Elementary Physical Education

Having a physical education program at Northpoint Christian School benefits our students in many ways. Some of the benefits are listed below:

Health

Participation in a physical activity can greatly improve the students’ flexibility, motor skills, endurance, and strength.  Exercise is proven to help reduce the risk of obesity with the aid of eating well balanced meals.

Self Esteem/Confidence

Confidence/self- esteem have a significant impact on our relationships with others.  I encourage the students, on a daily basis, to always do their best and never give up. Physical activity promotes a strong sense of confidence, self- worth, and independence.

T.E.A.M

Together Everyone Achieves More is the acronym for team. Being a part of a team means that we work together to achieve a goal.  P.E. is a time they learn fair play skills and cooperation. Students have an opportunity to develop teamwork skills, leadership, and responsibility.

This semester the first grade students worked as a team to invent their own game.  Mrs. Boling gave the students the following game instructions: list the equipment needed, explain the rules/instructions, include their names and group number on the paper.

Each group of students had the opportunity to present their game to the class. At the end of class, each child was given a ballot to cast a vote of their favorite game.  The team with the most votes had the opportunity to demonstrate their game at the next P.E. c lass.

We all know how important exercise is in our daily lives.  Exercise and nutrition is the path to health and well-being.  Northpoint Christian is hosting the first ever Color Run 5k on Saturday, March 29^th.   This is a great opportunity for families to exercise and spend time together.   For more information about the event, contact Trisha Pihringer at tpihringer@ncstrojans.com or 662-349-5129. Hope to see you there!

Wendy Boling

Elementary Physical Education

Elementary Library

The elementary library is always a busy place. I am grateful that the reading program our school uses, “Foundations and Frameworks,” sparks an interest for pleasure reading in our students. 

During the first semester, the elementary library has had several fun activities for students to foster and support this love of reading:

The Scholastic Book Fair is always a big event. This year’s fair was a huge success! Thank you to all who supported this fundraising event. The rewards provided the teachers with two eBook subscriptions to use in the classrooms as well as several new books for the library.

Junior and Senior Kindergarten

We had a special guest come and share her chickens with the Junior and Senior kindergarten classes in October. One of our sixth grade students, Galin Burton, is an active member of a 4-H group. She raises chickens to show in competitions. Galin and her mother, Carol, came and shared about raising chickens and what goes into getting ready for competitions. The students learned a lot from Galin and enjoyed petting Galin’s chicken named 41.

First, Second, Third Grades

The library acquired an iPad cart over the summer. The first grade students have enjoyed using the iPads as a center time. Reading Rainbows is a favorite!

The second and third grade students used the iPads over several weeks as centers for an author study about Jan Brett. Each station had a QR code activity that pulled up on the iPad. Some of the activities included: a biography where Jan Brett told about herself and her work; Jan Brett giving step by step instructions how to draw a hedgehog; raising chickens (to incorporate Jan’s book, Hedgie’s Surprise);  and raising a pet hedgehog. The students enjoyed this ongoing lesson and learned a lot about Jan Brett as well as her favorite animals.  Second and third grade enjoy Reading Rainbow on the iPads, too.

Fourth Grade

I have shared a lot of Pour Quoi storied with these students. The fourth graders will begin creating their own version of a Pour Quoi, or ‘why tale’, on the iPads as a slide show with illustrations. We will email the completed stories to the preschool teachers to share on their Smart Boards with their students.

Fifth Grade

The fifth graders used the iPads for an ongoing project to ‘pen’ stories for the Pre-K students. I provided several wordless books. The students partnered up and used the camera on the iPad to snap a picture of each page of the book they chose. They then ‘penned’ the story. We emailed the completed projects to the Pre-K teachers to show on the Smart Boards to their students.

Sixth Grade

I read a book over the summer and knew I had to use it somehow with the sixth graders. I am holding a ‘book club’ each week with the students. I am reading the book, Wonder by R.J. Palacio, to the students. We have had some very good discussions about peer pressure and how to handle yourself in difficult social situations. I am pleased with the responses I get each week. Our sixth graders have a heart for the Lord and the underdog!

Cheri Saunders

Elementary Librarian

Hall of Heroes

Who is your hero?  We all need heroes.  

 At NCS, we want our students to learn more about Christian heroes, role models whose lives challenge us to live for the Lord.  A. W. Tozer wrote, “Next to the Holy Scriptures, the greatest aid to the life of faith may be Christian biographies.”  To encourage our students to choose Christian heroes to emulate, our sixth grade students presented the Hall of Heroes on Dec. 17.

During the second nine weeks, our 6^th grade students studied “On Mission with God,” an adaptation of the Bible study by Avery T. Willis. This study helps preteens learn how God called people in the Bible to serve Him. By studying how God calls, prepares, sends, guides and uses people to carry out His mission, students were challenged to serve God with their lives too. Along with this study, the 6th graders read a Christian biography. These biographies were about the lives of great missionaries, evangelists, scientists, authors, and others who gave their lives in service to God. After reading about a Christian hero, the students wrote a book report as part of their reading classes.

After learning about a being on mission with God and about a Christian hero, the students chose at least two creative ways to share what they had learned about their Christian hero.  Some students dressed as their hero or as someone from the people group their hero served. Some students served food from or drew maps of their hero’s country. Others made time lines of key events in their hero’s lives or even shadow boxes of their hero. The 6th graders used the items on Tues., Dec. 17, to share about their hero with the other elementary students. Displays were set up in the Trojan Hall gym, and the 6th graders were visited by students who listened as they told about the Christian heroes they had studied. We hope our Hall of Heroes projects inspired some of our students to become Christian heroes too!

 

Shoeboxes for Soldiers Project

The 2nd graders collected items during the month of October to send to soldiers from DeSoto, Marshall, Tunica, Tate, and Panola counties.  The Shoeboxes for Soldiers project is sponsored by Baptist DeSoto Hospital.  The items they collected were toiletries, candy, other non-perishable foods, and puzzle books.  There were other classes that donated items as well.  

Northpoint Christian School donated 307 boxes to the project!  We were 4th out of the 21 schools that participated.  The students also colored Bible Verses and wrote notes to the soldiers.  Mrs. Ross’s class was interviewed by News Channels 3, 5, and abc24, the Commercial Appeal and DeSoto Times newspapers and the hospital’s film crew, who aired that interview on WKNO.  They came while the students decorated their boxes and wrote notes to the soldiers.  The students got to help load the truck when Baptist DeSoto came to the school to pick up the items.

Not only did the 2nd graders collect things and write notes, but on Veteran’s Day, they went to Baptist DeSoto Hospital to recite John 15:12-13 and sing “My Country Tis’ of Thee” to the Army National Guard guys that were there and to the veterans.  The teachers wanted their students to understand the importance of telling the veterans and current soldiers “Thank you.”  The students wore patriotic shirts and waved flags as they sang.  They also got to hand the shoeboxes filled with items to the soldiers who were present to help them load the truck. 

Christine Ross

2nd Grade Teacher 

Elementary Art and Music

Music:

This past nine weeks the 4th graders worked on coordinated movements with partners in order to understand eight beat phrases that occur in many songs, both old and new.  The pairs of students were challenged to creatively come up with their own movements to fill in the eight beats.  Some pairs were given the chance to perform their movements for the class, which they really enjoyed!  Dance, phrasing, choreography, rhythm, tempo, styles, problem solving, planning, were just some the words discussed in this lesson. 

4th Grade was also introduced to differing styles of Music during a music history lesson.  Students we're shown appropriate video examples of Blues, Rock, Jazz, and Classical music.  Some artists and composers chosen were Igor Stravinsky, Duke Ellington’s C Jam Blues (1942), Benjamin Britten, Frederic Chopin, Stevie Wonder, and Santana playing a Blues electric guitar solo. 

3^rd Grade was privileged to once again have Flyin’ Blind, a local Bluegrass band come and talk about Bluegrass music.  They performed a number of songs and talked about the history of the music as well as the history of the instruments they played.  Two of the band members are from our very own Northpoint Christian School parents.

Art:

1st Graders have been learning how to draw vertical, horizontal, and diagonal lines in art.   After learning about the different types of straight lines, they used this knowledge to create a spider web, step by step.   Mr. Ransom talked about how AMAZING God is, to create spiders that already know how to build their own home and to provide for themselves not too long after they come out of the egg sack.  No one had to teach it how to build a web!  We watched a short video that showed how diverse spiders are, their habitats, their appearances, their homes... so FASCINATING!

After drawing the web on colorful construction paper with bright construction paper crayons, we next went outside and drew the webs on the sidewalks behind the school with colored chalk (Web Design, Ha!)  After drawing on the sidewalks, we played a game that taught unity, teamwork, honesty, following directions, and self-control.  And beyond all that, it was just plain FUN for me and the students.

The 6th Grade art class has been working on drawing the human face this current nine weeks. As part of this unit, every student used iPads to explore an app that developed skills in drawing the human face.  The next lesson we learned a way to systematically draw the human face using measurements that God has already placed on our face.  Spatial relationships, balance, proportion, measuring, and attention to details were some of the concepts and skills that were covered.

The 6th Graders are now working on a self-portrait drawing project where they are enlarging a black and white photo of their face using a grid technique. The overall drawing will be around 16"x 20", twice the size of their 8" x 10" photo.  Mr. Ransom discussed his own mural commissions and how he used this technique to make money.  The artist, Chuck Close was discussed and students were shown his large scale paintings.  Chuck Close uses the grid technique to create his colorful portraits of people.

This just some of what has been going on in the Elementary Art/Music room at Northpoint Christian School.  The students are doing a fantastic job!

Mr. Ransom 

Art Teacher 1^st – 6^th       

Music Teacher 1^st – 4^th 

A Word from the English Department

United in the goal of sending out graduates who love the Lord and who possess strong foundations in both writing and literature, the English department begins its focus with the junior high. In a world of autocorrecting and texting, Mrs. Heun’s students review capitalization and punctuation as they strive to increase writing proficiency.  Moving into literature, which is taught through the filter of God’s Word, pupils extend their range of literary terms and read material from a variety of authors including Kipling, Bradbury, Soto, and O. Henry. Classes participate in writing newspaper articles, drawing comic strips, and creating puppet plays with the use of ipads. While seventh graders produce puppet shows, Mrs. Smith’s classes construct portfolios consisting of original poetry as well as samples of published works by favorite poets. Complete with illustrations, these colorful creations often become a favorite assignment for eighth graders. In Ms. Holbrook’s classes, a different genre is the focal point as ninth graders read Our Town and write research papers relating to various elements of the play. As a wonderful culmination to this unit, Our Town, the theater department’s fall play, will be performed for the freshman class at a special time during school hours.  

 Whether poetry, drama, or novels, literature in its many forms presents the primary component for the upper grades as Mrs. Humble’s sophomores write about Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and Mrs. Anderson’s eleventh graders construct character analyses based upon To Kill a Mockingbird. In addition to these essays, the juniors utilize laptops to access the new Naviance program for the purpose of submitting resumes toward $500.00 scholarships; these scholarships are available through the Get2College Scholarship Program and are awarded to high school juniors living in Mississippi. College bound as well, Ms. DeFrehn’s and Mrs. Smith’s seniors  study William Shakespeare and present video skits, eulogies, oral reports, cookbooks, cross-stitch projects, essays, and posters relating to Hamlet, Macbeth, and other Shakespearean works.  Ms. Holland’s AP 12 English class engages a more contemporary view as students read The Awakening and produce oral and visual presentations regarding current events. While this information undoubtedly assists in writing scholarship essays for college, the assignment often reveals to students the importance of knowing about their world. The English department prays that our graduates will be fully-equipped to go out into the world, exercising their talents and abilities- for His glory.

Tommie Holbrook

English Department

5th Grade Pinecrest Trip

On Friday October 25, 2013 our 5^th grade class traveled to Pinecrest Conference and Retreat Center. Soon after arriving we gathered at an outdoor seating area for introductions and team building activities.  For one of these activities the students stood in a circle holding hands and had to pass a hula hoop from person to person without releasing hands.  This activity became even more interesting when a second and third hula hoop were introduced.

After our team building activities we divided into groups and began our rotations.  At our first destination my group met Hector, a 45 year old box turtle.  Next, we met an albino king snake named Alvin.  We learned several interesting facts about snakes and how to distinguish between venomous and non-venomous snakes.

After a wonderful lunch we traveled to the ground water institute.  There we learned how rain water either travels into underground aquifers or becomes runoff and flows to the river.  We were introduced to a variety of measurement tools used to monitor the aquifers and runoff water in that area.

Our last destination was fire building.  We learned about the components that are necessary to build a fire.  We gathered the needed materials; then, we constructed and lit several small fires.  We even made a yummy banana, chocolate, and marshmallow treat.

Amy Ray
5th Grade Teacher