Elternbrief, March 7th, 2013

As many of you are starting to think ahead of the beautiful summer months to come, the question of uninterrupted care for your child/ren comes to mind!

Kinderclub offers an 11 week full day program during the hours of 8:00 am - 6:00 pm, that starts on June 10th, 2013 and ends on August 23rd, 2013. Each week will be centered around a fun, highly-interactive theme. Beginners to bilingual campers are welcome, as different activities will be developed according to the children's language skill level. Teachers and children will speak, hear, sing, and create in German while exploring subjects ranging from history and art to science and music! Past Summer's themes included topics such as:

Fun with Sports and Games
Dinosaurs and Volcanoes
Renaissance: Time of Geniuses
German Cooking for Kids
Arts and Crafts
Welcome to Germany
German Safari
Stories and Fairy tales

As weekly themes are currently being finalized, please keep in mind that new instructors with fresh and exciting themes might be added. Complete schedule of weekly themes will be published in the next few weeks. You can check at the GAI website under the following link: http://www.gai-mn.org/classes/sommer.html

NEW THIS YEAR: We are excited to offer all German Language camps (a $140.00/week value for public and non-TCGIS families) at NO extra charge this summer! This is a huge added bonus for being a TCGIS student! We are hoping many of you will take advantage of this exclusive benefit!

Families can chose from many different schedule and payment options, full or part time, as well as occasional drop-in days or weeks. Please see the registration form for all offered schedule option!

Note: We do not offer Summer Kinderclub during July 4th and 5th (Thu/Fri), as well as the last week of Summer Break (Aug. 26-30) due to set up and take down of the classroom, materials and toys and their move from the GAI to the new TCGIS location.

Registrations for the new school year 2013/2014 and "Open House at the TCGIS" will also be facilitated during that week.

Please see the attached registration forms for all families, as well as a sample daily schedule and Frequently Asked Questions for families that are new to the Kinderclub program. Registration forms will also be available at www.tcgis.org/kinderclub.

If your child has been registered with Kinderclub in the past - no additional registration fee is required. If your child is new to the Kinderclub program a $25/child registration fee is required ($15/sibling). The registration deadline for Summer Kinderclub is April 30th, 2013. Registrations received after that date will be accommodated on a space only basis. Early registration is highly encouraged, since it enables us to arrange correct staffing according to expected student numbers. We appreciate your cooperation!

Please don't hesitate to email me with any questions you might have!

More info regarding Summer Kinderclub themes to come soon.

Babett Larimer

March PTO Update

Last Tuesday's PTO meeting was cancelled due to the snow emergency. Please see this document for the PTO updates.

Math Counts!

Congratulations to the MATHCOUNTS Math Club for achieving Silver Level status! A special thanks to the following students for their dedication and hard work; Sebastian Mueller, Olivia Bruhn, Martin Kocher, Erik Rauer, Lola Rubens, Michalina Solakhava, Sylvia Elias, Amanda Bluem and Kaylee Ruble.

It is time for School Board Nominations!!!!!

This year's school board elections will take place on Friday, May 17th. We will be electing three new members to our nine-member board of directors. Application materials are due Friday April 5th.

Please consider forwarding on this information to people you know who might be interested in volunteering for the school in this capacity.

For more information, click here.

For the application, click here.

6th Annual TCGIS Spring Break in
Grand Marais

March 22-24th and the following week

TCGIS has group rates for private condos with kitchens at http://eastbaysuites.com

Studio: $89/night

One bedroom: $99/night

Two bedroom: $129/weekend night $99/week night

Usually there is a TCGIS potluck one night in the commons area. Families go hiking, skiing at Lutsen, explore Grand Marais, and just relax. For more information please contact Chris Weimholt at john.g.weimholt-2@umn.edu.

Teen Student Seeking Summer Hosts

A couple from Germany are looking for a host family for their son (Sönke,16) who would like to spent the coming summer here in the US. They are looking for a place/family where he could stay from July 7/8th until August 16/17th 2013. Whoever would like to come to Germany in exchange or after this time could stay at their place as long as he/she would like and would be more than welcome. Our friends have hosted foreign students in the past. See attached some information I received from Sönke. Thank you for letting me know if you know anyone or whom we could contact. You might have a student/family who could be interested.

Thank you very much in advance! Let me know if you would like to contact Sönke's family directly. This is also possible.

Kind regards.

Valerie Penners

Medtronic Translations

2nd Gr. Mother/Daughter Book Club

The book club will meet Sunday, April 7th from 2-4pm, at Elsa Johnson's home. The book is "Peter and the Starcatchers," by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson. For more information and to RSVP, please contact Krista at monk2miles@comcast.net.

Intern Host Families Wanted

Fall 2013

TCGIS is searching for families who would like to host interns next fall. We need lots of families to ensure that all of our interns have homes, so write to Nicole Grentz or Darcy Deboer to find out more information if you are interested.

Maskenball Update

Dear Maskenball Attendees!

Thank you so much again for coming to Maskenball and celebrating with the PTO!

You turned our event into a truly wonderful and vibrant party. And it's totally awesome

that, thanks to Anna Botz and Monte Swann, we have lots of great, professional quality pictures, either in front of the balloon arch or from the grooving party, to keep the event alive in our memories! Please take some time and check out both photographer's links - they are rad, like the party!

1. Anna Bots' shots with the balloon arch: Photos are now uploaded to an online gallery for viewing and purchase through smugmug.com. Please go to:

http://annabotz.smugmug.com/,

then click on Maskenball Gallery and enter Password MB2013

These pictures will only be available until MARCH 9TH, 2013!!! Fifty percent of all sales will go directly to TCGIS PTO. Any questions can be directed to Anna Botz or visit http://www.abotzphotography.com/.

2. Monte Swann's wonderful party documentation photos can be viewed and downloaded FOR FREE on Photobucket.

*Did you forget your wine bottle from the Wine Pull? You must remember your number or the wine name.

**Did you lose anything else that night? For unclaimed wine or lost & found, please contact Heidi Zimmermann.

Musicians wanted for Capstone Benefit Event April 21st

On Friday our first 8th grade class left for their Capstone Experience trip to Germany. This trip was made possible partly through generous donations by members of the TCGIS community. We are continuing our efforts to raise money for teacher expenses and need-based scholarships. One of our fundraising events will be the Capstone Benefit Event on April 21st at the GAI with Kaffee und Kuchen and musical entertainment.

We are looking for musicians in the broader TCGIS community, including family and friends, who would be willing to play at the Capstone Benefit event. We love any kind of music!

Please contact Silvia Oxenham at s.oxenham@yahoo.com by March 15 if you are interested in performing.

If you make music we want to hear from you!

The Capstone Committee

March extended Kinderclub care

Kinderclub will operate on the following NO SCHOOL days from 8am - 6pm:

March 15th, Friday, TCGIS conferences

March 25-29th, Mon-Fri, TCGIS Spring Break

Please use the following link to sign up your child if you need care on any or all of these days.

http://www.doodle.com/yh9rcx7p3u66bzq8

The dead line to sign up for care on the above dates is Monday, March 11th. The polls will close after that day and your family will be billed for the services you requested.

The cost per child, per day is $37.00.

Please note: Our interns that are working for Kinderclub during this Semester will be traveling throughout the country during Spring Break, and therefore will be greatly reducing the number of staff we have available for the Kinderclub hours during Spring Break. Many of our Kinderclub teachers are College students and do not have the same Spring break dates as the TCGIS, and therefore limited availability during day time hours.

This has not been a problem in the past, but in the unfortunate event that student numbers would exceed our teacher - student ratio (due to low numbers of available staff) I will notify parents and we will operate by a first come - first serve basis on the doodle sign up page.

Thank you for your understanding.

Yearbook Updates

Now accepting photos!

The Yearbook class is in full swing working on the 2nd annual yearbook. However, we need more photos to fill it up! If you have any photos from class field trips, school performances, special occasions or candid classroom pics, please share them with us. If you have pictures to submit, please send them to Molly Kalda at mkalda@tcgis.org.

Educating Children for Informed and Active World Citizenship

The Elternbrief is published electronically Thursdays throughout the school-year and on an as-needed basis at other times. Submissions are due by 3 PM on Tuesdays. Content printed at the discretion of the TCGIS administration.