Has your child ever come home talking about buckets? If not, then ask them about it! At Aurora, we are bucket fillers (not dippers!)! What does that even mean, you may ask?? Well, let me tell you about it! 

In short, everyone has an invisible bucket that they carry around. 

When you are feeling good and helping others, your bucket is full. If something bad or frustrating happens, some drops drip out of your bucket. With any accumulation of bad things, a bucket becomes pretty empty. You can usually tell if someone has an empty bucket by their actions or facial expressions. Often when people have empty buckets, they try to fill theirs by dipping into someone else's bucket. Trouble is, that never works.

It turns out that the best way to fill your own bucket is to try to fill someone else's. Then, both buckets get drops. Your family can make a list together of ideas for filling other people's buckets. To get you started, you can check out the list that is on the brand new tab ("Buckets") right here on the PTO website! The best part about bucket filling is that anyone can do it, anywhere, anytime! It's just as easy to put into practice at home as it is at school! 

The more I think about bucket filling, the more I realize that we, as parents, can fill our children's buckets, (or sadly, dip in them, if we're not careful!). As we are still in the first month of 2014, let's challenge ourselves to fill as many buckets as we can each day! If we set that example for our kids, then maybe, just maybe, they will be inspired to fill others' buckets as well!

I will leave you with this thought…If you look for a way to dip in someone's bucket, you can always find a way. However, if you look for a way to fill someone's bucket, you'll always be able to find that too! 
-Lori

Well, I have to say that the title of this blog post has changed as many times as the tone and subject matter of what I thought I would blog about! However, I landed on "Randomness" and I think you'll understand why… (haha).

We had our PTO meeting last night and to be honest, I was feeling a little disappointed afterward that we didn't have a bigger attendance (Please know that I am beyond grateful to all those who braved the temps to be with us last night!). I wasn't disappointed that you didn't want to hang out with us or listen to me talk, but that you didn't get to have your voice heard and your vote counted. We did vote on some pretty important things, and those that were there last night had a chance to make a pretty significant change for our 4th graders!

In other big news, we have the climbing wall!!!!! (Well, sort of…) We just don't have it installed yet. We're hoping that will happen in the very near future! The YMCA's grant was approved and all the PTO needs to pay for is the installation, as soon as we have someone to install it! 

The Lost and Found black hole is still swallowing lots of children's clothing/winter gear. Some people like to use re-usable shopping bags for their kids to transport their winter gear. Then your child can keep everything together when they are not wearing it. The very best way to ensure your kids' do not lose their things is to label, label, label!!! If you don't want to write on the tags of your child's clothing, then a little piece of masking tape will do the trick! Just write their name on that, put it on the inside collar of their coat, sweatshirt, mittens, snowpants, boots, or basically anything they can take off at school,  then it can always be removed if you want to sell or give away their clothes when they've outgrown them. (One of the staff members personally volunteered to hand deliver it to your child if they lose it and it's labeled!)

 Don't forget the Box Tops contest is this month! The class with the most will get a party! Box Tops bring in money for our school!!! We just received a check for over $1,200 to be spent on the students/school! Also, we will be having some committee meetings this month and/or next month (both yearbook and Night of the Arts), so if you are a part of those, watch for emails. If you want to be part of those, please contact me! 

Speaking of Night of the Arts, I'm so excited to announce that we have a director for the play!!!! Ryan Soukup (who directed last year's play and did a fabulous job!) wants to direct this year's as well!!! This will be such a special night for our 3rd and 4th graders and their families. We will be nailing down a  specific date very soon, but right now we know it will be in April and there will be an art gallery, special music activities, food, and the play. Ryan will be coming to our February PTO meeting (2/4/14, 7 pm in the library). He'll be bringing his ideas, budget proposal, and answers to any questions you may have for him! You will want to come (trust me on this!), so mark your calendar now!

We are only one "like" away on Facebook until the prize is given! You know what, let's go crazy and give 2 prizes! One will go to a random parent and one to a random staff member! 

Ok, I think I'm offically done with my randomness now, but I really, really, REALLY would love to see lots more of you wonderful parents at our next meeting  (2/4/14, 7 pm in the library). We will have some important topics to discuss because there's so much coming up in the Spring!! I'm already excited just thinking about it!!
-Lori