The Opp Blog

Registration is now open for the 8th Annual Opportunity Schools Golf Tournament.  Please visit our website for more information.

Building a Better Brain… is the theme for this summer’s TTI, June 20-24th. Information is available on our website.

Teach to many different learning styles so the potential of every learner is tapped. Use alternative forms of assessment and instruction to provide avenues for those who learn differently.

We hope to see you there!

This past Tuesday Amigos de los Niños held their Annual Awards Luncheon, celebrating 30 years of benefitting many physically, mentally, and emotionally challenged children of Southern California.  For the second year in a row, we have been honored by Amigos, receiving a $7,000 grant this year for the purchase and licensing of software we use in assessment and intervention with our students.  We are so tremendously thankful for their generosity and support.

This year’s luncheon speaker was 2002 World Series winning Anaheim Angels (of Los Angeles!) manager, Mike Scioscia.  Mike told the crowd stories of his childhood, and also about life playing under Tommy Lasorda.  As funny and entertaining as he was, even he admitted it was a “tough act to follow all the award recipients.”

Of the 22 organizations that received grants, only six were selected to tell a little more about what they do.  Amigos de los Ninos specifically asked to have Michelle Ukleja represent Opportunity Schools.  She was the last speaker to take the stage before Mike spoke.  Michelle told the audience how the program gave her the skills and confidence she needed to be successful in school and to go on and earn her B.A. degree from CSULB in Early Child Development.  Following her passion, she is currently employed at Bethany Preschool in Long Beach.

Again, we are so thankful to Amigos de los Niños and to all of our donors who make our vision a reality!  Words can never express our gratefulness, and we could not reach the students we serve without your faithful support!

Be sure to check out the results and pictures from our 2010 Opportunity Schools Golf Tournament here.

Always a great time… you will not want to miss next year.

We are excited about this year’s live and almost live auction items, and we know you will be too.  Please click here to to dowload the brochure of all the auction items (large file – please allow time to download).  You will find descriptions, images, and most everything you need to help decide what you want to bid on!

We hope you can join us for this event, however if you are unable to attend you can still submit an absentee bid, which can be found in the brochure as well.

Don’t miss out on the chance to have the winning bid for the Pebble Beach Vacation seen below, or many other items such as:

• 5 days, 4 nights at private Catalina Condo including round of golf at Catalina Island Golf Resort
• Set of 4 Lakers tickets…premiere seats…2nd row mid court
• Signed Jacket, Basketball & Poster by Coach John Wooden
• Anaheim Ducks game – Anaheim Mayor Curt Pringle’s 4 suite seats
• Kauai – a week stay at private home on beach (airfare not included)
• Various wine baskets
• AND MUCH MORE!

For further questions, please contact Janice Eisenberger at (714) 761-5062.

Attention golfers and supporters of Opportunity Schools – registration is now available for our 7th Annual Opportunity Schools Golf Tournament at Virginia Country Club in Long Beach.  The date is Monday, October 25th – and the time to register is now.

Please visit our 2010 Golf Tournament page for brochure, information and access to online and mail-in registration.  We sincerely hope you can make it.  If you can’t play in the tournament then you can still support Opportunity Schools with any auction items or general donations you can make.  Thanks for helping us serve our mission of helping students with learning challenges reach their hidden potential!

If you or someone you know has any items (such as those listed on the flyer below) please let us know.  We are revving up for this years Golf Tournament and need items to auction off to raise money to support our mission of reaching students with learning challenges.  Please contact Janice (janice@opp4kids.org) to let us know if you can help, or if you need more information.  Thanks everyone.

Here is your official “Save the Date” for the 7th Annual Opportunity Schools Golf Tournament… October 25th at Virginia Country Club.

Opportunity Schools is being honored by the Long Beach Chamber of Commerce at their 118th Inaugural Gala for our work as a non-profit within the community.  The Gala will be on Thursday, June 25th starting at 5:45 pm.  We would love to have you there to celebrate with us, so if you are interested in attending you can purchase tickets at their website.

We are proud to be honored by the Chamber and bring attention to Opportunity Schools’ work with students.  And we also want to thank you as always for your support and encouragement and hope you know that this honor reflects all that you do for our organization.

Click here for larger image. Hope to see you there!

Soundabet is the name of the program started by Dan Gurney in the late 1990′s to help teach his kindergarten class phonemes.  Research has shown that successfully teaching children to read requires five areas to be thoroughly taught; and phonemic awareness is the starting point followed by phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and text comprehension.

Here is a video of one of Dan’s kindergarten classes “performing” the Soundabet song, where they sound out the letters of the alphabet.

Dan has taught kindergarten in Northern California for over 25 years.  You can follow him online, both at his Soundabet blog, as well as his Mr. Kindergarten blog for his school.

We are excited to have Dan present Soundabet at our Teacher Training Institute this summer, July 17th.