Maple Grove Charter School - One Town. One Team. One Dream.

🍯🐝 Sweet, sticky goodness! A huge thank you to Dr. Carla Prahl, our bee hive mentor this summer, for sharing her expertise and passion with our learners! She, along with fellow beekeeper and new MGCS parent, Mr. Mengal, led a honey extraction demonstration that had our kids buzzing with curiosity. Students learned new vocabulary like centrifuge and revolutions, discovered that nearly 1/3 of the food we eat depends on pollinators like bees, and asked such thoughtful questions along the way. They got to taste the sweet honey fresh from the frames with apples, sample the wax, and watch how capped cells are scraped with a hot knife before the extractor spins out the honey. We are also so thankful for our parent volunteer apprentices who helped care for the hives throughout the summer—their support made this learning possible! We are so grateful for the support of our community in creating these hands-on learning experiences! 🦊🌱

✨ Ribbon Cutting Celebration ✨ We had the honor of celebrating the official ribbon cutting for our brand-new natural playground at MGCS with the Athens Chamber of Commerce! 🎉 A huge thank you to the School District of Athens and Superintendent Andrea Sheridan for their ongoing support of Maple Grove Charter School. We are also incredibly grateful to Bienenstock Natural Playgrounds out of Ontario, Canada, for their thoughtful design, and to Revi by Design for bringing that vision from design to reality. 🌿 Special recognition goes to our dedicated playground committee: • Robin Hanson – Teaching Principal • Sandy Benton – Environmental Education Consultant • Kerri Zamzow – Intermediate Classroom Teacher • Sabrina Riehle – Primary Classroom Teacher • Jamey Handschke – Head of Maintenance • Annette Neske – Community Member & Parent • Rebecca Primm – Governance Board Member & Parent This entire project was made possible through the Charter Implementation Grant, and we are so grateful for the opportunity it has given our students. 💚 Rooted in our school’s environmental and agriscience focus, this playground will no doubt become a favorite place for our Foxes to explore, challenge themselves, and use their imagination while connecting with the natural world. 🦊🌳

A huge thank you to Pagel’s Pub & Grub for their incredible support of Maple Grove Charter School! Every Wednesday night all summer long, Pagel’s has hosted Hogs & Hot Rods, bringing together a supportive Hamburg and surrounding community. Tonight was the final night, and I had the honor of helping pick the winners of two raffles—both generously donated by owner, Brian Pagel to raise funds for MGCS. Brian, a former Maple Grove student himself, truly believes in what we are teaching and doing for kids. We are so grateful to owner, Brian Duginski and manager, Jeff Pagel, and the entire Pagel’s Pub & Grub community for your generosity and ongoing support of our school. 💙🦊

Huge thanks to Black Barrel Flower Farm for helping me bring our “It’s Time to Blossom” theme to life with these gorgeous floral arrangements 🌸 They were just what I was hoping for to welcome our staff back to Maple Grove Charter School 💐🦊

🎉🌳 Come join us next Thursday, August 28th for the Ribbon Cutting Ceremony of our brand new Naturescape Playground!

This exciting addition to Maple Grove Charter School was made possible through our Charter School Implementation Grant. We can’t wait to celebrate this special space with our learners and community!

✂️🎈 We hope to see you there!

Huge thanks to the Flory family for transforming our garden shed! 🧰🌱 From building shelves to organizing everything into labeled totes, your hard work has made the space so much more functional and efficient. Thanks for bringing order to the chaos and helping us keep Maple Grove running smoothly! We’re so grateful for the time, effort, and care you put into making it amazing. What a great example of craftsmanship and stewardship in action! 🦊🧡 #MapleGroveCharter #CRISP #FoxFamily

🐔 Big coop clean-out day at MGCS! 🧽✨ Our chickens are living their best lives in their fresh, sparkling space — and they are LOVING it! A clean coop means happy, healthy birds and lots of clucks of approval. 🐓💚

We had an action-packed afternoon at MGCS for Field Day — and it was a blast! ☀️🎉 From water relays and a bounce house to squirt gun challenges, nature art, a scavenger hunt, and delicious snow cones 🍧… our learners were all smiles. We wrapped it up with a friendly (but very competitive!) game of tug-of-war between our Fox Dens — and of course, the crowd favorite: Teachers vs. the departing 5th graders. Final score? Teachers for the win! 💪🦊 Huge thanks to our amazing staff for planning and running such a fun, memorable day for our learners. We couldn’t have done it without you! ❤️ #MGCSFun #FieldDay2025

🌿✨ Our naturescape playground is almost complete — and it’s looking absolutely magical! Just a few finishing touches remain. We know how excited everyone is to explore, but we kindly ask for your continued patience while the grass, sod, and plants settle into their new home and take root. 🌱 🚫 The playground will remain closed for at least a month, and we’ll be sure to let you know as soon as it’s ready to be explored and enjoyed! A huge thank you to Bienenstock Natural Playgrounds from Ontario, Canada for designing and creating this incredible space for our Maple Grove Charter School learners. Your natural play structures are not only beautiful but will inspire imaginative, hands-on discovery for years to come! We’re also grateful to your project manager, who was always just a call, text, or email away to guide us throughout the process. An extra shout-out to revi Design out of Wausau, Wisconsin — our build team who brought the vision to life right here on-site. Their communication was excellent, their attention to detail unmatched, and their clean-up was immaculate. We couldn’t have asked for a better crew! This dream playground was made possible through the Maple Grove Charter School Implementation Grant, and we can’t wait to share it with our learners, families, and community. 💚🦊 #MapleGroveCharterSchool #NaturescapePlayground #HandsOnDiscovery #CRISPtraits #LearningThroughPlay #NaturalPlayground #MGCSFoxes

Summer is buzzing at MGCS! 🐝 With the help of Dr. Carla Prahl, our young apprentices suited up and got hands-on with our beehives — on the lookout for queen bees and signs of hive health. We’re thrilled to share that both hives are alive and thriving! 👑🐝 Our curious crew wowed us with their “I wonder…” and “I notice…” statements, asking awesome questions and spotting some sweet surprises. What a sweet way to kick off summer at MGCS! 🌼🍯

🎉 We wrapped up the school year with our final CRISP Assembly at MGCS — and this one was extra special! We celebrated our Fired Up to Read winners alongside some very special guests — the dedicated members of the Hamburg EMS and Volunteer Fire Department, who volunteered their time each week to read with our learners. A heartfelt thank you to Karen Gauerke and her daughter Jesse, who were present to donate a bike in memory of Karen’s husband, Ken Gauerke, who started the Fired Up to Read program many years ago out of his passion for helping young children develop a love of reading. ❤️📚 The Fire Department also awarded six lucky winners with a fire truck ride around the community! 🚒 And all of our readers were treated to ice cream, courtesy of our amazing firefighters. 🍦 In addition to reading celebrations, we recognized: 🏅 CRISP Award winners 🛡️ Safety Patrol members 🎓 Student Council 🏀 March Madness Bracket winners 📈 Screening Data Growth achievers We are incredibly proud of our readers — 89 out of 117 learners met their monthly reading goal, only missing no more than one month! 📚👏 Way to go, MGCS learners! Have a wonderful summer — and keep reading! 🦊💛

Thanks to a generous grant from the North Central Wisconsin Master Gardeners Association, MGCS has completed its orchard! 🍎🍐 Between rainy days and busy spring planting, Julie and Dan from Rock Ridge Orchard used their precious time and expertise to help plant our apple and pear trees. 🌳 Kindergarten students will use this new addition to extend their learning about trees and how living things depend on them to meet their needs. Eventually, all Maple Grove foxes will get a "taste" of this experience. 😋 THANK YOU to everyone involved in the prep work and installation!

We have openings on our Maple Grove Charter School Governance Board! This is a great way to get involved and have a voice in the school and the community!

PARENTS: Take one thing off your summer to-do list—register your child for the 2025-2026 school year now! Get it done early so you can relax and enjoy every minute of summer. Register here: https://www.athens1.org/page/online-registration

We have found ourselves “winging” it on some things as we had daily excitement of chicks hatching! Maple Grove is fortunate enough to continue a yearly tradition of setting up an incubator and hatching chicks in the first grade classroom. This year with eggs from our own chicken coop we were able to successfully hatch nine cute, fuzzy, and adorable new maple Grove members. While the productivity in the classroom during work time has been challenged by their cuteness, the experiences, and opportunities to apply the school CRISP traits and the learning that comes with this new life is extremely special. Students are now getting to hold them, feed them, and make sure the water and heat is a safe environment. This responsibility and compassion for animals is truly extraordinary in these first grade learners. It is hard to believe that within the next two weeks these chicks will be finding their forever homes. Stay tuned for the egg-citing times with our new peeps ahead🐥🐣🐔 ❤️

Shout out to the 86 learners that turned in their March and April reading calendars with goals met! Way to show the Maple Grove CRISP traits of integrity and perseverance. Learners created kites and enjoyed Icee pops. Take a look at some of the amazing kites about to hit the summer skies! ☀️🪁🌳 keep up the reading over the summer

We are feeling the love at MGCS! Last week, our staff was absolutely spoiled by our amazing PTO and families for Teacher Appreciation Week. From a fun bead bar to create custom lanyards, badge reels, bookmarks, or pens, to a delicious lunch and endless treats—we were truly celebrated! Parents generously stepped in to cover lunch and recess duties so our staff could enjoy a meal together. Each team member also received personalized gifts and we even got some much-needed appliances for our staff lounge! We are truly the lucky ones here at Maple Grove Charter School. Thank you to everyone who made us feel so appreciated!

A big thank you to Westfall Construction for preparing the site for our new NatureScape Playground! We truly appreciate all you’ve done to enhance the grounds at Maple Grove Charter School.

This week—and every week—we celebrate the incredible teachers who inspire, challenge, and care for our students each and every day. Your dedication, creativity, and heart make a lasting impact. Thank you for all that you do to make the School District of Athens a place where students grow, thrive, and succeed. We appreciate you more than words can say!

Many hearts were full yesterday as the 1st graders at Maple Grove Charter School continued a 55 year old tradition by holding the Mother’s Day Pancake Breakfast. This years breakfast gave the almost 75 attendees and 23 1st graders the opportunity to share in appreciation and love for the wonderful moms in our lives that do so much each and every day. We recognized those that fill the roll even without the title. Learners presented spring and Mother’s Day poems, performed songs, and displayed gratitude and love for the mother figures in their lives through their art. Leading up to Thursday they had worked together to practice the program, create art displays, and write a class cookbook housing a recipe from each learners kitchen, and it all came together beautifully today. It is an honor to continue this tradition, but none of this would have been possible without many others! A huge thank you to the pancake master, Bryan Bloch! In addition, many amazing Maple Grove staff made it come together, special shout out to Mr. L and Mrs. Williams for being behind the scenes and helping in kitchen production. Lastly, thank you Mrs. Triebold for the beautiful musical performance! Each year comes and goes in the blink of an eye…. yet each year I find myself thinking even more how fortunate I am. How fortunate I am for spending my days with 23 first graders and having a family of my own with them, daily “mom” callings accidentally, and working with so many amazing colleagues that hold the title of being a mom. I am thankful for all the mothers that were able to attend today, including my own mother! Now we can just smile, reflect, and enjoy the last weeks of school, until next year Mother’s Day Breakfast! 🥞☕️🍁💕 ❤️Ms.Etten