers but also involved parents in Lexington. The PTA is the right level of involvement for me because it lets me contribute a little bit to the classroom while also helping me to get to know Lexie’s kindergarten classmates and their parents

Chloe Bui – Library Volunteer

I had the great opportunity to volunteer at the library for this school year. It was the greatest joy to see our kids grow up throughout the school year. I watched them advance throughout the year as they started out shy kindergarteners finding their way through life at Bowman. I look forward to each week as I see their smiling faces and aid their curiosity through the different books they check out and how they can inspire each other

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Bus Registration

Bus registration for the next academic year opened on Monday, April 2nd. We are over 1,000 registrants. Check out the following link for all information: https://lps.lexingtonma.org/Page/659

Deadlines for registration:
April 2nd-May 16th: $330/student; family cap of $825
May 16th-July 1st: $550/student; family cap of $1,375
After July 1st: $855/student; family cap of $2,137.50

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Marker Recycling Update From Mr. Curhan’s Class

Between January and April, Bowman collected over 1,300 markers to be recycled by the Crayola ColorCycle program! Way to go! We will collect markers through the end of the year, so please feel free to continue sending in dried-out and damaged markers of any type (washable markers/Crayola, permanent markers, dry erase markers, flair/felt-tip pens, and highlighters). Each class has their own collection bin. Thank you for your continued support of our marker recycling project!

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Class Basket Raffle – Thank You

It was another successful year for the class raffle baskets! We would like to extend a huge thank-you to the room parents who put together the creative baskets and to all the students, parents, and staff who bought tickets and supported the event. This year’s ticket sales raised over $6,100 for the PTA! Congratulations to all the winners of this year’s baskets-we hope you are enjoying them!

The PTA would like to thank Joanne Cheng, Courtney Lauriat, and Melissa Moscow for another fantastic job of coordinating the baskets and the raffle!

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Gamin’ And Groovin’

Bowman’s gym was filled April 6th with funky fashion and spare change for Disco Bingo Night. Students showed off their dance skills and had a great time calling out ‘BINGO’, A big thank you to organizer Alexa Elliot and our mystery callers, Ms. Glick and our crossing guard David Hadley. Thank you as well to our parent volunteer judges and MCs, Jeff Hrkach, Jennifer Fujii, Theresa Minogue, Jodi Goodwin, Sandy Schwartz, Agnes Costello and David Alexanderian.

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Social Media And Elementary Age Children

Join us for a parent evening on Social Media and Elementary Age Children with Lexington Police Detective Christina Henkins in the Bowman Library on TUESDAY June 5 from 7 to 8PM. (corrected date)

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Math Team News

The 3rd grade before school math team at Bowman recently participated in the third Continental Math League competition of the year, and the 4th and 5th grade teams participated in the fifth Continental Math League competition of the year

. There are 2 levels of competitions of the 4th and 5th grades, and the groups from Bowman are registered with the Pythagorean level, the higher of the two levels. Students had to solve 6 problems in 30 minutes. Problems were designed to test students’ reading comprehension, problem solving skills, and the ability to set up and solve complex and challenging problems.

3rd grade: There were 326 teams competing from around the United States, 34 of them from New England. The median score for the country for the third CML test was 29/36. The Bowman 3rd grade team had 36/36 points for the third test, and 107/108 points for all three tests combined. They were among the top 12 teams in the United States (top 4%), and received the highest score in New England, making them New England Champions.

4th grade: There were 148 teams from around the United States competing at this level of competitions, 7 of them from New England. The median score for the country for the 5th test was 29/36. The Bowman 4th grade team had 34/36 points for the fifth test and 166/180 for the five tests combined, among top 7 teams in the country (top 5%) and #1 in New England, making them New England Champions

5th grade: There were 162 teams from around the United States competing at this level of competitions, 13 of them from New England. The median score for the country for the fifth test was 27/36. The Bowman 5th grade team had 36/36 points for the fifth test and 177/180 for all five tests combined, among top 8 teams in the country (top 5%) and #2 in New England.

Congratulations to everybody on the excellent performance. Every member of each team worked hard, and can take pride in the accomplishment.

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