Kindergarten Graduation

The Kindergarten Music Concert and Kindergarten Graduation will be held on Tuesday, June 7, 2011. The Music Concert will begin at 1:30 p.m. and Graduation will begin at 1:45 p.m. in the Grainwood Gym.

Parents, grandparents and friends of our kindergarteners are invited to attend this milestone event for our youngest students. Kindergarteners' last day of school is Thursday, June 9 (12:00 p.m. early release) the same as the rest of the school.

From the Office of the Principal

Happy EE (Environment Education) Day Grainwood! We had a tremendously beautiful day outside for our second annual Environmental Festival yesterday.  Please enjoy this short video of some of the events and thank you to parents for assisting and transitioning students from station to station.  We could not hold this event without your help!



Also, please take a moment to complete the Grainwood Healthy Snack Program Survey if you have not yet had the chance.  It is 12 questions long and should take less than 5 minutes.  81 parents have already completed it!  Thank you for your feedback and assisting us in making the Healthy Snack Program the best it can be in 2011-12.

Healthy Snack Program Survey

NO SCHOOL (MONDAY, MAY 30th)

This is a friendly reminder that there will be NO SCHOOL on Monday, May 30th for Memorial Day.

Jeffers Foundation

Jeffers Foundation is offering a free service to all families for fun outdoor activities available in Minnesota. Please check out the Jeffers Foundation's new website at: http://www.familiesoutdoors.org/ for more information about this free service.

S.M.A.R.T. Room COMPLETE!

This past week, Grainwood installed the final piece to its S.M.A.R.T. Classroom. S.M.A.R.T., which stands for Stimulating Maturity through Accelerated Readiness Training, is a multisensory approach to learning based on brain research.  This program develops physiological and neurological readinesss skills essential to classroom success in the areas of language development, reading, math, writing, physiological readiness and coordination, and attention. Its purpose is to stimulate the brain stem activity of elementary students through physical movement or activity in order to increase the number of neural connections and accelerate academic learning. 

The S.M.A.R.T. program is presently implemented for students through 25 minute sessions once a day with supervision through Grainwood trained S.M.A.R.T. staff.  The basic components include 10 repetitions of an obstacle course which includes 10-12 activity stations.  The activities focus on cross lateral, balance, visual, phonemic awareness, and fine motor skills.  These skills are taught through a variety of crawling and creeping activities, walking on a balance beam, jumping on a mini-tramp, eye-teaming, focusing, sound blending, eye-hand tracing, numerous other specific activities and FINALLY overhead crawling. The overhead ladder is an essential component and the primary eye teaming activity to be used daily with students to further develop the readiness skills necessary for reading.

We have been utilizing S.M.A.R.T. with our special needs students and a classroom of Kindergarten and 1st Grade students all year. This summer, five other Grainwood Staff will be trained in S.M.A.R.T., including all other kindergarten and 1st Grade teachers. 

We especially want to thank the Grainwood PTC and the Prior Lake-Savage Area Educational Foundation for their financial support towards purchasing the overhead ladder.  Please check out this video of S.M.A.R.T., as seen on KARE 11 News, for an example of a S.M.A.R.T. Classroom in action.

http://www.kare11.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=868166

  

Grainwood's Environmental Learning Festival 2011

Grainwood's Environmental Learning Festival is on Thursday, May 26th. Kindergarten, 1st, 3rd, 4th and 5th grades will be outside at Grainwood participating in environmental activities. The 2nd graders will be at Lakefront Park participating in their environmental activities. Students in 2nd grade ONLY, please remember to bring a bag lunch. Students in all other grades (K, 1st, 3rd, 4th and 5th) will be eating school lunch at Grainwood. All students in each grade level should wear a shirt according to their grade level color (see below).

Kindergarten (wear GREEN)
Topic: Trees

1st Grade (wear YELLOW)
Topic: Weather-Raptors and how they use air

2nd Grade (wear RED)
Topic: Habitat Studies - Reptiles and Amphibians

3rd Grade (wear WHITE)
Topic: Seeds and Trees

4th Grade (wear BLUE)
Topic: Macroinvertebrate/Bioindex Studies

5th Grade (wear GRAINWOOD T-SHIRTS)
Topic: Habitat Investigations - Raptors

Please have your children wear clothing appropriate to be outdoors for the day. They probably will be in tall grass/woods for some of their lessons. Children need tennis shoes, their Grainwood water bottle, and should have sunscreen/bugspray on before leaving the house in the morning.

Grainwood Teacher Retires

Third grade teacher, Mrs. Karol Rockler, is retiring from the school district after 33 years. We wish her the best!

"I signed my first teaching contract for a first grade position at WestWood Elementary School for $8,750 in 1975. There have been many memories made along the way. I think of all the great teachers I have learned from. I team taught in second grade with Mary Debaere for many years. We made a great team. I brought my therapy dog into school once a week. I did that many years as I had three dogs, Cassie, Keesha and Sadie, that came in over the years. Mary always said that the days the dogs were there were the best teaching days. These were three very talented dogs as I gave obedience demonstrations and agility demonstrations too.

It was always special to be remembered by the students that I taught. I was invited to graduation parties and some even came back to visit after they had graduated to let me know that I had made a difference in their lives. One, I remember, was a young man from Alaska, who became an air traffic controller. I am ending my career in third grade at Grainwood, and I'm looking forward to making new memories on the next adventure."

Grainwood/Westwood Spring Choir Concert

If you were unable to attend the Grainwood/Westwood Spring Choir Concert, please click HERE to view the concert.

Community Education June News

To access the Community Education June News brochure, please click on the brochure picture link to the right.

For information or to register please visit the Community Education or call 952-226-0800.

Physical Education News

Spring Fitness testing is coming to an end with the students giving a great effort in trying to better their Fall scores on the tests.

All-District 5th Grade Track and Field Day at Prior Lake High School will be held on Friday, May 27 from approximately 9:50 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. All 5th graders from the district schools will meet at the High School for some fun and friendly competition. Morning preliminaries will take place in the baseball throw, soccer kick, 100 meter dash, 400 meter run and shuttle, 4 X 100 meter and medley relays. Afternoon will be filled with the finals of the morning events with the top kids in each school competing with each other.

Grainwood 'Game Days' are scheduled for Wednesday, June 1 for the 4th and 5th grades in the morning and the 2nd and 3rd grades in the afternoon. The morning session will run from approximately 9:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. The afternoon session will run from approximately 12:45 p.m. to 2:45 p.m. Activities will include games of pushball, line soccer, capture the chicken, bocce ball, and gunny sack races, along with a relay station. Parents are welcome to come and watch, bring your lawn chair and sunscreen. Please sign in at the office and put on a visitor badge. We are hoping for good weather as there is not a make-up date if the weather does not cooperate. Kindergarten and 1st grade will have their Game Day on Friday, June 3. Their session will be in the morning from approximately 9:15 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. Their session will include similar games to the older kids with a few changes. All sessions will conclude with a tug of war challenge between the classrooms.

From,
Mr. Larson, Physical Education Teacher at Grainwood

Kindergarten Open House

Grainwood Elementary's Kindergarten Open House is on Friday, May 20th, from 10:00 a.m. to 11:45 a.m. All families who have children entering Kindergarten in the fall of 2011-2012 are invited to attend. An invitation was sent out to those families at the end of April. The schedule of activities is as follows:

10:00 a.m. Welcome to Grainwood and tour of the school
10:35 a.m. Explore and play on the playground
10:50 a.m. Eat Lunch at Grainwood!
* Student lunches cost $2.15 and adult lunches are $3.15. It would be helpful if you have the correct amount of money to pay at the register.
* If you have not already done so, please RSVP the number that will be attending by calling the school office at 952-226-0300, so the kitchen staff will have an approximate number of lunches to prepare.
11:20 a.m. Bus Ride

We hope you can come! We look forward to meeting you. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact the Grainwood Office at 952-226-0300.

We also invite you to keep up-to-date on events happening daily at Grainwood Elementary School.

Grainwood Healthy Snack Program Survey

Grainwood Families,

Please take a moment to fill out our Grainwood Healthy Snack Program Survey attached at the link below (whether or not your child participates in the program). It is 12 short questions and will take less than 5 minutes. With approximately two-thirds of Grainwood students participating, this survey is important in order for Grainwood to get feedback on our program and make any necessary improvements for next year. Thank you for your time!

https://spreadsheets.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dEg2UEdnbU51dlBtelh5RTFxSVFqYnc6MQ

The Grainwood PTC mission is simple; 'To work together to promote a school community encouraging involvement and support. To enhance the quality of education provided to our children through our support, volunteering and financial assistance.' Each month, parents and staff meet together to connect with each other on events, programs and other topics of interest to Grainwood's students and families. Here are some of the highlights from this month's meeting:

*Children are busy preparing for the end of the year with field tips, MAP testing and research papers! Students are looking forward to the 2nd annual Environmental Education Day coming up on Thursday, May 26th. Bus safety week starts Monday, May 16th.

*Thank you to all students, teachers and staff for their great smiles at the all-school photo! It was great to see a "sea" of blue and gold in the gym!

*The PTC carnival board has decided not to offer the carnival for the 2011-2012 school year. This is simply due to a lack of volunteers to organize, set-up and run the carnival. Discussions will resume next year about any possible future carnivals beyond the 11-12 school year.

* Officer positions were voted on at the May PTC meeting. Jen Laurienzo (President), Stacey Greenlee (Treasurer), Kate Hopkins (Secretary) and Lynda Ericsson (Volunteer positions) were re-elected into their positions. We welcome Erin Penne as the new Vice-President of the Grainwood PTC. We are currently looking for new faces to help coordinate several events for next year. Please visit the website for more information on how you can help support your student's school in this way.

*To find out more information about the Grainwood PTC and the activities that we support, please visit us online at the Grainwood website under the "General Info" tab.

Please join us next year! We meet every 2nd Tuesday from 6:30-8:00pm in the conference room at Grainwood school. PLEASE NOTE: Childcare is provided! All parents, guardians, teachers, staff and children are welcome and encouraged to attend and find out how you can help make Grainwood a great place to learn!

Middle School Parent Information Night

The middle schools will be holding a parent information night for incoming 6th graders on Thursday, May 26 at 6:15 p.m. at both Hidden Oaks Middle School and Twin Oaks Middle School. Specific school information and middle school transitioning will be discussed with an opportunity to ask questions. School placement letters will be sent to families on May 13, 2011. In that letter, families will know which school their son/daughter will be attending next year. Those students placed at Hidden Oaks will be attending the parent information night at Hidden Oaks. Those students placed at Twin Oaks will be attending the parent information night at Twin Oaks. We look forward to seeing all of the incoming 6th grade parents. Please call the middle school with any questions.

Camp Eco-Adventure

Camp Eco-Adventure offers area youth the opportunity to experience an environmentally-focused day camp held within the Prior Lake-Savage community. The goals of this camp are to educate and inspire youth to be the future stewards of our natural environment and learn skills needed to conserve and enjoy our beautiful lakes and natural areas. Students may register for one or both weeks.

To view the Camp Eco-Adventure flier for more information, click HERE.

MAP Testing - Measure of Academic Progress

Students in grades 2-5 will have scheduled times in the computer lab to complete Measures of Academic Progress tests. Spring testing will take place May 9 - May 27.

MAP tests are aligned to Minnesota's academic standards. Students are tested in the fall, winter and spring in both reading and math. The MAP test is an individualized computer adaptive test in which questions are generated based on the previous response for each student.

Student scores on the MAP will be sent home to parents. Scores are reported in RIT scores (short for Rausch Unit). The RIT score is an equal-interval scale which can measure growth in learning.

Spring Choir Concert is May 5, 2011

The Grainwood and Westwood Elementary Spring Choir Concert is on Thursday, May 5 at 7:00 p.m. in the Grainwood gym. Students should arrive at 6:45 p.m. and meet in the music room. Students should wear their Choir t-shirt with jeans. The program features music from all genres including folk songs, jazz and pop.

A dress rehearsal will be held at Grainwood on Tuesday, May 5, at 1:30 p.m. Family and friends who are unable to attend the evening performance are invited to the dress rehearsal. The Grainwood Choir is directed by Mrs. Jenny Jungwirth and the Westwood Choir is directed by Mrs. Monique Rupp.

DARE Bike-a-Thon Money

Please remember to turn in your DARE Bike-a-Thon money by Friday, May 6. The Rotarians will stop by our school on Thursday, May 5 and Friday, May 6 to collect the money that the kids raised.

Also, remember the DARE Bike-a-Thon is this Saturday, May 7 at Lakefront Park! We hope to see you there!

Prepackaged School Supplies

As a service to our Grainwood families, optional prepackaged school supplies will be made available for purchase for the 2011-2012 school year. A flier with the ordering information will be sent home with students this week. All orders are due by July 1, 2011 and delivered to your home one and a half weeks before school starts. Please click on the Grainwood School Homepage and look under Quick Guide for Prepackaged List and School Supply List for the 2011-2012 school year.

Library Books

The last day to checkout library books at Grainwood is Friday, May 20th.

All student library books will need to be returned by Tuesday, May 31st.