High School News – September 2023
The first day of school started off in the gym with the entire middle school and high school, and all of the faculty. Mrs. Hamlin, our Head of Schools, shared some words about joy, patience, and faithfulness. As a commUNITY students and faculty welcomed the new school year with prayer, and celebrated each class as they were dismissed to their respective classrooms. High school students then spent the morning building commUNITY in their advisories and as a whole high school. As part of this, the two advisories chose names for the year and competed in various activities, including an advisory name poster, lining up by birthday without talking, solving brain teasers, and a game of Gaga Ball. The Blue Raspberry Slushy Lovers earned 8 points and The Christians earned 3. They will continue to have opportunities throughout the year to earn points.
The annual high school retreat to Moose River Outpost was full of commUNITY building as students learned more about each other, worshiped together, and experienced the joy of God’s creation. His faithfulness was incredibly evident during the entire trip, from timing the rain perfectly, to sighting of moose, and so much more. Old friendships were strengthened and new friendships were formed.
In chapel this year high school students and faculty are doing a deep dive into the book of Nehemiah. Nehemiah is a book of the Bible that deals with concepts of determination, self-sacrificial service, and overcoming immense challenges both internal and external. Additionally, a secondary theme that runs through the book is the concept of Godly leadership. Our Bible teacher, Matt’s prayer that as they explore Nehemiah, high school sees students become more confident in who God has called them to be, and in their relationship with Him, that students grow in their capacity to serve others with good attitudes and intentions, and that students will grow in their ability to lead their peers, siblings, and others in a way that honors God above all else. Each of our students holds some place of leadership. That may be on a sports team, in a classroom, at home with younger siblings, or in a church or youth group. Learning what it takes to lead people well, and lead people in a way that honors God, is important and applicable for students and adults alike.
This month was our first soccer game of the season! The high school started out the morning with a competition between the advisories to see who was showing more blue and gold. The Christians took the point this time. While the high schoolers were in morning meeting, the fifth and sixth graders decorated the players’ lockers and the hallway; they also cheered for the players when they came downstairs. In the afternoon, the whole school assembled in the gym for a pep rally. As the high school players were waiting to enter the gym, it was particularly sweet to see them gathered in spontaneous prayer. Our head coach and each player was introduced with much loud cheering. Even our mascot, Leo the Lion, joined in on the fun! The team captains lead the school in the team’s cheer, and then Mrs. Hamlin prayed for the team as they journeyed into their first game. Our players worked together for a 4-3 victory. Each game this month they continued with the camaraderie seen during the pep rally and continued their winning streak for a so far undefeated season. Go Lions!
In Algebra 1, each student wrote their own Deep Hope for the school year. Mrs. Carminito’s goal for this year is that each student will enter math class with joy and a desire to learn. This month, they discovered what it means for two or more figures to be congruent, and applied this concept to different types of congruent angles such as vertical and alternate interior angles. Next they are taking on the concept of similar figures and dilations.
Mrs. Sanders’ math classes started out the year by looking at Romans 1:18-23. Through these verses, they talked about how God is revealed through the created order in the universe and how mathematics gives the language to study this order! They also talked about how we were created to need and know God, but we often turn to other things in this world that will not ultimately satisfy us. In Algebra 2, students started the year by discussing some helpful mindsets for math class by viewing challenges and mistakes as opportunities for growth. They also worked on a hands-on activity to observe patterns in a painted cube, which led them to creating linear, quadratic, and cubic formulas for the patterns. It was really fun to watch students talk, discuss, and debate mathematics together! They reviewed arithmetic and geometric sequences which prepared them to learn more about linear and exponential functions in their second unit. Pre-calculus students worked on measuring and studying patterns found in special right triangles. This knowledge greatly helped each student as they began their unit on modeling periodic behavior. Through this unit, the class extended the definition of sine and cosine from ratios in a right triangle to functions for any angle of rotation. This allowed them to model behavior that follows a cyclical pattern, such as the day length throughout the year or the tides of the ocean. Calculus students were tasked with trying to find the average and instantaneous speed of a friend being pushed in an office chair. Although finding average speed was relatively straightforward, students quickly realized that they did not have the tools to find instantaneous speed and could only estimate an answer. Through this activity and the first unit, students began building a strong conceptual understanding for limits, derivatives, and definite integrals in Calculus.
This year in Humanities: Cultures and Geography, underclassmen began their examination of the world with the very beginnings of Christian history. As the unit progressed, students gained an historical foundation for their own faith and began to look at the faiths of other religions in a comparative context. Students learned about the historical circumstances which helped to shape the first 1,000 years of Christianity and acquired the vocabulary necessary to talk about the early church. This study had them closely examining the early church, Eastern Orthodoxy, Roman Catholicism, and the Protestant traditions before they looked at Judaism, Islam, and Asiatic religions such as Buddhism and Hinduism.
Upperclassmen in Humanities: U.S. History, Government, and Culture began their journey looking at the world as it was before the turn of the century in the late 1800s. This month, they looked at romantic literature and got a sense of the way people of the time viewed the world; students finished their study with a look at poetry. Immediately following this study, students jumped right into World War I, the Great Depression, and the Second World War where they began to look at the drastic worldview changes that occurred in America and abroad. Students analyzed how those changes shape(d) policy and affect their lives today. Each Friday the class looks at current events as they are reported in the news media. The focus of this assignment is to help students identify bias and then to discuss their ideas and make sense of the world. This is a recurring assignment in which students are graded on completeness of their analysis and verbal participation in class discussion.
Science classes this year have been a blast. Student have gotten to know one another and explored the world around them. In both classes they began by delving into Ms. Knight’s deep hope for the year and created class culture agreements together. Physical Science worked through the first three concepts of their first unit. They explored lab safety and equipment, temperature and metric conversions, dimensional analysis, and scientific notation. The class excelled in persevering until they fully understood the concepts and helping each other along the way. They enjoyed two labs this month, one measurement lab and their first edible lab where they made fudge using conversion factors and tested their knowledge of how to perform labs safely and professionally. Next month, this class dives into the scientific method. Physics class worked so hard to master some challenging concepts through some difficult circumstances and as a result were rewarded with a trip to Dunkins. They completed a short, real world paper airplane lab and look forward to diving into more hands-on physics exploration in the future. This month, physics students become proficient in calculating speed, velocity, distance, position, and displacement. They began working with time-position and time-velocity graphs.
The Student Council hosted a movie night this month. Students enjoyed tasty snacks while they watched The Emperor’s New Groove. Well done Student Council. A special shout out to all the students who pitched in and helped clean up as soon as the movie was over. The teamwork and responsibility demonstrated were impressive.
We are so proud of you high school and how you started the year strong. We can’t wait to see what you do this year!
