News and Announcements

First-grader Adam Beard wiggled in his seat while he meticulously painted each of the six pieces of a wooden ornament in bright colors. He stopped to examine each piece making sure no spot was left bare. "This one's mine," he said excitedly, beaming with pride as he handed over the pieces to waiting high school students. Armed with hot glue guns, the older students carefully put the pieces together to form a beautiful 3-D ornament ready for the first-graders to use as their own decorations at home.

A car, a garage, a pyramid and something that looks like a merry-go-round are all just a few of the many creations students in Molly Bumstead's McFall Elementary classroom have built using Magformers. Bumstead purchased the building toys thanks to a grant from the Thornapple Area Enrichment Foundation. The building toys encourage creativity and early engineering skills. The plastic pieces have magnets so they easily attach to each other and lead to some very creative designs. Thank you TAEF for your generous support of TK Schools. The students LOVE their Magformers!

Joey Graham invited friends and family to his sixth birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese's, but he made a special request. Instead of gifts for himself, Joey asked guests to bring items to send to families in North Carolina affected by a devastating hurricane. It's an idea he got from his McFall Elementary teacher Jacob Bultema.

Through the extremely generous support of TK families and the community, a total of $74,329.39 was raised at the 10th annual PTO walk-a-thon event last week.

David Dettmann's first day of kindergarten came with a special surprise from someone he didn't even know. In fact, every student in Karen Young's kindergarten class got a special surprise from strangers. So did all the students in Cathy Leaf's kindergarten class and Karen Seifert's first-grade class.

New School Resource Officer Jeff Nieuwenhuis is getting into the swing of his new job and getting to know students throughout the district. TK hired Nieuwenhuis as a second school resource officer this year. He joins Officer Tony Stein and they work together to get to know students at all grade levels, interact with them and help keep all TK students and staff safe.