OUR GRAY HAWK FAMILY works together to help students feel safe, loved, and inspired so they can be empowered learners and engaged citizens.

• Please register your students for the Fall of 2022! Go to your Skyward Family account and go to the Returning Student/Family Enrollment tab to register. Please check to make sure all information is correct. We appreciate you doing this as soon as possible so we can make plans for next year.

It has been an incredible week of celebrating OUR staff. Staff Appreciation Week is such a wonderful time to reflect on the impact the adults in education have on OUR community.

We wanted to say thank you so very much to all of the families that purchased gift cards to treat staff with, sent in food for lunches all week or came in and cleaned up after lunches! We couldn't do it without you!

Thank you Alexis & the Overacker Family for all of the hours you spent cooking so many delicious foods, smoking meat and wrapping 55 potatoes to be cooked! You are a magician with keeping things under budget and so very talented with food!

Our 1st Annual Art Show was a ROUSING SUCCESS! We had over 85% of our students and families stop by and check out the incredible pieces created by OUR GRAY HAWKS! Thank you for supporting OUR ARTISTS and OUR ART PROGRAM.

Mrs. Ramsey is a real treasure and we are so fortunate to have her here at Gray Hawk! Thank you Mrs. Ramsey!

Huge shout out to Mrs. Nicole Davis, Mr. Bartels, Mrs. Nelson, and Mrs. Williamson for planning such a fun, educational, and engaging week of STEM activities for OUR 5th graders. They did everything from a LIVE presentation with the Kansas Cosmosphere and learning how astronauts goto the bathroom. They also heard from local wasterwater officials and learned how they clean our water. A visit from the Chief about law enforcement and building Glow Rollercoasters were some of the other activities that they participated in. We ended the experience with a celebration with OUR parents eating lunch and launching rockets on the playground. It was wonderful to see so many parents that were able to come out and be a part of the celebration! Thank you to OUR PTO for providing field trip funds for this experience and again HUGE SHOUT OUT to Mrs. Davis, Mr. Bartels, Mrs. Nelson, and Mrs. Williamson for making this such an incredible week! We also cannot forget Dr. Pretz, the Director of Teaching and Learning. Thank you for coming over and being our grill master and making hot dogs for everyone!

Next week is Student Council Spirit Week. Please check out all of the FUN ways to dress up and participate!

Monday: Pajama Day - Roll out of bed and come on in!

Tuesday: Crazy Hair & Sock Day

Wednesday: School Spirit Day - Wear your Gray Hawk Gear

Thursday: Fun in the Sun Day - Summer vacation is just around the corner. Wear those summer clothes, flip flops, and sunglasses :)

Friday: Hat Day - It's Field Day too! Wear a hat to protect yourself from the sun

Gray Hawk will be visited by author Izzy B on Wednesday May 18. He will spend an hour with our K-2 students and an hour with 3-5. We are very excited to welcome him here to GRAY HAWK. Please see below for an order form if you would like to order one of his books - A Teacher in the Wild or A Tighty-Whitey Wind (He does have several others but these are the two hardback editions that he will sign for kids.). Book orders are due by Wednesday, May 11. The price is $14 CASH or CHECK ONLY. If writing a check, please make it payable to Isaiah Bayse.

MAP testing has concluded and OUR students did a nice job. We have a few make up tests to complete but we will be done with those soon and close out testing for the 21/22 school year.

There are still a few spots left for volunteers for Field Day on May 13. Please check out the available slots on the Sign Up Genius and volunteer where you can. Thank you! The Rain Date is May 20.

Thursday, May 19 will be a special evening at Gray Hawk! Families are invited to Gray Hawk for an evening of fun and community togetherness. We will have games set up to play and different activities around the school for all to enjoy. This event is FREE for all families.

We will be selling drinks and food with the proceeds going towards purchasing a gaga ball pit for OUR playground next year. Additionally, we have had a family donate a dunk tank. People will have the chance to dunk staff members for $1 for 2 chances. Again, the money raised from the dunk tank will also go towards OUR gaga pit.

We could really use some help! If you are available to help, please sign up at https://www.signupgenius.com/go/10C0F4FAFA92BA3F4CF8-summer There are a few different options to help make this event a rousing success!

Be there to celebrate UNITY in the COMMUNITY!

OUR PTO is working with an outside vendor to pull all supplies together for you and take away that stress at the beginning of the school year when everyone else is fighting in the aisles of WalMart and Target for that last box of crayons. Please check out the order form below and take this stress out of your life!

Our last PTO meeting of the year is Tuesday, May 10th! We will be electing our Board & Coordinators for next year. We would love to have you attend, even if you do not want to be a Coordinator or on the Board! We want to gather as much input from our families as possible to make '22-'23 a fantastic year for OUR Gray Hawks!

This week we’ll finish looking at the books we purchased with the BLEF grant. This is a variety of books focusing on women who have made differences.

Featured Book: Separate is Never Equal: Sylvia Mendez and Her Family’s Fight for Desegregation by Duncan Tonatiuh

When her family moved to the town of Westminster, California, young Sylvia Mendez was excited about enrolling in her neighborhood school. But she and her brothers were turned away and told they had to attend the Mexican school instead. Sylvia could not understand why—she was an American citizen who spoke perfect English. Why were the children of Mexican families forced to attend a separate school? Seven years before Brown v. Board of Education, the Mendez family fought to end segregation in California schools. Amazon

Each week we will provide clues to the identity of someone from throughout history that has made an important impact on our world. We provide these clues each morning and then reveal the person to OUR GRAY HAWKS on Friday morning with a brief video. Here are the clues from this past week.

• I was born in London, England on April 8, 1934, Growing up I absolutely loved animals and I dreamt of some day going to Africa to see my favorite animals - especially chimpanzees

• I spent a lot of my early years saving up to go to Africa. When I was 23 I finally had enough to go and visit a friend on a farm in Kenya. I fell in love with Africa and decided to stay. I moved to Tanzania to study chimpanzees. When I began studying chimps, I had no formal training or education which actually helped me become a greater researcher because I did things my own way.

• I named all of the chimpanzees that I observed and gave them each unique names based on things about their personality or characteristics of the way they look. I made many important discoveries about chimps: I discovered that they made and used tools, hunted and trapped meat for their food when other scientists believed they only ate plants, and I discovered that shrimps expressed emotions such as sadness, anger and joy.

• It sounds crazy, but for two years I lived in a troop of chimpanzees in the wild. I lived with them until a chimp named Frodo that did not like me, kicked me out of the troop when he became the leader.

• I won many awards for my work with chimpanzees and the research that I did lead to a greater understanding of chimpanzees. I won many awards and was recognized for my ground-breaking work. I am currently living in England and enjoying life with my family.

One of the things that continues to need to be a focus for not only educators as we work with OUR students, but every family is to work with children to be able to identify emotions. When children understand their emotions and how they are feeling they are better able to respond to difficult situations or face those big emotions that they may encounter.

When we teach the neuroscience of emotions, we are empowering students and in the end we are aiding in advancing their development and supporting the ability to regulate during difficult situations.Check out this great article from Edutopia about emotional literacy.

Email: dspringer@usd458.org
Website: http://ghes.usd458.org/
Location: 16000 Garden Parkway, Basehor, KS, USA
Phone: (913) 662-7170
Twitter: @drspringer12301