Malice in the Palace

For the past few weeks our second and third graders have been joining kindergarten, first, and fourth graders as we practice for our spring drama, "Malice in the Palace". We have gone through multiple rehearsals and we still have one week to go before our performance! Here are a few photos from our rehearsal sessions.

We've been working really hard trying to get this spring drama ready to show our families. We hope to see all of you at either of our performance times on Friday, April 28th; 10:15am or 7:00pm.

St. Patrick's Day!

This past week has been a VERY entertaining week! Since it was the week of St. Patrick's Day, our friendly classroom leprechaun, The Leprechaun King, paid us quite a few visits. He started out the week on Monday by leaving green sparkly footprints on our counter and spreading papers all over. Later on in the week, he continued to leave green sparkly footprints, but this time he would leave them on student desks along with a note and a piece of "gold". Students would receive these notes and "gold" if the leprechaun noticed them listening and paying attention during class. In some of these notes, The Leprechaun King would ask students questions about things we were learning in the classroom. Students were kind enough to answer his questions on the back of his notes and leave them on their desks for him to find the next day. Surprisingly, that crazy leprechaun was helping students learn as well! ;)

The Leprechaun King stepped up his game on Friday since this time I discovered some leprechaun movement in my house! He left a note along with his green footprints AND he turned my tap water GREEN! I took a video of the leprechaun evidence left in my house and showed the video to my students on Friday morning. They were very interested to hear about what he had done in my house!

On Friday, we ended our St. Patrick's Day week be having some fun St. Patrick's Day centers. In one of these centers, students had to build a bridge using some "gold" (pennies). This was a great activity to get students thinking about building stable structures. Another center consisted of students writing their own leprechaun story based on pictures in a book. Students enjoyed writing their very own leprechaun story and illustrating it with colorful pictures. The last center involved milk, food dye, and soap. Students watched as the colors in the milk, spread out as soon as the soap touched the milk. We discussed this science phenomenon as students watched the "rainbow" of colors move through the milk.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Lutheran Schools Week

This past week our Bethlehem Lutheran School has been celebrating Lutheran Schools Week by dressing up differently for each day of the week. On Monday we dressed up as rock stars and our second and third graders enjoyed pretending they were rock stars with their cool clothes and guitar props!

On Tuesday we dressed up in different colors to represent the different grades in our school. Our second and third graders wore green to show their grade. At the beginning of the school day on Tuesday, we got all of the students in the school together in the gym to take a special picture showing the colors of the different grades spread in a rainbow pattern next to a cross pattern made by the teachers wearing white.

On Wednesday we dressed up in our very best clothes to worship during chapel. It was so fun to watch the second and third graders come to school in their fanciest clothes and show them off on Wednesday!

On Thursday we dressed up in wacky mismatch clothes. Students especially enjoyed this day as they got a kick out of the crazy outfits that their classmates and teachers wore to school on Thursday!

Lastly, on Friday we dressed up in red, white, and blue to show pride for our country. Overall, students greatly enjoyed Lutheran Schools Week through each of these dress up days!

Though students enjoyed dressing up, Lutheran Schools Week was about so much more. Students heard how Jesus is their rock through their lives and how they should build their lives around God. To  show this and get it to stick in students' minds a bit more, each student picked a rock out from the school grounds and wrote one word on it: Jesus. Students will be taking these rocks home to keep as a reminder that Jesus is the firm rock that their lives should be built around. Happy Lutheran Schools Week!

Spelling Bee

A few weeks ago we had our yearly Spelling Bee with 1st - 4th grade students. From second grade we had Eva Bryce, Connor Dzuba, Caleb Mulder, and Noah Smith in the Spelling Bee. From third grade we had Luke Gorney, Natalie Slone, Tyler Sowatsky, and Jaden Stahl. All of these second and third graders competed well and the rest of us happily cheered them on throughout the Spelling Bee. Our first place for second grade was Caleb Mulder and Eva Bryce received second place. Our first place for third grade was Natalie Slone and Tyler Sowatsky received second place. All of our second and third grade spellers did a great job! Here are a few pictures from the Spelling Bee, enjoy!

Ice Experiment

To finish up our science unit about water, we decided to do an experiment with water in it's solid form: ice. We've been talking about how liquid water turns into a solid when it is exposed to cold air and solid water turns into liquid water when it is exposed to warm air. Students were given a task: they needed to create an environment inside of a box that would keep an ice cube solid for a long period of time. The first day, students were placed in groups and were told to create a design for their boxed environment. Groups were only allowed to pick six items to create their fridge-like environment: a box (this was a necessary item), q-tips, pipe cleaners, wax paper, paper cup, aluminum foil, masking tape, and rubber bands. After students created their designs, they needed teacher approval before the next day when they would actually create this design.

The following day, we were ready to create these designs. Students went back into their groups with their materials and created their new inventions. Once their designs were completed, students were given an ice cube to, quickly, place in their box and close the lid. We placed another ice cube on a paper plate in the front of the classroom so that we could watch it and discover how long an ice cube would last without the fridge-like environment helping it. Once this ice cube completely melted (it took about 3 hours) we opened up our designs to see which group created the best environment for solid water. 

Two groups had their ice cube completely melted, while three of the groups had better results with part of their ice cube remaining solid. The best group used the smallest amount of the box so that the cold air of the ice would remain cold in that confined space. After examining their designs, the students reflected on what they could have done better to keep the air colder in their box so that the ice cube would have remained solid longer. Below is a picture of the winning group's ice cube after three hours in their box. Great job to all of the students who participated in this experiment!