Garden Elementary

FAMILY FUN will be the theme for Spring Garden Elementary's annual Spring Garden Party on Saturday.The carnival is scheduled from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the school on Boxwood Drive in Hampstead.Games that cost 25 cents each, a free magic show and food choices are scaled to the elementary school child.Crafts this year include sand art, bracelets that display one's name, spin art and colored hair spray -- perhaps the most popular choice for all ages last year, said one teacher.At noon, Hampstead magician Cal Horelick will present his "Magic by Cal" show on the school stage.

CREATING A HOLIDAY atmosphere not unlike the town in the movie It's a Wonderful Life, Hampstead officials will throw the switch Friday to illuminate the town park and welcome the season. The park in front of the former Hampstead Elementary School has been transformed into a garden of lighted and moving figures, and the town Christmas tree has been placed on Main Street. At 7 p.m. Friday, the flashing lights and screaming sirens of the firetruck from Hampstead Volunteer Fire Department will signal the arrival of Mayor Christopher M. Nevin and Santa Claus, as they are driven down Main Street from the fire station to the park.

Arbor Day is being celebrated today at Spring Garden Elementary School.Students will assemble at 9 a.m. to hear guest speaker Walter S. Orlinsky of the Maryland Department of Natural Resources. The town of Hampstead will plant a Kings Elm, which has been selected as the Hampstead town tree. Parents and friends are invited to the activity.Spring Garden Elementary is at 900 Boxwood Drive. To reach the school from Hanover Pike, turn left to Northwoods Trail at a McDonald's restaurant and turn right at the stop sign to Boxwood.

"Is she going to arrive in a limo?" asked Spring Garden Elementary fifth-grader Artie Garcia. Artie and fellow fifth-grader Ashley Phipps were waiting to play tour guides to a very important person in Maryland education. State Superintendent Nancy S. Grasmick made a rare visit to Carroll County yesterday to tour Hampstead's Spring Garden, one of 10 elementary schools honored in the fall with Maryland's Blue Ribbon award for all-around excellence. "I feel like I'm at a convention," Artie said, staring at the pack of strangers waiting to greet Grasmick.

FAMILY GAMES AND food tuned to the tastes of pre-school through fifth-grade children are the highlights of activities during the sixth annual PTA Garden Party, to be held from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday in the gym of Spring Garden Elementary.Carnival-style games at 25 cents per ticket are designed for all ages. Pizza, hot dogs, lemon sticks, pretzels, snowballs, soda and baked goods will be available.Children's crafts will include making bead necklaces and name bracelets. This year, face painting has been expanded to the full face, if desired.

Springtime has come to Spring Garden Elementary in Hampstead. On April 3, the first Spring Garden Garden Party will be sponsored by the PTA. Any child from any school can come for games, food and fun.Under chairwomen Carole Riddle and Carolyn Smedick, a committee of eight people will coordinate the days' activities, assisted by "lots and lots of moms and dads who've volunteered to work," said Mrs. Smedick.From 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the school cafeteria-gym, children can choose from 10 games set for varying skill levels.

He carries boxes and helps in the cafeteria. He fixes equipment, counsels students, referees games, and, according to Martha Dickinson, a second-grade teacher who has worked with him for more than 20 years, he "is a great spender -- the only person I know who can make a penny stretch a mile."Spring Garden Elementary Principal Larry Bair has even been known to pull loose teeth.After 32 1/2 years, 28 as an administrator in Carroll, Bair is finishing his last week of school."He will not be replaced," said Carol Pfoutz, a secretary at Spring Garden.

Name.. .. .. .. .. .. ... .. .School assignmentSherrill S. Blackiston.. .. ..Spring Garden ElementaryJudith A. Clark.. .. .. .William Winchester ElementarySylvia M. Griswold.. .. .. .. Spring Garden ElementaryCharlene F. Handley.. .. .. .. .. .. .Westminster HighAnn S. Harden.. .. .. .Carroll County Education CenterMiriam J. Larson.. ... .. .. .. ..Hampstead ElementaryPatricia B. Lichtfuss.. .. .. .Robert Moton ElementaryGretchen O. Milchling.. .. .. ..Elmer Wolfe ElementaryElizabeth A. Miller.

With assignments such as Counting Kool-Aid, Hundreds and Thousands Sandwiches, and Gorilla Muffins, math class never tasted so good.For two weeks, students in a summer math camp at Manchester Elementary School learned that math plays an important role in such everyday activities as paying bills, working and, of course, cooking.For the camp's final class Friday, students measured their way through a recipe for math camp ice cream, made by shaking milk, sugar, salt, ice and vanilla together in locking plastic bags.

ANYONE INTERESTED in instrumental music would enjoy the North Carroll Regional Band Concert tonight at 7 p.m. at North Carroll High School.The regional concert, the first since 1994, features instrumentalists at three age levels. The fifth-grade students, from Hampstead, Manchester and Spring Garden Elementary schools, have received two school years of instruction. They will play one program.The fifth-graders will be followed by the eighth-grade band from North Carroll Middle School, whose members have five years of instruction.

The county's school board candidates faced off last night in North Carroll, hoping to distinguish themselves on local concerns such as the postponed addition for Spring Garden Elementary and more universal education issues such as reducing class sizes and budget accountability. Speaking to an audience of 40 - which included organizers, a young boy playing a video game and two newspaper reporters - candidates Lisa Breslin, Thomas G. Hiltz, Susan Holt and Stephen M. Nevin had three minutes to introduce themselves before taking turns answering eight questions written by the PTAs and PTOs of North Carroll High, North Carroll and Shiloh middle schools, and Hampstead, Spring Garden and Manchester elementary schools.

Hampstead Mayor Christopher M. Nevin's refusal to approve plans to expand Spring Garden Elementary surprised some school board members and staff, leaving them to wonder what to do with a school so overcrowded that the first lunch shift begins two hours after pupils walk in the door. The mayor told the Carroll County Board of Education on Tuesday night that he would not sign off on plans to build an addition at the school, effectively dashing the school system's intentions to add six classrooms without expanding the school's cafeteria, library and other common areas.

Parents of schoolchildren will be learning quite a bit about bugs this year. And rodents. And weeds.A state law that will take effect this fall -- it was enacted last year after an intense lobbying effort by parents -- requires all elementary schools to notify parents by letter whenever a pesticide is to be used in a building. Many systems are voluntarily implementing the procedure in middle and high schools as well.Pests are no new problem in Maryland schools.Last year alone, an army of carpenter ants attacked a portable classroom at Spring Garden Elementary in Hampstead.

THE GARDEN PARTY, or annual school carnival, happens at Spring Garden Elementary School on Saturday. Children of elementary school age will enjoy skill games and crafts from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m, plus door prizes, cake walk, silent auction and book fair.The school PTA sponsors the event.Children can make and take bead necklaces and name bracelets, have faces painted and receive nonpermanent color hair spray.Crafts made by parents and children of the school will be sold. The annual bake sale will be held.

A state committee has approved $6.3 million in school construction funds for Carroll County, with most of the money earmarked for a high school in the southern part of the county.The Interagency Committee for School Construction last week allocated an extra $1.6 million for the project after Carroll school officials appealed to the committee for $13 million in additional funding for a number of building projects, said Vernon Smith, FTC assistant superintendent of administration for county schools.

LIKE THE PIED PIPER, Scott Klein and his wife, Cassie, will lead at least 30 children from St. Mark's Lutheran Church through Hampstead neighborhoods from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. Saturday, when they will collect nonperishable food to be donated to North East Social Action Program and Carroll County Food Sunday."

FAMILY GAMES AND food tuned to the tastes of pre-school through fifth-grade children are the highlights of activities during the sixth annual PTA Garden Party, to be held from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday in the gym of Spring Garden Elementary.Carnival-style games at 25 cents per ticket are designed for all ages. Pizza, hot dogs, lemon sticks, pretzels, snowballs, soda and baked goods will be available.Children's crafts will include making bead necklaces and name bracelets. This year, face painting has been expanded to the full face, if desired.

LOCAL RESIDENTS who want to know what's hot in home gardening should plan to listen to presentations by Lisa Spence of the Carroll County Cooperative Extension Service.Spence will discuss such things as choosing native perennial plants, timing lawn care and safely managing insects and diseases. Environmental well-being is of primary concern.The courses, which will encourage residents to improve their environment, will coincide with a stream-restoration project under way in the community.Several waterways in the Roberts Field development fall within the Gunpowder watershed that spreads over Carroll, Baltimore and Harford counties and York County, Pa.A small stream in the development will be restored to a natural channel.