The Shepherd’s Kids
Students in Middle School Drama elective are working on “The Shepherd’s Kids”. It is a short skit that presents a contemporary dialogue amongst kids who are left to attend the sheep while their fathers have suddenly left for Bethlehem to see the baby Jesus. In a simple and relevant way, the few minutes of discussion amongst themselves addresses the weighty issues of abandonment, broken homes and absent fathers. The conclusion clearly expresses Jesus Christ as the Savior.
Dave Ham
My name is Lysette Ramos, and I am so happy to teach Middle School students the joy of cooking! In this elective, students will learn theories and methods of cooking, vocabulary, and the development of safe and sanitary kitchen practices. Upon successful completion students will be able to set up a proper work station and participate in returning the kitchen to its standard condition, accomplish a series of knife cuts using the proper safe knife handling methods, accomplish and season a variety of foundation dishes, define, utilize, and convert standard American weights and measurements, as well as identify and use herbs, spices, oils, vinegars, and marinades, and practice safe and sanitary food handling techniques. I look forward to all the yummy treats the students are going to cook up!
Human Video
The Middle School Drama/Human Video Elective will work on a skit which is acted out to music. The skit tells of a girl who is forced to make a decision between going the way of the world and listening to those who are leading her to Christ. The song and the skit will be put together by the middle school students who are acting it out. This is Your Life is the name of the song they have chosen. The words repeatedly say, This is your life. Are you who you want to be? These students will be so enthused at putting the skit together, choosing the music, and ending it with a dance. The dance will be performed to a song called Victory, and it will only be done by the ladies. Encouragement and room will be given to write their own skit, add the music, and choreograph the unexpected dance! They will thoroughly enjoy themselves, as well as have an understanding of the message behind it! To have them perform this at the Christmas Program is their desire and our plan.
Tanya Farrell
Students are learning the various types of optical illusions. The first optical illusion covered was distorting illusions, distorting optical illusions deal with shape line and color. The students were shown several examples and saw that their eyes would see a crooked line when in reality it was a straight line or their eye saw one color when in reality it was a different color. After understanding the simple techniques that are used to create distorting illusions they chose the one they liked best and reproduced it.
The second optical illusion, which students are still working on is the ambiguous optical illusion. Ambiguous optical illusions have several images in one, but the eye can only see one image at a time. I showed the students two examples (one famous example is the old lady and the young lady shown below), some students saw the old lady first then struggled to see the young lady while others saw the young lady first and had to struggle to see the old lady. Students were then asked to brainstorm their own original ambiguous optical illusion, which they did over the weekend and are now creating drafts, which will eventually become a finalized original piece.
Miss Arnau
The students in Middle School Dance elective are learning to warm up and stretch before they dance. They are also learning about isolation and moving every part of their body. We also started working on our part for the Christmas program.
Mrs. Rosario
Last week students rehearsed the fall skit, “The Telltale Talent.” It is a humorous, Christian spoof on Edgar Allen Poe’s haunting poem “The Telltale Heart.” As they practice, students are working on characterization and voice projection, as well as learning a valuable lesson: God gives us our talents and expects us to put them to good use!
Mrs. Lapp
This drama class emphasizes the importance of the spoken word, and thus students will be practicing and preparing a variety of speeches, dramas, skits, and recitations. Last week we studied clips of great speakers (Martin Luther King Jr., Winston Churchill, FDR, etc.) and used them as models before giving our own improptu speeches. This week we will be sharing personal experience speeches and discussing preparations for the speech meet in March.
Mrs. Lapp
Middle School students completed their final paper, and also had the opportunity to do a live taping. They were given the option of taping a live broadcast, a game show, or a skit. They enthusiastically chose the skit. They were to come up with the characters and the plot of the story and tape the episode and, even though they were not able to complete the final editing of the drama, they thoroughly enjoyed the entire process.
Miss Collins
The middle school students danced to “Praise Jumping” and “God is Here” for the spring celebration. They worked very hard by practicing and learning how to warm up their body by stretching, isolation, and working out their stomach and leg muscles. The students did a wonderful job.
Mrs. Rosario