Happy Thanksgiving!

What do you do this week when you get tired of eating turkey and shopping? You can drop by the Festival of Trees and check out Burk’s entry, A Candy Cane Christmas. All sizes of trees, wreaths and gingerbread houses will be auctioned off on Saturday night and are available for public viewing on Sunday and Monday. All proceeds go to Project Graduation, something Burks’ PTO feels is pretty important since one day our kids will graduate from high school too! For more information, go to their website http://www.projectgraduationmckinney.com/

Hopefully your student came home with tales from Science Place field trip. My son’s been talking about a movie about caves and how magnets have pluses and minuses. Take a look at the Museum of Science and Nature’s website to get an idea of what your student saw http://www.natureandscience.org/

Pre-Thanksgiving Thanks

The Chili Cook-Off was a spectacular event, thanks to all of the teachers who created some great chili-making memories for their students!

In case you missed it, Mrs. Kelly's Lightning Strike Chipolte Roadkill Chili won the best chili. Mrs. McGuire's Lava-Licious Chili (my favorite name!) won the best presentation. Her chili was actually served out of the volcano. Mrs. Gregorash won best title, I don't have it right now but I remember the phrase "hair-raising" being used. Winners for each grade were: K- Mrs. Hernandez, 1st- Mrs. Smith, 2nd- Mrs. Baker, 3rd- Mrs. Kelly, 4th- Mrs. Gonzalez, 5th- Mrs. McGuire and Staff- Front Office.

A special thanks to our judges who tasted enough chili to last a lifetime. Kenny Moore, Manager of Brookshires, has been kind enough to donate food items to Burks at various times in the past. Commercial Real Estate Broker Mark Cantrell also graciously stepped in to help judge the 33 different kinds of chili. Mark attended Burks when it was West Ward and Kenny's kids, who are grown now, also went to Burks. De StAubin has two children going to Burks right now. De is McKinney's Senior Animal Control Officer and he is the one responsible for Burks' kindergarteners getting a free subscription to KIND News, a newspaper put out by the Huname Society about animals for kids. These guys took their job seriously, even going back for seconds, in order to pick the best chili. The competition was fierce with teachers adding all sorts of secret ingredients.

More thanks goes to Cory St Aubin and the PTO Board, who planned the event. And a final thank you to all the parents who bought cooking ingredients, rounded up chili themed items and spooned out chili. Next year we'll work on making all that good chili last a little longer, send us your suggestions if you have any!

This week will be a fast one ending with the school-wide field trip on Friday. Tuesday is Burks' CiCi's Pizza Night. A few reminders before the holiday: don't forget to check Lost and Found for missing coats and jackets and remember to save any Box Tops you may come across while you are cooking Thanksgiving dinner. Enjoy the Fall Break!

Book Fair & Chili Cook-Off

Skippy Jon Jones and Diary of a Wimpy Kid are some of the most popular books at the Book Fair. There are also plenty of picture books for younger kids and chapter books for the older ones. Plus cookbooks for moms and teachers and reference books and thingamajigs for everyone. The Book Fair will be in the library all week and each class will have a chance to look around. Talk to your child about what they saw and liked. This is a great way to encourage reading in your house, whether you buy some books or check them out at the library!

You may have already gotten a note sent home about an item to pitch in for the Chili Cook-Off. I had to buy some shredded cheese. Some classes are getting awfully fancy, I heard Mrs. Gregorash's chili recipe has 4 different kinds of meat!
Come and taste all the different variations of chili on Thursday night at the Chili Cook-Off from 6-8pm. It's only one dollar to sample all the chili. For another dollar you can get a whole bowl of last year's winning recipe. 4th grade will be there selling sodas to help fund next year's 5th grade Field Trip.

Is your child feeding the Lost and Found monster?

The weather for Field Day was beautiful!
There were plenty of PALs (MISD High School Volunteers who are awesome!) helping out so parent volunteers got to spend some quality time with their child's class. It was really sweet to see how the younger kids treated each other. During the relay race they often waited, baton in hand, for the other team to pass the baton so that the 2 new runners could start off together. As the grades got older, you could really see that competitive streak start kicking in! There was a bit of a competitive streak in the teachers too, many lent a hand when it came to winning tug of war.

As you might remember the day started off a little chilly but warmed up after lunch. You know what this means- LOTS of left behind jackets and long sleeved shirts. Our Lost and Found is overflowing! Please help us control the lost and found monster by reminding your student to look for any cold weather item you may not have seen return to your house.

Tomorrow is McDonald's Night- remember to put your receipt in the box or tell your cashier you're from Burks!