Saturday, October 30, 2010

Boys & Girls' Club Holiday Gift and Food Fair

Lisa here:

This event is just too much fun.  The sellers are all kids, mostly homeschoolers.  The crafts are typically impressive.  We traditionally get each of our kids a Christmas ornament every year, so when they are ready to have Christmas on their own they will have a little collection already. : )  There were so many adorable ornaments there--a great place to pick up a few presents while supporting local kids!

If anyone wants to particpate, I'll just say that the food tables always seem to have a brisk business underway! : )

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ATTENTION: Parents, Teachers & Club Leaders:


Join in the fun of this Great Community Event & Fundraising Opportunity for Groups & Junior Entrepreneurs

The Boys & Girls Club of Santa Cruz is hosting the Annual Children’s International Holiday Gift and Food Fair Saturday, December 4, 11 to 2 pm

The Boys & Girls Club of Santa Cruz invites all Creative and Entrepreneurial Children who enjoy crafts, cooking, or selling and have a need to raise money, and all who appreciate youthful creativity and originality.

The gymnasium of the Boys & Girls Club (located downtown, at 543 Center St.) will be transformed into an international marketplace, offering hand-made items to customers. Decorated table displays will be laden with homemade products including sweet treats to hand-knit scarves, jewelry to freshly-made burritos, and hot-baked breads to ornate wreathes. Everything offered for sale is made entirely by participating youth under the age of 18. Local bands, choirs and performers will provide music during the Fair. Customer admission is free!

The scheduling of this event coincides with a very busy day downtown, with masses of parade attendees adding to the bustle of holiday shoppers. To bring in customers, our event will be publicized and postered throughout Santa Cruz. Vendors are encouraged to promote this event, too!

Table space is limited, so please reserve yours early by sending $15 per table (can be shared to save $, limit 2 per participant).

Hand-made Items that have sold well in the past include:

Homemade Jams Decoratively Wrapped Baked Goods & Cookies
Beaded Earrings & Jewelry Cards & Photos
Knitted Hats & Scarves Quilted Potholders
Custom Stitched Pillowcases Candies & Treats
Scented Decorative Candles Bird and Bat Houses
Holiday Wreaths & Swags Dog Biscuits & Pet Items

Let your child’s creativity flow……….

Interested in participating in this year’s Children’s International Gift and Food Fair ? Please complete the bottom portion of this letter, enclose $15 per table, and send to:

Julie Penniman, Boys & Girls Club of Santa Cruz

Attn: Craft Fair
P.O. Box 873
Santa Cruz, CA 95061
(831) 423-3138 ext. 29
julie@boysandgirlsclub.info

Children’s International Gift and Food Fair
____ I am interested in participating this year

Child’s Name or Organization: ________________________________________

Contact person: __________________________________________________

Address: _________________________________________________________

Child’s Home Phone #: ______________ Parent’s Work #:_________________

Attached is my $ _______ table fee. Please reserve me a table. Maximum two tables

per person or organization.

Saturday, October 23, 2010

Need costuming help!

Hi Vintage Moms!

Ok, my local friends, I have to outfit my girls for Halloween and their roles in the Annie musical next month.  I have a list of the things we need, and am hoping some of you might be able to loan us some of them. : )

For Halloween, my girls were inspired by their LitWits Workshop on The Secret Garden, and so Gwynneth wants to be Dickon, Meredith wants to be Martha, and Bronwyn wants to be Mary in her nightclothes (like when she first meets Colin).  I am so pleased with their ideas, and yet realized I should have set about finding their outfit pieces sooner.  But this is the first year they did not just go to the dress-up box and make something from that, so I am unused to the need to plan ahead! 

And then Gwynneth and Meredith will be Miss Farrell and an orphan/White House butler for the play.

So if any of you have the following, I would be greatly appreciative:

*White apron/pinafore (approx size 6-8)
*newsboy or other tweed cap (not contemporary styled--think Yorkshire)
*boy's tan or brown or green vest
*brown well-worn boy boots (approx size 1? too big is fine)
*boy's jacket/blazer/sportcoat with pockets--can be tweed or wool, or any tannish/brown color, as long as it is not too nice looking (think old-fashioned outdoorsy boy)
*white or beige boy button-down shirt, old is great!
*heeled dress shoes approx size 1-2
*girl leather (or faux) boots, preferrably brown but black ok too, size 10-11
*old-fashioned candle holder (the kind you carry, brass maybe--Mother Goose looking)

Can anyone help with any of these?  Thank you!

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

FREE screening of new documentary!

Hi All,

The Rio Theatre will be showing the new, award-winning documentary Race to Nowhere on Nov. 4 and it sounds like you can reserve free tickets! 

Here is the link to the theatre:  http://www.racetonowhere.com/screenings/rio-theater

Here is the link to info about the movie: http://www.racetonowhere.com/

(too lazy to make it look all nice with html tonight ; )

Out of towners--check the second link to see if there is a free screening near you!

Saturday, October 16, 2010

Old School Monday Calendar for the rest of the year!

Hi Vintage Moms!

First of all, I want to give a big hand to the couragous moms who came to our Back-to-Old-School adventure, braving temperatures up to 103 degrees to go get some good, locally-made ice cream.  (sound of me clapping vigorously.)  Seriously, Moms, we knew it was hot, but I never imagined it was THAT hot.  And we survived.  Special mention goes to the moms who pushed babies in strollers over a hill in that heat.  You rock.

I hope you can now look back and chuckle! 

We are coming up on our next OSM, and I hope to see you all there!  Do you like the new time?  Sara Greco, Lisa Lebowitz, are you able to come at the new time?  Please let me know and we can continue to adjust the time until it seems to work the best for everyone.

So here are the dates for the upcoming OSMs:

Oct. 25
Nov. 22
Dec. 20 (1 week earlier than usual because of Christmas)
Jan. 24

I'll try to post more later about my plans for this Oct. OSM, but I do have two things to say in advance:

1) If anyone has a great Fall/Harvest idea for us to study/make that day, please share it! (I have this nagging feeling in the back of my mind that one of you mentioned a great fallish idea, but of course I don't remember who you were or what it was!)

2) Next time we are definitely going to have our curriculum swap!  Anything the least bit schoolish you have at home that you don't want anymore--bring it to share!  You can post here in advance if there are books you would like to sell, to see if anyone is interested.  But this is mainly for cleaning out the cupboards and passing along what you don't need--because one homeschool mom's clutter is another mom's next unit study!  ; )

Hope you are all doing well!

Lisa C.

JOHNSON FARM HARVEST TOUR

*Lucy sent this in and said it was not too late to sign up--but I imagine the sooner the better, if you want to participate!  This is a fun tour that the young ones enjoy, and is considered a public-school kindergarten staple here in Aptos. : )

Come join Farmer Rob at Johnson's Farm for a Harvest Tour. The Johnson Farm abounds in a festival of fall colors and activities. It is time to gather in the bounty of the farm. Visitors will enjoy shucking and shelling corn, an old-fashioned harvest demonstration, and gathering pumpkins. The tour lasts one hour and includes a hayride, a time to feed the animals, a lesson on harvesting, and a choice of a pumpkin you pick from the field.

Date: Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Time: 12:45 PM (Please arrive by 12:15 so that money may be collected)
Cost: $7.00 per person (anyone attending that is 2 or older is $7.00, under 2 years old is free)
Location: Johnson Farm, 16385 Two Bar Road, Boulder Creek, CA

If you are interested in attending please email me, Kathy Newman, k_newman@sbcglobal.net by October 10th (the earlier the better as we are limited to the number attending). Please send your name and the number of children that will be attending. If you have any questions please contact me.

See you at the harvest!

Local history FREE field trip

From a homeschool email group:

I have a confirmed fieldtrip to the Scotts Valley Scott House. The website is http://www.svchamber.org/svhistory/ Virginia Hooper will be our guide as we tour the house, find out about Hiram D. Scott and his family, Scotts Valley, and the archaeological find on the property.


3 PM, Friday, October 22, 2010
Civic Center Drive, Scotts Valley 95066

This tour will be directed toward early elementary aged children. Anyone interested in joining our group for this free fieldtrip should contact me at cat_on_2_wheels @ yahoo.com by this Thursday.

Thanks,

Julie Moore

FREE Science Fun!

**My out of town readers--there are other locations for these science events all over the US, so please click on the last link to get to the national site, and look at the "satellite" section to see if there is anything taking place near you.

Cal Science & Engineering Festival


A community celebration of Science@Cal!

Explore the wonders of science with activities for the whole family at the first-ever Cal Science & Engineering Festival.

This free event will take place at UC Berkeley, on Spieker Plaza (located next to Haas Pavilion) http://www.berkeley.edu/map/maps/DE23.html on *Saturday, October 23 *from 10am to 2pm.

It's all about science in action! You'll put solar power to the test, get hands-on with ancient fossils, discover the "science" of unicycling and basketball, make your own earthquake, journey to the stars—and more!

The Cal festival is hosted by Science@Cal, an initiative of the UC BerkeleyOffice of the Vice Chancellor for Research, and is presented in conjunction with the inaugural USA Science & Engineering Festival http://usasciencefestival.org/

It sounds GREAT--hope we can go. : )

Friday, October 8, 2010

Free online textbooks!

From an email I received earlier from one of our local homeschool groups:

This group won an award from TheTech: They have open source textbooks. Free. Wow. http://www.ck12.org/flexr/