Bible Times Drama--Queen Esther

As you can see we have had a bit of drama going on in our classroom this week!  Above are the ferocious guards of King Ahasuerus.  These men strong-armed their way into the house of Mordecai and took away the beautiful Esther.  

As we finish up our unit on Esther, yesterday we acted out her story in three parts.  Each group had a lot of good pieces.  Some groups really went out of their way with costumes and props.  Some groups spent a lot of time working on the drama and doing rehearsals.  They had time in class, but most of them worked in their spare time (lunch and recess) as well.  They went much further with this activity than I had originally planned, and the results were fantastic.  Good Job, class!  

Below, you see a very pampered king getting fed grapes at his royal party.

Unfortunately, while Ahasuerus was eating grapes, his Queen Vashti was actively denying his request for her presence--Here played by Anais. (Voted MVA--Most Valuable Actor--by her group)

Having done away with Vashti, you can see below the sentries as they knocked on Mordecai's door to capture Esther.

Above, we see the next group as the king and wicked Haman discuss affairs of state.  

Below, the king is read to from the Chronicles because he cannot sleep. 

Ahasuerus: Really, what was his reward?

Reader: He didn't have one.  That always happens around here.

(This was one of my favorite lines! I laughed so hard!)

Here the third group's king displays his royal scepter as he prepares to extend it to Esther.

This was the royal banquet of ....grape juice.  Haman was dragged away and killed at the end of this skit.  

Everyone had so much fun with the story, and we all got a lot of laughs.  All the students begged to do something like this again soon.

--Miss Leonard

Map Design

Christmas Concert

As an afterthought.....
One of our high school students at BCA did a video at the Christmas Concert this year.  He did some basic editing and posted it on YouTube.  Our class performances are in the mix.  If you or other family members were not able to be there, I am sure you will enjoy the production!

http://youtu.be/yI83e4tNalA

--Miss Leonard

Gingerbread houses and Christmas party!

We headed off to Christmas break so quickly, that I never got our last Christmas blog posted!  That last week was so busy and FUN!  We got to help the Pre-K to 2s with their gingerbread houses again this year.  The room was super crowded and full of sugary kids, but they did a great job on the houses.  

Each younger student was given an older student (or 2) to work with them and be their buddy.  Our kids worked so well with the younger ones--guiding them on their designs and helping them not eat too much candy!

I also have to comment on how well our class helped clean up the HUGE MESS that was left in Miss A's room after the younger kids had been cleaned up and sent to lunch.  Several students in our class gave up part of their lunch to help myself and Miss A deal with the crumbs and sticky tables.  We were so grateful and appreciated the help!

I hope the little ones had as much fun as our class did!

The next day we had our class party.  Thank you so much to the moms who were in charge.  Here you see our class playing a game.

And after games and yummy snacks.....Everyone's secret buddy revealed themselves, and they got to open their gifts! We had everything from stationary to Nerf guns! Everyone was very excited and thrilled with their gifts.  It was a great wrap-up for our secret buddy activity.

I love looking at these pictures to see all the excitement and happy faces.  I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas and a happy new year.   I would like to thank everyone for the sweet gifts that I was given.  There are so many wonderful and thoughtful families in our class! I appreciate you all!!

We are off and running with all sorts of Term 2 excitement including the BCA Social's Fair, Book Reports, Studying the Canadian Government in Socials......the list goes on and on!  Looking forward to a great term 2!

--Miss Leonard

Door Decorating Contest--Merry Christmas

Christmas time is just around the corner! We  started all the festivities and decorating at BCA with our annual door decorating competition.  Our class had a bit of a rough start.  We realized after we had done all of our planning and gotten all the supplies, etc., that we had the same idea as the Pre-K class.  Since they have the "cute factor" going for them, we didn't want to compete with that!! We reconvened Monday morning to come up with a new idea.  You can see the result of our vote and the sketch of our idea below. 

November--Student of the Month

Remembrance Day in Retrospect

Well, it seems that I am getting a little behind in my blogging all the fun things we do.  In November, we spent a lot of time on things for Veteran's Day.  All the BCA students entered a poster contest held by the legion.  Before the posters went off to be judged, we had our own school contest.  Our class had several winners: Anais, Bethany, Gabe, and Jed.
On the Friday before Remembrance Day, we had our Yearly BCA Veteran's Day assembly.  At the assembly, our class sang a song called "Standing Silently".  It is a great song about the reason behind the traditional moment of silence, which is typically held at these events.  They kids sounded great, and I was so proud of them.

You can check out a recording below.