Welcome to the beginning of the 2021-22 school year! Every year, we have our opening ceremonies at Black Forest Academy where our Seniors carry the flags of the counties represented by them and by our student body. They carry these flags from outside down our aisles and set them up on our stage in the auditorium. We also have a role call of nations where students can stand and cheer for "their" flag when they see it on the screen. If you check out my FB group page; Support Karen at BFA, you will see pictures of our Seniors. I wanted to show you what the middle school section looks like in the auditorium. Our Seniors sit in the front row, with the Juniors, Sophomores and Freshmen sitting behind them. Then, we have our middle school students in the back of the auditorium who are watching all of this as they may one day be Seniors carrying a flag down this aisle.
After our opening ceremonies, we brought our students to the clay field which is located behind our school down a bike trail a short ways. We spend about the next hour playing games and wearing off the pent up energy that accumulated over the last hour. :)
After games in the clay field, we have a middle school assembly in our middle school student center where we talk welcome our new and returning students, talk about rules and choices in middle school, introduce our teachers, talk about how to separate German garbage, elective options for the first quarter (sports, books and popcorn, games, art, etc.), after school activities like Intramurals, Chrysalis (youth group), Fall play auditions and more! We also have an artistic activity in the afternoon where we split up into groups and decorate a something (butterfly for this year) and travel around and decorate what someone else has started.
At the end of our first day, students play games in the gym.
On our second and third day, students go through a shortened schedule of their regular school day in preparation for the next week. Our teachers give an introduction of themselves, give students opportunities to share about themselves and share information about the subject they will be learning for the year. In the following photos, you will see an English 7 class, then the 5th and 6th grade class and the 8th grade Science class.
We also have a Fuse Ball match with everyone split up into teams! We started this a few years ago and it has become a fun tradition!
There is always a great picture of our students on the stone steps!
On Friday, after lunch, we have our first Chapel service. Our new Chaplain, Christine shared her testimony with us and talked about our spiritual theme for this year; Redefine. Below, you will see a photo of Christine talking to our students, then Lance leading in Worship then a photo of our middle school bulletin board that Sarah put together describing out spiritual theme for this year.
Can you see the verse for the year? Sarah (French teacher) asked us (teachers) to share a favorite memory verse that we memorized and/or remembered from our middle school years then she put them up around the bulletin board. My verse is from Psalm 91:1-2. I remember memorizing the whole chapter of Psalm 91 when I was a Sophomore in high school.
After Chapel on Friday, we headed out to Palmgarten (girls dorm) where there is a grassy area and is a great place to play games. We split up into our different grades and compete against each other. On the way out to Palmgarten, we were split up into smaller groups and competed against each other in a scavenger hunt where we were given clues to look for numbers around town. When we arrived at Palm, we were supposed to use our numbers to crack a code. My team did not get all of our numbers but we had lots of fun running around town! Each grade dressed in a different color; 5th and 6th graders were green, 7th graders were blue (I was with the 7th graders) and 8th graders were red!
The first three days are always fun and exciting and provides a lot of opportunities for our students to begin building relationships with each other and with their teachers. I don't know about our students, but us as teachers are always exhausted at the end of this first week! Yet, at the same time, we love this time to get to know our students!
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