Hanover Herald
May 2026
Dear Hanover Families,
It’s hard to believe we have fewer than 30 school days remaining in the school year. This has truly been an outstanding year, and we are incredibly proud of all that our students have accomplished. During our April Recognition Program, we had the opportunity to celebrate many student achievements while focusing on our character trait of the month: Courage. Students explored what it means to be brave and to make the right choices, even when faced with challenges. Demonstrating courage not only helps our students grow, but also strengthens their leadership skills and resilience.
As we begin the month of May, our character focus shifts to Creativity. Creativity encourages students to use their imagination, think in new ways, and approach challenges with innovative solutions. We invite families to continue these conversations at home by exploring the Purposeful People family newsletter and discussing how creativity can be practiced in everyday life.
I would also like to extend my sincere gratitude to our many dedicated volunteers. Hanover Elementary is a special place because of the strong partnership we share with our families and community. Your time, energy, and commitment make a meaningful difference in the lives of our students. I would especially like to recognize our PTO for their continued support and for organizing recent events such as the Glow Party and Fitness Night. These events were a tremendous success and provided fun, engaging opportunities for our students and families. A special thank you as well to Mr. Turner, our Physical Education teacher, for his role in organizing Fitness Night. We are truly grateful for all who contribute to making Hanover Elementary such a vibrant learning community.
As we look ahead, we are excited for a variety of upcoming spring events, including field trips, class picnics, track and field days, and our annual HES School Picnic. This year’s picnic will take place on Thursday, May 28th from 4:30–6:30 PM. We hope you are able to join us as we celebrate a wonderful school year together.
I would also like to share an update regarding the 2026–2027 school year. Based on current enrollment and projected growth, Hanover Elementary will have three sections at each grade level. With continued development in our community, we encourage families who are new to the area to contact our office to begin the enrollment process or to schedule a tour. We also welcome open enrollment applications and appreciate your support in sharing the positive experiences offered at Hanover Elementary with others who may be seeking a strong educational environment for their children.
I also wanted to point out that BHM Schools recently sent out a Family Satisfaction Survey. The purpose of the survey is to gain feedback on the effectiveness of BHM schools. The survey is anonymous and will allow you to provide feedback on the school district overall as well as Hanover Elementary. Your answers will help us identify areas where we can improve and also areas of success. The survey closes on May 13th. Thanks for taking time to let us know how we are doing.
The final weeks of the school year always go quickly, and we look forward to making the most of this special time with our students. Thank you for your ongoing support and partnership. We are excited to celebrate the end of the year together at our upcoming events.
Sincerely,
Brad Koltes, Principal
HES Elementary School
763-682-0823
Volunteers!
If you are new to volunteering at Hanover Elementary, please start your Background Check here.
Volunteer Background Check Investigation
Thank you!
Jill Mischke
Hanover Elementary Principal's Secretary
(763)-682-0824
Accepting all Kindergarten and new student registrations for 2026-2027.
For questions or concerns about enrollment contact Jill Mischke at jmischke@bhmschools.org or (763) 682-0824.
Only have a couple hours a day to spare here and there?
We have positions at Hanover for Supervision Substitutes. You would be helping with 🏃🏻♂️recess and 🍱lunch supervision. This is an hourly paid position, hours vary between 10:10-12:45.
Please inquire with Jill Mischke @ 763-682-0800 or email at jmischke@bhmschools.org
🌷Happy Spring Everyone!🌷
Our music classes will soon begin working their way through songs on the piano keyboards. 🎹
Students in 3rd, 4th and 5th grade have been learning the guitar during April. They have been busy playing chords and creating songs that they have shared with their classes. 🎸
Kindergarten and 1st and 2nd graders have been playing their instruments from their instrument bags and learning about the treble clef. They have also been doing many musical centers to help learn symbols and rhythms for the piano. 🎼
During the last part of May students in grades 3, 4 and 5 will be finishing units in Quaver (our online music curriculum) and putting final touches on their electronic songs they have been working on all year.
Students will share some of these song creations for classes as well. Kindergarten, 1st and 2nd graders will wrap up the year with singing assessments, learn more about do, mi, so and la, and activities from Quaver.
It has been such a productive year in music and has gone by so quickly! Thank you for your support of our music programs at Hanover!
Mrs. Bolton
Hello! April has been all about skill development, collaboration, and teamwork! As we move into May, students are building confidence, improving coordination, and practicing positive sportsmanship in every lesson.
🎈 Kindergarten Physical Education
This month, our youngest learners are excited to begin a learning to bike unit! Thanks to the organization All Kids Bike, Hanover Elementary received free Strider bikes and a full curriculum to guide students as they learn to ride. Students will focus on:
Developing balance, pedaling, and steering skills on a Strider bike
Learning to share space safely with classmates
Encouraging peers and celebrating small successes
Biking is a lifelong activity, and our kindergarten students are gaining confidence and independence while learning skills they can enjoy for years to come. They are building the foundation for physical literacy while moving safely, listening, and supporting others in group activities.
👟 Grades K–2 Physical Education
This month, students in grades K–2 are focusing on skill development through:
Building coordination and body control through movement activities
Developing spatial awareness and moving safely in shared spaces
Practicing teamwork and collaboration during partner and group activities
Improving balance, locomotor skills, and overall confidence in movement
Developing kicking skills, including proper approach, foot placement, and controlled contact with the ball
Students are strengthening foundational movement skills while learning how to work together, share space safely, and support one another in a positive environment.
💪 Grades 3–5 Physical Education
This month, students in grades 3–5 are focusing on:
Applying collaboration skills during partner and group activities
Reflecting on personal effort and improvement in physical activities
Team-based challenges that emphasize communication and supporting classmates
Building teamwork skills through cooperative games and kickball
Developing long jump skills, focusing on proper approach, takeoff, flight, and landing technique
Students are building both physical fitness and teamwork skills. They will also enjoy kickball as a fun way to apply teamwork and game strategy outdoors.
🏅 P.E. Pennants- Seeking donations!
To show support for BHM school district’s AVID framework, HES has a number of college pennants that are on the walls of the gym and around the school. I am asking for donations for more college pennants to put up. If you want your college, university, or military pennant to be on the wall I will gladly put them up. It would be fun to have the pennants go all the way around the gym representing higher places of education (trade schools, military, colleges, universities). Thank you so much for donating!
👟 PE Reminders
Please wear tennis shoes on PE days
Comfortable clothing helps students move safely
Water bottles are encouraged
📅 Looking Ahead to May
Kindergarten & Grades K–2: Cooperative games and teamwork challenges outdoors, Kindergarten Bike Unit
Grades 3–5: Fitness challenges, collaborative team activities, and kickball
Spring is a great time to get outside, enjoy fresh air, and combine movement with fun learning experiences! Please be safe as you move!
💡 Family Fitness Tip
Take advantage of the warmer weather by getting outside together as a family! Try activities like walking or biking on local trails, playing catch or frisbee, visiting a playground, or setting up simple backyard games like relay races or obstacle courses. Even a short time outdoors each day helps build healthy habits and makes fitness fun for everyone.
Thank you for supporting Hanover Elementary Physical Education!
Actively yours,
Mr. Turner
(763)-682-0865
🌸Happy Spring from the Art Room!🌸
I hope you have been enjoying the sunshine! Hard to believe we are in the home stretch of the 2025-2026 school year. As we start to wind down for this school year and eagerly anticipate the 26-27 school year, I am so happy to share that I will be teaching every student at Hanover Elementary next year! I’m so excited to be able to share my passion with every grade level!
4th grade : 4th grade students will end the year learning about artist Roy Lichtenstein. We will be creating our own self portraits inspired by his pop art style.
2nd Grade : We are starting our unit on weaving in 2nd grade. This is one of my favorite projects for 2nd graders! We learn how to make our own loom out of a paper plate. Once the tricky part of making the loom is finished, the students will begin weaving on their loom.
1st grade : The book “Color Blocked” is guiding our learning in the art room for May. In this fun book, we learn what happens when the primary colors mix. Hopefully, this is learning we can recall from kindergarten but it’s always good to review the basics.
Kindergarten : May is all about portraits. Students are learning about ways to draw a self portrait using shapes and lines. Portraits can be tricky, but once students figure out all it takes is using simple shapes and lines, they figure it out in no time. Their final project is a self portrait with an abstract twist.
Take care,
Mrs. Rausch
Art Integration
(763)-682-0867
Hi Everyone!
It is that time of year when you don't know whether to pack sandals or winter boots! Our class Forest Friday activities usually round out the week and occur as our last lesson of the day before boarding buses for home. On Friday, because of the wishy-washy weather, I told the students that the day's schedule would most probably change, based on weather conditions.
While my students were in Mrs. Rausch's art class, I went outside to see if it was misting, since a look out the window told me it was indeed wet. I was happy to note that it was not raining at all, so my plan was to pick the students up from their art class and head outside for a morning Forest Friday. As they stood in line outside the art room, I told them that we would be heading directly outside to the forest. A hand shot up at the front of the line. "Uh, Mrs. Boldt. . .It's raining outside."
I assured this student that I had JUST been outside and it was not raining. I walked three steps to guide my class back to our classroom and looked out the doors leading to the back of the school where, to my dismay, it was raining buckets.
So, back to our classroom we went, and I reconfigured what the day might look like, based on a weather app I had open on my laptop listing percentage chances by the hour of rain for the day in Hanover, Minnesota. About an hour later, we headed out to the School Forest to fill the bird feeders.
Before we go to the feeders, I noticed a wild leek plant near the trail. I plucked off a leaf and told the students that in the months ahead, we would be learning about foraging through books and treks through the forest. This was a plant that looked like many others, but to tell the difference between something edible and something that might make you very sick, you could use the smell test with this one. The students took turns smelling a very garlicky smelling plant, some liking it and some not so much.
We then saw some fur which we stopped to try to identify. After they had correctly guessed that it came from a cotton-tailed rabbit, the next question was, "What happened here?" Without me having to sing about the Circle of Life from the Lion King (thankfully!) they guessed that another animal had eaten the rabbit. When they were then guessing what kind of animal would eat the rabbit, they were coming up with some obviously way-wrong answers, so I gave them the hint that a bird probably was the predator. When I gave them the hint that this kind of bird starts with an "O," with the first guess being "ostrich," I knew this weather was messing with me in more ways than just scheduling issues on a rainy Forest Friday!
We filled the feeders with bird seed and the platform feeder with some peanuts for the squirrels, then went onto the observation deck to take in some amazing sights! We saw a red-tailed hawk looping through the treetops looking for a high tree to build a nest, heard a wood frog in the water surrounding the Wonderneath Overlook, and stopped to listen to the wonderful spring sounds of the red-winged blackbirds, happy to be back with us!
Our trail cameras caught some signs of spring as well! There were many photos of wild turkeys, pairs of ring-necked pheasants, and even an opossum!
When we were back in our indoor classroom, the students sampled maple syrup from the tree we tapped earlier this spring. They enjoyed a bit of syrup with cinnamon French toast sticks. They really liked it. We did not end up with all that much syrup as I only collected about 3 gallons of sap! When one student noticed that it was a little runnier than maple syrup, I told her that was a great observation on viscosity of liquids and that I had to cut short the finishing of the syrup on my stovetop because I was worried we would not have enough maple syrup to go around!
After that, we concluded our week-long writing project of writing persuasive letters to various leaders in Minnesota, asking for their help.
I had shared with the class photos and videos of an albino deer which frequents my backyard. I had seen her first as a little fawn with her mother and twin sister. Every time I saw her, it was like I could not believe my luck that this beautiful animal roamed my backyard! I observed her as much as I could because she simply intrigued. me. At first, she was kind of pushed to the fringes of the group while the regular looking white-tailed deer ate first. She would come in afterwards and eat what they may have missed. As time went on though, I was encouraged to see that she was spunky and even a little bit sassy as she pranced and played with other deer in her increasingly larger and larger herd. Then on Easter Sunday this year, as I was looking through videos taken with a trail camera out back, I saw a video of this formerly timid little white deer LEADING a herd of over 20 deer through the forest behind my house! LaFawnduh (named by my sister, Susan, after the character in the movie, "Napoleon Dynamite") is a leader!
When I shared this latest video with my class, I also shared some research information I had learned along the way. In Minnesota there are no protections put in place for albino deer. They are protected in nearby Wisconsin, Iowa, and Illinois (and Tennessee), but not in Minnesota. Some conservationists feel that because albino animals carry recessive genes that make them white (and stick out to predators), and because the recessive genes also make the albino animals' eyesight poor, that these animals would probably be dead almost immediately anyway, so why protest them? The idea is that if there are fewer albino white-tailed deer, there will be less of the recessive gene in the gene pool, making survival stronger for deer born in future generations. It makes sense. Survival of the fittest and all that. . .but it just doesn't seem right. One out of 35,000 white-tailed deer born are true albinos. They are rare, but they are not seen as endangered, which might offer some protections to be put in place.
We have read this year in our reading book about kids making a difference. There is a girl who grew giant cabbages in order to donate them to food kitchens to feed the hungry. Another child makes charms for people who wear hearing aids, so they look more like earrings. Another child recycles old drinking glasses and sells the plants she grows in them. The thing is, kids can and DO make a difference.
My students wanted to write letters. They wanted to see a change to protect albino deer in Minnesota. We went to work. They learned how to craft a business letter introducing themselves, telling about our activities in our School Forest and about my stories of a little albino deer in my backyard. They added facts on why there are no protections for albino deer, how albino deer are seen as rare and sacred animals in many Native American cultures, how nearby states offer protections, but Minnesota does not.
So, within a week, we drafted, edited, wrote final drafts, and drew pictures to send to people who may or may not read them and act on them. Regardless of the outcome, I am proud of my class for wanting to do this to see if their words may bring about change in the whole state.
In order to spread the word throughout our school, they crafted "Save LaFawnduh" posters and the like, after yet another story we read together about a girl's attempts to help a classmate after a fire destroyed her home. It's great to see these connections to real-life situations. I cannot tell you how proud I am of their hard work!
Speaking of hard work, it was our Head Custodian, Mr. Ric, to the rescue AGAIN! One of our suet feeders went missing from its feeding station spot and he went out and after scouring the nearby area, found it and brought it in for cleaning and a bit of straightening with a pliers! Whoo-hoo (said the ostrich??!) We are back in business!
Over and Out(side),
Jenny Boldt
4th Grade Teacher
Hanover Elementary School
(763) 682-0858
Hanover School Forest @facebook.com
📞 Reporting an Absence
If your child will be absent, please do one of the following:
- ✅ Call the Attendance Line - 763-682-0822
Leave a message with:
- Your child’s name
- Reason for absence
- If sick: list symptoms
- ✅ Use the Parent Portal-by clicking on Absence Request
- ✅ Email: hesattendance@bhmschools.org
🚌 Changes to End-of-Day Transportation
If your child’s transportation will change:
- 📞 Call the Office: 763-682-0800
- 📅 Please call before 1:00 PM
Teachers may not see emails in the afternoon.
✅ Always copy hesattendance@bhmschools.org on any change.
If you would like to review our parent/student handbook,
it is available online at
https://www.bhmschools.org/hes-studentparent-handbook-25-26
It is an excellent resource to see what our policies and
procedures are.
🐝 Show Your Hornet Pride with New Spirit Store Styles! 🐝
Hanover families,
Get ready to show your school spirit in style! Our Online School Spirit Store just got an exciting update with brand-new apparel options that make perfect gifts for the holidays!
What you need to know:
1. New Designs & Gear
We’ve added two fun, modern designs featuring updated styles and comfy, brand-name apparel your whole family will love. Plus, explore new merchandise, including zip-up and crew neck hoodies that are sure to become fast favorites.
2. A Touch of Purple
Several designs now come in the color purple as a nod to our Buffalo School District. It’s a small touch with big meaning, helping Hanover feel more connected to the larger district community while keeping our Hornet identity front and center!
3. Order
Shop Now: https://jjathletics.chipply.com/buffalobison/store.aspx?eid=329623&acid=1629714
🐝Shop now and show off that Hornet pride 🐝
Dear family, friends, and community,
We are collecting aluminum pop tabs to honor the life and memory of our precious daughter, Gracie Heinz, who passed away at just 11 years old. Her beautiful spirit and giving heart continue to inspire us every day.
💖Why Pop Tabs?
Pop tabs may seem small, but when collected in large amounts, they help support families through organizations like Ronald McDonald House Charities—which provide a home away from home for families with hospitalized children.
The Ronald McDonald House supported and cared for our family during Gracie’s time at Children’s Hospital, and we are forever grateful.
📦How You Can Help:
Please save your aluminum pop tabs from soda cans, soup cans, and similar items throughout the year.
🏫Have your child bring the pop tabs to the Hanover Elementary office, where there will be a collection bin during your child's school hours.
OR
🎪Bring them to the final collection during the Hanover Harvest Festival on August 1st, 2026, where all donations will be weighed before being brought to the recycling center.
️✋You may also give your pop tabs to the Heinz Family anytime throughout the year anytime before August 1st, 2026.
✨Last Year’s Impact (2025):
Thanks to our family, friends, and communities incredible generosity, we collected 567 pounds of tabs, totaling over $400 donated to the Ronald McDonald House!
This will be an annual collection in Gracie’s memory, a way to turn love into action and keep her light shining in our community.
Thank you for your continued support and love—especially over the past two years since Gracie went to be with her Savior.
Your kindness means more than words can say.
With gratitude,
The Heinz Family
Brent, Missy, Vivian, and Norah
Interested in being a substitute teacher or ESP? The district is looking to hire substitute teachers and ESPs (health office, special ed or instructional/supervision) for the school year. If you are interested, go to the BHM Website to see the qualification requirements and to fill out an application. Feel free to contact the HES office at 763-682-0800 if you have any questions.
Hanover Elementary School
Hanover Hornets