Science Expo

The ICSB elementary does a number of academic events throughout the year: Beach Day, Math Olympics, World's Fair, Young Author's Fair, and the Science Fair.  It's a fun thing for the students - to be learning outside of the usual structure of school, to do projects, to show off their learning.

For the Science Fair this year, we decided that rather than doing an elementary wide day, each class could choose a unit to do as their science expo.  Other classes could be invited in as would the parents.  So far 2nd grade has done theirs on their animal unit, 1st grade did theirs on water (different properties of water and raising money to supply fresh water to families in Africa...soo cool!!!) and 3rd grade has done theirs (though the other classes weren't invited so I have no idea what they did ;) )

Ours was this last Friday.  4th grade studied Earth and Outer Space.  What a fun unit!  We learned about the causes of seasons, night, day, the Earth-Moon-Sun system, the inner and outer planets, and constellations.  We also watched the "Indescribable" talk about the immensity of the universe by Louie Giglio, looked up times in the Bible when authors are talking about the heavens and the stars.  Students had to create their own constellations and do a research project on a celestial body.  We learned all about the Space Race and moon phases.  We made a video where the students were the experts.  They painted the planets and created a really cool bulletin board.

Painting Saturn

Painting all of the planets

Making the Space Race timeline

Hanging up the planets and labels

USA vs. USSR flags

The finished product

It's not likely I'll be taking it down any time soon

My prompt - "Look like you know things about the Sun!"

Friends telling everyone about constellations

Showing moon phases with oreos while keeping the kids from eating them!

Teaching some 2nd graders about the space race

It's over! A job well done!

It was a lot of fun.  The kids enjoyed it, and I think that the parents enjoyed seeing it all.

Basketball Tournament/Spirit Week

Man, I really don't update this thing often enough, do I?  Sorry about that!

Last weekend was ICSB's annual enormous basketball tournament.  We had schools from Kiev, Ukraine, St. Petersburg, Russia, Moscow, Russia, and Bucharest, Romania fly in for a huge weekend of basketball.  Of course, the week leading up to it is also a major party week - Spirit week, Valentine's day, and the 100th day of school.

Here are some pictures of the events:

Dress Up as Your Dream Job Day - we had a vet, a secret agent, a fashion designer, 2 bakers, a doctor, a horse racer, a librarian, a business man, a DJ, a physicist, a lawyer, and a soccer player

A chef and a secret agent retelling a Bible story with a Puppet app

A stylist and a vet working on their own puppet show

Diana dressed as a baker and I dressed as a figure skater

Spirit Day/Crazy Hair Day involved lots of face painting

My hair for crazy hair day

4th grade (and some 2nd graders) at the pep rally

All of the schools coming together to encourage each other - so special as so many people from the 5 schools were hurting.  It was a beautiful thing to see the Body of Christ exhibited by our students and community

Victory for ICSB - boys and girls!

It was a really difficult week/weekend for our school and then KCA went back to a difficult situation themselves as did IASP.  Please keep our schools and communities in your prayers.  They are very much desired and needed right now.

We really love our tournament.  We love the excitement of 3 days of basketball.  We love the opportunity to minister to other students, families, and schools that don't know Christ.  We love the coming together of our community.  And we love the unity that it shows in Christ - we are rivals on the court but our connection is deeper than basketball.  We love each other and support each other because we know Christ.