Kelly Bonanno

Real Estate Agent

education

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Homework For Parents… A Clever Assignment

Our oldest son just embarked on his final year of elementary school. He’s off to a good start and he really likes his teacher. He is fortunate to have another wonderful educator guide him through 5th grade. It amazes me how fast his grade school years have flown by. How is he not still in second grade?! His teacher gave parents an assignment that I thought was a unique and interesting way to get know students. He asked that we write about why we treasure our child. He read each letter out loud to the class and asked the students to guess the identity of each child through what was written about them. My talented husband crafted a very creative letter:

 Our Treasure

Imagine you find a box buried in the sand. You brush the sand off the lid and inside this box are several small bottles filled with potions. The potions are labeled “kind,” “considerate,” “funny,” “generous,” “athletic,” “talkative,” and “brilliant.” After drinking all the potions you suddenly feel courageous. Your homework is almost effortless. You’re confident and can’t help but look everyone you meet in the eye. You are logical, compassionate and likeable but often love to lose yourself in a book of fantasy. You are almost perfect, but your little brother drives you crazy by copying everything that you do. This is our wonderful son. Who is he?
Hints: He loves football and cheeseburgers 

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Fitness & Fundraising

Jog-a-Thons ~ A Fun & Healthy Way To Raise Money $$$

Last Friday was the annual Jog-A-Thon at my kids’ school. It’s a fun day and a smart way to raise money. It’s fitness based; the kids get exercise, have a blast and parents enjoy being involved. It works fitness into fundraising instead of material goods. They even have a DJ blasting music so the kids can get their groove on while they run.

With all the budget cuts over the past several years, fundraising is essential to keep certain programs alive. The monies raised from the Jog-A-Thon fund programs such as Visual and Performing Arts, PE Specialists, school­ assemblies, classroom instruction and technology assistance, upgrades and support. These programs are vital to our children’s education.

In order to reach their goal, the school requests that each student raise a certain amount of money by either asking friends and family to sponsor them with a certain dollar amount per lap or the family can simply make a flat donation, no need for sponsors. What’s great is that it’s a one shot deal and you don’t need to sell wrapping paper, cookie dough, magazine subscriptions, etc. How many times can you hit up your friends, co-workers, grandparents and neighbors to buy stuff? It’s a never ending cycle because everyone has kids who need to help raise money for their schools and some schools make those type of fundraisers extremely competitive.

With the Jog-A-Thon, each child is asked to raise the same amount of money. The only competitive part is that the kids aim to run as many laps as they can. If your child’s school is looking for fundraising ideas I highly recommend a Jog-A-Thon. If you have any good fund raising ideas, please share them!