Forest Hills Lutheran School

JANUARY 26, 2012

ISSUE 4

FALCON FACTS

Important Dates • Feb. 7 - Happy Birthday Ms. Hoffman

• Feb. 10 - 11:30 Dismissal, Last day to turn in auction items

• Feb. 15 - LEST Pep Assembly

• Feb. 16, 17, and 18 - LEST

• Feb. 20 - No School

• Feb. 22 - Ash Wednesday

Middle School Lock-in

Inside this issue: Book Review 2

LEST Follow-up 2

Do We Watch Too Much TV? 2

What’s New at School? 3

Sports 4

Games 4

The End of the World…? 5

LEST From a Student’s View 5

Our Opinion on New Year’s 6

Student-Authors 6

Movie Review 7

Lutheran Malaria Initiative 7

The True Meaning of Friends 7

Survey 8

Editorial 8

THE FALCON FACTS IS ON THE WEB! GO TO THE FHLS WEB-SITE HOMEPAGE TO VIEW THE LINK!

By Jessi Beyer

An Inside Scoop of Sixth Grade So we went and interviewed Mr. Munster for this very special arti-cle! We asked him a few questions so that people might know what it would be like to be a middle school teacher! We asked him how many years he has been a teacher and he said for 41 years. But now not all of those years were at Forest Hills Lu-

theran School. Only 7 and half of those years were here. He has worked at many differ-ent places, even all over the country! He worked in North Caro-lina for 5 and a half years, 17 years in Idaho, 2 years in Kan-sas, and 16 and a half years in Oregon! His favorite subject to teach

is science. He’s right. Sci-ence is fun. But we also got some words of advice. He said that you need to be prepared to be chal-lenged in middle school! Hope you guys have fun in middle school! It is truly an awesome and fun ex-perience for all.

By Brandon Noffsinger and Michael Cox

gathers in the gym and upper grade building to play games, watch mov-ies, and all around party!

The evening be-gan with some pre-planned games in the gym, including 4-way capture the flag and medic ball, a middle school PE favorite. The gym was filled with games until 3:30 in the morning. The students then had the option of hanging out in Miss Reit-meier’s room watching movies or in Mr. Pluck-nett’s room, which seemed to be the make-over hot spot. Some of the boys even got their

makeup done! “I acciden-tally pinky swore,” says 8th grader Nathan Gerdes when asked why he got his makeup done. Well, we still think he had fun!

The building was arranged so that the 7th and 8th grade rooms were open for students, and the 5th and 6th grade rooms were for the girls and boys bedrooms, re-spectively.

The lock-in is al-ways a fun event for all. With partying, gym time, and loads of candy, it’s definitely something you don’t wanna miss!

Last Friday, on January 20, the middle school lock-in took place! 8th graders Amber Hol-land and Sarah Sellke were the coordinators of this event, as well as 7th grade teacher Miss Reit-meier. “The lock-in was fun,” comments Sellke. “It went well, and it was a good last lock-in for me.” The lock-in is a gi-ant middle school sleep-over, where everyone

Ashley Hanson after her make-over at the lock-in

Do we watch too much TV? Does it affect how we do in school? There have been studies about this topic and some people say that it can cause obesity. Others say that a lot of the shows we watch today are educa-tional and help us learn about different things, such as sharing. Both have

an effect. Otherwise it can make them more aggressive or more con-fused. When kids are more confused, they have issues paying at-tention in school and focusing on subjects like math or history. It can also make you have slower reaction times to everyday stimuli.

Studies say that kids above twelve should only watch around one to two hours a day. Scien-tists suggest that kids un-der the age of two should not watch any TV. So the lesson of this is to limit the TV you watch - I know you can do it!

Do We Watch Too Much TV?

Page 2 FALCON FACTS

We all must limit our TV. Photo courtesy of

blogs.orlandosentenial.com

The Lightning Thief

The Lightning Thief is the book that shows the beginning of Percy Jackson’s life as a demigod at Camp Half-blood. Camp Half-Blood is a Camp for demigods that keeps them safe and doesn’t allow mortals or mon-sters. In Camp Half-Blood Percy learns his father is really a god

The book The Lightning Thief was writ-ten by Rick Riordan. Rick Riordan is a famous au-thor that has written many books like the Kane chronicles (The Red Pyra-mid and The Throne of Fire). He has also written The Percy Jackson and the Olympians series which includes four more books after this one.

and what his powers are. He doesn’t get welcomed friendly when he first gets there, but earns the other campers respect quickly when they find out who his father really is and his true powers. Read this fantastic book to learn what Percy’s powers are, who his father is, and what his quest is.

Book Review: The Lighting Thief

By Michael Cox

By Taylor Bassel

LEST Update

Tanner Heikes, Ross Mackinnon, Cassie Rogers, Matthew Concep-cion , Audrey Lommen, Nicholas Eros, Brandon Noffsinger, Renee Knep-per, Alan Wineman, Tiare Zijdemans, and FHLS’ amazing choir director, Mr. Plucknett.

Get your voices ready choir, and look your best because tension is in the air, for L.E.S.T. So you better be prepared!!!

always held at Concor-dia University in Port-land. Many schools from many places, like Mon-tana and California, come to Portland to do this tournament.

Here are all the pupils in the middle school choir: Luke Kach-marek, Hannah Kach-marek, Kayla Limbeck, Taylor Bassel, Maria Underwood, Michael Cox, Taylor Rosholt,

Every year, FHLS competes in the 3-day Lutheran Elementary School Tournaments, also known as LEST. Sixth, sev-enth, and eighth can be in the middle school choir, because choir is a fine art for those three grades only. This year, the choir will be singing “My God Accept My Heart This Day” and “Yo Vivo Can-tando” for LEST.

The tournament is

By Kayla Limbeck

The middle school choir being directed by Mr. Plucknett

An Extension of the November LEST Update

ISSUE 4 Page 3

What’s New at School?

were the instigators at Forest Hills. See page 7 for more information.

During the week of Friday, January 13, the 7th graders finished up their country reports by bringing in food from their country. They had everything, from choco-late logs to coffee cake.

For the New

Year, the eighth graders reviewed their classroom values and came up with some New Year’s resolu-tions to keep them on track. They also started The Merchant of Venice, one of Shakespeare’s plays, on Monday the 9th.

LEST practices began on Tuesday, Janu-ary 10. All of the events - the events that have practices are math, knowledge bowl, science, and chess - will have their practice each Tuesday from 3:15 - 4:00.

The 6th graders have been working on the Malaria project. They

on January 24. They have been learning about the Chinese New Year system, this year being the Year of the Dragon.

The multi-age class has had a creepy, crawly January. They have been learning about spiders. After fin-ishing reading some in-formational books, they used their information

chart to write a first draft of their essays. Along with the research, the stu-dents learned a spider song.

Second grade finished up a scientific unit on light, and are cur-rently learning about 2-digit subtraction. They are also finishing up the Old Testament stories.

The kindergarten-ers have had a knowl-edge-packed January! In religion class, they have been learning about how Jesus chose his 12 disci-ples. As for writing, each student wrote some sto-ries and shared them with the class, as well as learned about a writer’s audience.

The first graders began their study of Asia

5th grade class has joined together to make a 5th grade choir. The choir practices twice a week, on Tuesday and Thursday mornings. Un-fortunately, while all of the students were invited, not all are participating.

unit on Lewis and Clark. They have been reading different literature on the topic and took a fieldtrip to Fort Clatsop on Thursday the 19th, where they will learning about their winters.

For their first year at LEST, the whole

Third grade scien-tists have been learning about the life cycle of a meal worm. In math, they are learning about multi-plication and right an-gles, as well as doing MadMinutes.

The fourth grad-ers have been doing a

The 5th grade choir practice, with

Mrs. Souligny directing

Kindergarten, First Grade, Multi-age, and Second Grade

Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth Grade

By Jessi Beyer and Petra Flemmer

Third, Fourth, and Fifth Grade

Check out what’s happening in all of our Forest Hills Classrooms!

The Merchant of Venice! Photo courtesy of ebooksdownload-

free.com By Jessi Beyer

By Jessi Beyer and Petra Flemmer

Fort Claptsop, the fourth graders’

historical destination. Photo

courtesy of lostbikerblog.com

The boys won! On December 14, the boys’ 7th and 8th team played an excellent basketball game. They played Port-land Lutheran here, at FHLS. In the beginning, they took the lead by acting as a team, and cheering on each other, even when someone would make mistake that would lead to a point for the other team. At half-time, our team was ahead by twenty points. As the game went on, we continued to be courteous and showing good sports-manship for our school. In the end we won by about twenty points, ending with good sportsmanship and telling the other team that they played a really

good game. The girls’ game

was exciting, even though they lost. They played an excellent game. They fought hard for the ball, and tried their best. They showed great sportsmanship and love for the game, and for FHLS. They scored and kept good attitudes, even through the ups and downs. But few weeks ago it was the other way around. The boys were at Trinity and played their team, losing, but keeping good attitudes. They fought hard as well, fighting for the ball and scoring points. In the end we kept our good sportsmanship, and con-gratulated the other

team with smiles. The girls, however, did the same as the boys, in the fact that they won. Even though they won, they didn’t brag about their glorious victory. They con-gratulated the other team, telling them that they did a good job. They also didn’t say any-thing mean to the boys about them winning, and the boys losing. Instead they said that the boys did an excellent job in our first game.

The Forest Hills Falcons are on their way through another wonder-ful season, ending with LEST. Hopefully Forest Hills can get two more LEST victories this year!

Basketball Away!

Page 4 FALCON FACTS

7th grader Tanner Heikes

By Brandon Noffsinger

Games Maze: Try to find your way out of the maze by following a connecting path from start to finish. Math Boxes: Put the num-bers one through nine in the boxes to make each equation true. Puzzles created by puz-zlemaker.com

Puzzle Level: 8 out of 10

Taylor Rosholt from the girls’ team

S F

Puzzle Level: 9 out of 10

Check the TV in the main lobby for upcoming games!

Everyone is saying that the end of the world is in 2012. Are they right? Will it actually hap-pen? If the world does end, how will it take place? The Bible an-swers all of these questions- and even more - about Earth’s last day.

The Bible says, “No one knows the times or dates of the father.” That means that know one knows when the end of the world will take place, or when anything else happens that God is in charge of. People think the end of the world is taking place because the Mayan calendar is ending. The Mayans were an an-cient Indian tribe in South America that disappeared in ancient times. The Mayan Calendar ends on De-cember 21, 2012, but is that a good reason to think that the world is ending? “No. The world’s fate couldn’t be based on a cal-endar that the Mayans made. It’s not like the Mayans could tell the future,” 6th grader Ross Mackinnon concludes. Ross Mackinnon could be right. Maybe the Mayans just wanted to make a calendar. Who knows, the Mayan’s could have died off before they finished the calendar. It says in the Bible, on the last day of earth, Angels will sound their trumpets and Christian spirits will rise and stay with God for eternity. All those who didn’t believe will spend eternity with Satan. The good thing is, if you love God with all your heart, soul, and mind, you will never have to worry about the last day.

Is the end of the world really

happening?

By Emmeline Rockford

LEST

Compiled by Jessi Beyer

ISSUE 4 Page 5

From a Student’s View

“LEST is one of my favorite parts of the year. I love competing against all the other schools and watching others compete.”

Sarah Sellke, 8th grade, Science, Knowledge Bowl, and Vocal

“[When I leave next year,] I am going to miss representing my school in basketball with my team.”

Jake Hutchinson, 8th grade, Boys Basketball and Choir

“My advice [for the 5th graders] is on your first year, don’t sign up for a lot of stuff. Try to get familiar with the competition by signing up for one or two things.”

Amber Holland, 8th grade, Science and Drama

“I love being able to go represent our school on a multi-state level. All that energy creates a great Christian environment.”

David Gehlen, 8th grade, Boys Basketball

“I am excited for this being my first year at LEST!” Avi Umashankar, 5th grade, Spelling and 5th Grade Choir

“I hope we win for handbells and that we do good.” Parker Eakin, 5th grade, Handbells

“[I’m excited for] maybe winning or losing with dignity!” Reed Cunningham, 5th grade, Instrumental (Violin)

“I’m excited for LEST because this is the first year I can do it and I hope I have fun!”

Sara Smith, 5th grade, Vocal Ensemble

“I think LEST is a good chance to improve on your skills.” Ross Mackinnon, 6th grade, Chess, Swimming, Piano

“My favorite part about LEST is participating in the events.” Marta Kribs, 6th grade, Choir, Math, Drama

“LEST is fun and is a cool idea.” Petra Anne Johnson, 6th grade, Logo Design, Math, Drama, Handbells

“[I am excited for] being in chess, choir, and knowledge bowl.” Nicholas Eros, 6th grade, Chess, Choir, Knowledge Bowl

“[My favorite part of LEST is] watching all your friends perform and maybe winning...its pretty fun!”

Fana Gottschalk, 7th grade, Drama and Knowledge Bowl

“[My advice for the 5th graders is to] remember what and when you have to do your performances.”

Isaac Graham, 7th grade, Chess and Choir

It a good idea to stay up to 12:00 on New Year’s Eve or not? Lots of peo-ple stay up to midnight to watch the ball drop on TV in New York. But is it really worth it? Many people who stay up until midnight can watch live music on TV as they countdown the seconds to the New Year. There are lots of people and con-fetti in New York City when the silver ball drops at 12:00 A.M. The silver ball is a very important event, but not everyone stays up until 12:00A.M

just to see it drop. Some others stay up so they are awake to experi-ence the first seconds of the year. “I think it is OK to stay up until midnight because kids are only kids for awhile,” says Marta Kribs. Some be-lieve it is good luck to stay up until midnight. Everyone wants to have a good 2012 fortune.

V.S

The New Year is a really big deal, but do you have to stay up until

12:00A.M to make a New Years resolution? Some people go to sleep earlier. Most adults have work and jobs they need to get to on New Year’s Day, so it makes sense not to stay up until the next day. Also, many kids have school on New Year’s Day, so they also will go to bed at an ear-lier time, or else risk be-ing very tired at school. Staying up late can be good at times, but it can also be a burden to wake up in a bad mood.

Our Opinion

Page 6 FALCON FACTS

The ball drop in New York. Photo courtesy of ibtimes.com

By Katie Eros

Elizabeth Lowrey and Sara Tapia, our 2nd grade student authors!

Student-Authors

School is fun So very fun.

With reading and writing, Spelling and math.

School is fun. So very fun.

- By Sara Tapia, 2nd

Beautiful, strong, Talented not wrong. Been working for years, Not a single tear! A horse can run fast, And also show off like that. A horse can be tired But also very admired A horse is smart not like A sheep in a cart. I love horses! The grace in them Is beautiful, They are not rueful. Encourage them, Help them, Talk to them, And love them as they love you! I have one And so should you But you don’t have to. - By Elizabeth Lowery, 2nd

As I swam downward, the peacock shaded water guided me around its home. Diminutive bub-bles from my mouth and nose frolicked their way toward the surface while my indigo eyes searched around, wanting to take in the beautiful scenery ahead of me. It looked as if an artist’s palette had spilled all over the coral, coloring it. The fish were so detailed that no artist could ever draw them the same way they appeared here. Their scale color varied from the lightest pink to the darkest orange. Deep claret sea anemones were waving back and forth as if waving welcomingly at me while the dappled jade sea turtle sped by, showing off its swimming skills. Suddenly, I felt an urge to suck in water; at once I knew I needed air. I swam as fast I could upwards, my head bursting out of the turquoise sea. The dazzling canary sun stood above me and reflected the shimmering drips of seawater still hanging on to my hair. A few lazy clouds soared through the sky, not caring where they were head-ing. I swam toward shore, the sound of the waves still echoing in my ears. As I sat down on the wet golden sand underneath the shady palm trees, I thought privately to myself, This is my paradise.

Right: This is My Paradise by Emmeline Rockford

Page 7 FALCON FACTS

Friends...the true meaning Is being friends about all the love stuff or is it about giving and showing that you care? I don’t really think that it is about hugging and chocolates on holidays or the teddy bears when you hurt their feelings. I think that you should just show the person that you care, and while it is good to give hugs to

people, it is not neces-sary. I think it is that the person will be most happy if you just listen and give them time to hang out as friends. Al-though it is very nice to receive a box of choco-lates, it is also nice when your friend invites you to a party. If you go to a party with your friend

that is a great chance to show your friends that you care about them by hanging out with them, not ignoring them for someone else. Friendship is a thing to be cherished, so, with that in mind, show your friend that you care about them this month.

Anonymous

Lutheran Malaria Initiative Malaria - this

word means many things...death, sickness, separation, and much more. This problem has been taking lives at a rapid pace. Malaria is a sickness caused by mos-quitos. The mosquitos have a parasite in them that affects humans when the parasite gets into their blood. This parasite then causes malaria.

The Lutheran Ma-

laria Initiative recognized this problem in 2005 and ever since they have been working very hard to stop malaria and save lives. $10 will buy a mos-quito net, treat it, ship it to Africa, and teach the people how to use it. The 6th graders at Forest Hills Lutheran School heard of malaria and the Lutheran Malaria Initiative in No-vember of 2011. As soon as they heard of the

problem they wanted to help stop it and have been planning how to do it ever since. They started on January 9th, and so far, they have raised $653.26. St. Peter’s also offered to match the price! Their goal is to raise $1000 dollars for mosquito nets. We hope you will help support us in this big project.

By Emmeline Rockford

Movie Review: The Mighty Macs The Mighty Macs takes place in the sixties. It is an inspiring true story about a Catholic basketball team who had suffered many de-feats. Then their new coach brings them back to life and gives them hope so they can do great things. Even though they went through thick and thin they stuck to-

gether like a team should. When they didn’t have real jerseys and basket-balls that were actually filled with air or not enough money to go to their championship game they made it work and ended up being champi-ons three years in a row. If you like dramatic mov-ies this will be right up your alley! This wonderful

movie is rated G so it is great for family movie night! This is an inspiring movie that tells you to chase your dreams be-cause they do come true. The Mighty Macs team ended up feeling like one big family the coach be-ing the mom and the team mates being sisters.

By Taylor Bassel

Mighty Macs. Photo courtesy of comingsoon.net

One of the posters around the campus

3rd grade friends

Page 8 FALCON FACTS

Editorial Have you ever noticed that when you walk into some bath-rooms, the lighting makes you look like you are sick? I know I have, and I hate it. I first really no-ticed this with my turtle’s cage - he has two lights over his cage, a UVA and a UVB, both of which we turn off at night. Sometimes, when I

turn off the UVA before the other, the whole cage gets a sickly glow. I find it very inter-esting how the lighting of an area can effect the mood in the room. When you walk into a room with sickly lighting, your whole mood can drop. This can also be a huge minus when you are trying to sell a house - potential

buyers don’t like to walk into a house’s bathroom and feel sick. Instead, with a room with a UVA light, the light gives off a pleasant, orange-ish glow, which Kayla Lim-beck says is “a soothing color.” Who knew that the type of lighting in a room could so affect the mood!

By Editor Jessi Beyer

Top: Tank with the UVA light Bottom: Tank with the UVB light

See the difference?

Survey Where in the world would you like to go the most?

Compiled By Kayla Limbeck

In the family en-velope, a sheet was sent home for each family to circle the place they would like to visit. The places were Hawaii, Solomon Islands, Japan, and England. Most peo-ple wanted to go to Ha-waii, the second most was England and the

Solomon Islands, Japan got four votes and there were two oth-ers. Hawaii is a nice warm comfortable place to go and a nice place to go swimming. The Solomon Islands is in the Pacific, and is also a nice place to go and a warm place too. England has

a lot of history of the world, and there are a bunch of things that hap-pen there too. Japan has a nice climate, and its food is kind of well known in the U.S.A. So use your imagination, and think of where you want to go, and choose a good one!

In a landslide win, Hawaii dominated the results with

63%, while Japan had only 5% of the votes!

Where Do You Want To Go?

63%

14%

6%

12%

5%

Hawaii

Solomon Islands

England

Other

Japan

A beautiful Hawaiian sunset. Photo courtesy of travactours.com