North Park Schools

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Produced by parent volunteers, these videos give you a peek into the educational environment at North Park Schools. North Park houses both a Montessori and a Traditional Public School in Grand Rapids Michigan. The staff, teachers and parent community are enthusiastic and work hard to make North Park a unique and outstanding experience for the students.

The 3rd Annual Sale was another fun and successful event.  We had a great time, passed on a lot of good “stuff”, looked at a lot of wonderful art (thanks to the people who rented the craft tables), ate a lot of good baked goods, and earned almost $1,000 for our playground blacktop and stencils.

Watch highlights from the 2007 Spring Science Fair from North Park Schools.

Twice a year, upper elementary students at North Park Schools get hands on science experience when they demonstrate their projects and share their research with the rest of the school.

North Park School PTA minutes from March 26, 2009

Commence at 4:25 pm, 19 people in attendance

Principal’s Report:

Playground Blacktop:

We received an estimate from a school parent who owns an asphalt company. GRPS will need to make the decision. Sue R. asked GRPS employee Mike Hathaway to give us an estimate. Sue C. offered to call Tari about ideas for green alternatives to blacktop and Sue R. said she would ask Mike Hathaway.

Stencils – we have a US map. Asked Mike Hathaway if GRPS had any other stencils, a paint machine, available paint. Bob Green had said that he had a hopscotch stencil.

Music Program –

Great turn out. Mr. V. brought in his own speakers and the sound was great.

Russ’s night is scheduled for April 20^th.

Kindergarten Round Up is April 29^th. 5:45 for traditional and 6:30 for Montessori.

Could the PTA set up a table and sell t-shirts? Cathy Cardossa volunteered to help.

School Survey results are in. 48 Montessori families responded and 25 Traditional school families responded. The survey was very positive. Suggestion to put the results on our website, facebook and the Great Schools site. Sue R. will forward the results to Matt P.

Secretary’s Report – we agreed to review the minutes during the next pta meeting, as there was little time at this one.

Treasurer’s Report – Agreed to review the minutes during the next pta meeting.

T-shirts Sold 1/2 the shirts at the concert. Plan to refine the art and order more sizes.

Community Outreach Report: Matt Patulski reported –

Website is up and running and has pics and video on it.

Facebook is working – pass the word so we get more participants.

Reached out to the Creston Neighborhood Association about how we can work with them. We can promote the garage sale, paper Gator and Penny Drive among other things.

Susie’s Café: Last week, Susie’s Café opened during the evening so that we gather for a discussion. Sue C. suggested we thank them by having a Susie’s Ice Cream night. Enthusiastic agreement for this.

Resource Committee Suzanne Zack reported.

Stonyfield Yogurt – While we did not win, the group that did win was inspiring and had involved their entire city. We learned from the experience and got more focused about our playground efforts. Thank you to everyone who contributed.

Penny Drive is going great! We’ve collected over $1500. It ends May 15^th.

Promotion: Jen Hall volunteered to design a new promotional brochure for our school.

We’ve had many volunteers to help pass along the brochures and dvd.

Adjourned at 5:10 so that a discussion could ensue about “the State of our School”.

North Park Montessori students parade with a 60 foot dragon through the Grand Rapids Public Museum as part of their study of China.

North Park Montessori students parade with a 60 foot dragon through the Grand Rapids Public Museum as part of their study of China.

<object width=”400″ height=”300″><param name=”allowfullscreen” value=”true” /><param name=”allowscriptaccess” value=”always” /><param name=”movie” value=”http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=4240481&amp;server=vimeo.com&amp;show_title=1&amp;show_byline=1&amp;show_portrait=0&amp;color=&amp;fullscreen=1″ /><embed src=”http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=4240481&amp;server=vimeo.com&amp;show_title=1&amp;show_byline=1&amp;show_portrait=0&amp;color=&amp;fullscreen=1″ type=”application/x-shockwave-flash” allowfullscreen=”true” allowscriptaccess=”always” width=”400″ height=”300″></embed></object><br /><a href=”http://vimeo.com/4240481″>North Park School celebrates the Chinese New Year</a> from <a href=”http://vimeo.com/user1463467″>Suzanne Zack</a> on <a href=”http://vimeo.com”>Vimeo</a>.

The 3rd Annual North Park School Second Best, Craft & Bake Sale will be held on

Saturday, May 16th from 8 am – 4 pm.

Set up for this fun annual event will be in the school gym on Friday May 15th during school hours.

We welcome:

Donations of garage sale “stuff” (drop off is Friday May 15th, or sooner if you need to)

Crafters (we will rent 10 tables for crafts for $20/table)

Baked Goods (yum)

and Volunteers for posting signs the week before, setting up on Friday, selling and clean up on Saturday

All money from the sale will go to the PTA to support our school.

Please pass on the word about our sale to as many people as you can.

If interested in donating, crafting, baking, or helping, contact Suzanne at ZacknBell@aol.com

Thank you!

On March 23, 2009, classrooms, families and friends gathered to watch performances from the first group of North Park students to enter Odyssey of the Mind.

Odyssey of the Mind is an international program that promotes collaboration and creative thinking among students by assigning each team a particular challenge or problem. Students work together for months to solve the challenge and eventually present their solution. Parents volunteer as coaches and meet with the students every week, but the trick is that coaches cannot help the students to solve their challenge in any way, they cannot offer ideas or even perform any of the tasks for the students. As one coach said, “Basically, all we did was offer snacks and keep the bickering to a minimum.”

The result of this hands off coaching is that the solution the students present is entirely of their making. And, it is amazing what the student created as a group and presented to the school and their families on Monday night.

The four teams each had a unique “problem”. The “problems” were:

Earth Trek – This problem requires teams to design and build a small vehicle that will slide down a snowy slope at least three times, flip over and continue moving. It should also be able to move on land and on water.

Shock Waves – The problem is to design and build a structure out of balsa wood and glue that will balance and support as much weight as possible while absorbing shockwaves. The team will test its structure by placing weights onto it. And present the problem by creating a short skit to go with the structure.

The Lost Labor of Heracles – Teams will create and present an original performance about the ancient Greek hero Heracles. The team will reenact Heracles performing one of the 12 labors, as well as a Lost Labor – a team created 13th labor forgotten in history. The team should present why the Lost Labor was forgotten.

Teach Yer Creature - Teams will create a humorous performance about a mechanical creature that acts like a real mammal or bird and learns lessons. The creature will act like the real animal by performing tasks the way it would. It will be taught two lessons by a Creature Teacher and will “accidentally” learn a behavior by observing others. During the performance the creature will surprise the audinece by demonstrating the “accidental” behavior it learned.

All the teams also participated in “Spontaneous Problems” in which they needed to creatively and quickly respond to a challenge. Team members said they had a great time with the experience. And they certainly impressed everyone at the school!

If you want more information about Odyssey of the Mind go to www.odysseyofthemind.com or www.miodyssey.com.

Pictures of the event will be posted soon!

9 The Performance

On March 21, 2009, a team of North Park students competed in the 2009 Regional Odyssey of the Mind tournament. The team of 2nd and 3rd grade students and their coaches worked for many months creating a short play to solve the Odyssey problem called “The Lost Labor of Heracles”.

This was the first year North Park has been involved with Odyssey of the Mind. Here are some of the comments from the “OM” judges:

“Enjoyed the story and Zeus voice – great research!”
“Great art work in the posters. An enthusiastic group. You obviously had a great time working together!”
“Cool wild animal mask. Humorous script. Zeus sound was neat! I like the white dear. Great idea for a rock!”
“Nice job. Awesome lark/fawn and great poison vine! Loved your stag. Please come back next year!”
“I liked the pre-recorded creativity to turn your voice into a deep man’s voice. Nice job on research”
“I really liked the transitions between scenes. The announcer did a great job! I loved your enthusiasm!”
“I would never have known this was your first time!”

We are proud of our students and coaches! Great work!