"My mom is the PTA."

I overheard a girl telling her friend that she couldn't go home yet (even though it was after school already) because, "My mom is the PTA." I thought I would share some of what you do in the month of May if you are the PTA.

It actually starts at the end of April with the Woodruff Wildcat Run Fundraiser kick-off assembly. I'm not sure why women wearing crazy clothes and dancing around gets kids excited, but it does! They even joined us in a conga line. Maybe it's okay I don't have any pictures of this event.


Then we decorate doors for Teacher Appreciation Week. Lee helped me decorate the two doors I was in charge of this year. We did Tyler's third grade teacher and the school SLP (speech teacher). Both teachers will be moving and not teach at Woodruff next year. They will be missed.


Mrs. Corry's door is suppose to look like a book with book rating forms, like the ones she used in class, on it. It matched the book that she got on the last day of school from the class that had a list of reasons why each student thought Third Grade was Fabulous.

Ms. Holt's door said, "No matter how you say it Ms. Holt is /Gr/eat". It had different synonyms of the word great all over it.

Then we spent two weeks counting money daily from the fundraiser and delivering bookmarks, shirts, water bottles, and tickets to the swim party and dinner with our Prize Patrol shirts on. The kids did a great job. They almost doubled the school goal!

Lee took off work so I could spend a Thursday and Friday in Provo for the Utah PTA Convention. In reality it was two days filled with classes, meetings, and networking, but I don't have any pictures of that. I only have this picture of us in the hotel with chocolate masks on. I don't have pictures of being picked up at six in the morning or the other retreat type things we did, like dinners at Brick Oven and Applebee's, soaking in the hot tub, making bracelets, and playing the card game Spot it! It was an information packed weekend.

I popped into Tyler's class a couple times to take individual pictures of each student and a group shot of the class. I even sent the camera to school with Tyler a couple times so he could take pictures at recess. He did a good job of making sure he eventually took a picture of everyone and even had someone take a picture of him. I made a book. (I had help getting pictures from Mr. Corry too.)

We started setting up early the morning of the Wildcat Run. We had a great turn out from parents and the community. We set up volunteers throughout the route to help cheer on our runners and make sure nobody made a wrong turn. We actually had two fourth graders break the school record. The new school record for one mile is 6 minutes and 12 seconds.

We cut Old Grist Mill Bread and made McDonald's punch for the runners to have after they crossed the finish line.

Lee, Emma, and Andrew ran the Kindergarten Dash.

We passed out last year's prizes to the kindergarteners, since they didn't have a chance to earn them and we didn't want them in PTA room taking up space.

Lee ran with Tyler in the third grade race.

I was running around doing lots of different things. For part of the time I was helping at the finish line. Lee took a picture of me and Mrs. Corry.

Andrew wanted to run the full mile, so Lee and Andrew ran with the fifth graders. (Lee also ran with the second grade too.)

Doug, our Modern Woodmen representative, came up from Ogden and ran several of the races.

After the run we had a needed girls night out and stayed and talked at Chili's until closing time.

We had 30 students earn the Star Dinner. These students raised at least $100 during the fundraiser. They got to go to dinner and have the teachers serve them. I didn't think to take a picture until after it was over and more than half of the teachers had already left. We decorated with star balloons and I made gift packages with star shaped sunglasses, Starburst candies, and a cool glow stick straw. It was great! The kids loved it. Golden Corral printed the tickets wrong and we got creative while we waited the extra hour, just in case someone else came.

We had about 150 students come to the reward for raising at least $50. We had fun with lots of pizza, crafts, limbo, musical chairs, a candy toss, and a bounce house.

Then we walked the students about a mile East to the Aquatic Center.

We handed out 600 free snow cones at the Woodruff swim party. We had to stop when we ran out of cups.

We hosted the fifth grade graduation party with water games, lots of cake, and more snow cones.


I distributed the sponsor donations that I was in charge of. We passed out Texas Roadhouse kid meal coins and also delivered the check from Modern Woodmen.

We delivered ice cream and Mrs. Corry's book during her surprise birthday party the last day of school. I delivered the rest of the ice cream to the office staff and other third grade teachers and had them also sign her book.


I have great plans for next year. Do you want to be the PTA?