Prairie Wetland Center trip one WCS highlight

• Worthington Christian School

Worthington Christian School

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WORTHINGTON — Worthington Christian’s fifth- and sixth-grade classroom has had a busy year so far.

On Sept. 29 our class took a field trip to the Worthington Prairie Wetland Center, located east of Worthington. We began our trip by touring the Ecology Bus. Here students learned to test water quality by using their senses of smell and sight. We were also able to get a close look at water bugs swimming in some of the water. We learned to identify some of the bugs and learned some interesting facts about them.

The next part of our field trip was spent hiking the Prairie Wetland Trail. We saw all kinds of grasses and plants, learned about the waterfowl that resides there, and got to use the binoculars and see what we could find on the pond there. It was an extremely windy day, and I am happy to report that none of the students in Mrs. White’s fifth- and sixth-grade class blew away! The air was full that day of crop dust, cement dust and cattails floating through the air.

We have also been studying timelines in Bible class as well as in our social studies class. Students were assigned to work with their parents to create a personal timeline, incorporating pictures and interesting facts about each year of their life. These are now decorating the halls of Worthington Christian School. This was a fun family activity that gives the students a neat project to place in their keepsake box. Students and staff all enjoy looking at the pictures from birth to present and reading the milestone facts the students added to each year.

In September, Mrs. White’s third- and fourth-grade Bible class became scribes for a couple of class periods. We tried copying Bible verses on parchment, scrolls and clay tablets. The kids enjoyed these activities and realized that the scribe’s job of copying words onto things that others could read was a tedious and time-consuming job!

Seventh- and eighth-grade history students have just finished talking about the original 13 colonies. We also did a week-long study — grades five through eight social studies and history classes — on the 9-11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. We did this to honor the victims and families affected by this event 10 years ago. Students were amazed by the videos and stories that were seen and heard that week. Many students came to school with stories like, “I was a baby sitting on my mom’s lap when my mom saw the trade center go down.”

On the teacher side, this past week we attended the Heartland Christian Educator’s Convention at Dordt College while the students enjoyed a long weekend. Each session offered classes to choose from. Some of the classes that I attended were “Fifty Teaching Tools,” “Differentiation in the Regular Middle School Classroom,” “Using Literature in the Content Areas,” and “60 Poetry Ideas in 60 Minutes.” All of the classes were very informational and enjoyable.

Here are upcoming Worthington Christian School events:

l Today: WCS Soccer Tournament.

l Wednesday: WCS Annual Soup Supper.

Lori White is the fifth- and sixth-grade homeroom teacher at Worthington Christian School. She teaches Bible, English and social studies to the middle school grades.

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