Forest Hills Lutheran School

DECEMBER 15, 2011

ISSUE 3

FALCON FACTS

Important Dates • Jan. 3 - End of Christmas Break

• Jan. 11 - Happy Birthday Mrs. Langbehn and Mrs. VanScoten

• Jan. 16 - Re-enrollment

• Jan. 26 - Family Skate Night

• Jan. 27 - No School

• Jan. 29 - Happy Birthday Mr. Hobus

• Jan. 31 - Happy Birthday Mrs. Hirsch

Every year, the whole school comes together to put on the Christmas pro-gram. The middle school normally performs a play based on the Christmas story, and the younger grades (K – 5) sing songs and carols. The middle school choir also sings some songs that choir di-rector and 8th grade teacher Mr. Plucknett taught them. This year, they sang Heart of Gold, First Noel/Pachelbel’s Canon, and When I Kneel at the Manger Tonight. This Christmas program’s play was set in a modern day nativity scene, also known as

Happy Holidays at Forest Hills!

Inside this issue: Movie Review 2

What Christmas Means 2

Winter Basketball at FHLS 2

What’s New at School? 3

Christmas Break Adventures 4

Games 4

Game Review 5

LEST Fun Facts 5

Survey 6

Editorial 6

By Michael Cox and Jessi Beyer

FOR QUESTIONS, COMMENTS, OR

SUGGESTIONS, PLEASE EMAIL:

FALCONFACTS@GMAIL.COM

Herod’s Department Store. 8th grader Kris Porter played Herod, the manager of the store, and Faith Peterson played his second-in-command, Miss O’Riley. The children’s choir from Forest Hills had come to sing in Herod’s Depart-ment Store. Miss O’Riley lets them sing despite Herod’s unhappiness. In between the younger choir, the nativity scene – complete with shepherds and wise men – was played out in Herod’s Department Store. “It was one of the best in thirty-five years at Lu-theran schools!” com-ments Forest Hills’ princi-pal, David Hobus.

It takes more than just actors to suc-

cessfully put on a Christ-mas program. Ushers Fana Gottschalk and Megan Lockbeam did a good job welcoming all the guests to the pro-gram. David Gehlen, Tanner Vandecoevering, and Adam Sahnow con-trolled the lights and sound, and Leia Zimmerly, Ben Garland, and Katie Eros were the stage hands. The wise men did a wonderful job singing their song and acting out their parts, and although they seemed to be the favorite of the night, the rest of the cast remem-berd their lines and turned the Christmas story into a funny and glamor-ous program.

During the Practice THE FALCON FACTS

WILL BE ON THE WEB AFTER NEW YEAR’S! GO TO THE FHLS

WEBSITE HOMEPAGE TO VIEW THE LINK!

Left: The younger grades

choir sing-ing at the program

Well, we are right in the middle of win-ter basketball at Forest Hills! The 5/6 grade boys and girls teams finished their season on December 8. Brandi Palmer, along with Leah Gustafson and Terry Plucknett, will be moving on to coach the 7/8 grade teams through their seasons.

Both the 7/8 grade teams has had two games, December 12 and 14. Although the

boys lost the first game, they put up over 40 points, 18 of which came from 8th grade David Gehlen! The girls’ team won by 10 against Trinity Lutheran. “This year’s basketball team is full of energy and potential I am so excited to see how this team grows together throughout the season,” comments Mr. Plucknett.

For the teams’ second games, the re-

sults were switched. Un-fortunately, the girls lost, but the boys won by 18.

Both of the older teams will be participat-ing in LEST this year. The boys are defending a two-time championship, and the girls are back in it for Forest Hills’ 3rd girls LEST championship! Make sure to come cheer on both the FHLS teams at LEST!

Winter Basketball at FHLS

Page 2 FALCON FACTS

The 2011 LEST boys champion-ship poster on the gym wall.

Let’s get two more up there this year!

Coraline, the movie

paper. When she opened the door she found it blocked with bricks. That night when Coraline went to bed she woke up from mice squeaking and followed them to the small door. This time when she opened the door it was-n’t blocked by bricks. Instead there was a tun-nel leading to a differ-

The movie Cor-aline is a fun and exiting movie. A young girl named Coraline moved into a different state away from all her friends. The house she moved to is very old and big so it is divided into three apartments. Cor-aline went exploring in the house and found a small door behind wall-

ent word that was almost the same as her other world. Have a good time finding what happens in this new world Coraline finds an evil opposite of everything in her world. Can she ever escape? This movie may not be good for younger chil-dren because it might be scary.

Movie Review: Coraline

By Petra Flemmer

By Jessi Beyer

What Christmas Really Means you really do not need to look hard to find some-one who needs help. Even if they just have their hands full and need help opening the door, that still is helping a person in need. But during this win-ter season, try to remem-ber the true meaning of Christmas...the birth of the Messiah.

the Christmas tree, or staying up late to see Santa. It’s about being with your family and celebrating the birth of baby Jesus. It’s not about the song, the food, or even giving a present to someone. I do support giving pre-sents, and going out and helping the needy;

I think many peo-ple these days take Christmas the wrong way. Maybe they just forgot what it is about, or they just don’t want to remem-ber what it’s about and get all the presents that they can. What Christmas means to me is the birth of my Lord Jesus Christ. It is not about the presents,

By Petra Flemmer

Baby Jesus...the true meaning of Christmas

ISSUE 3 Page 3

which is a person that was not from the United States that made a big difference in the world. They, along with the rest of the school, are adopt-ing a family in need and are bringing gifts for this family.

In eight, they are finishing up the The Count of Monte Cristo by

Alexandre Dumas, and are going to watch the 2002 movie on Friday. They too are adopting a family and are providing gifts, which were picked up on Wednesday.

The middle school is also having a Christmas breakfast tomorrow morning before school.

What’s New at School?

other children, Erin and Tyler.

In fifth they are making crystals and see-ing how long it takes for them to form. Fifth grade also sang in the Christmas program with their kin-dergarten buddies.

with the class, and they also made recipe books about their favorite dish that their family has tra-ditionally made each year. Family members also came and partici-pated in the luncheon, like Michael’s mom, Heidi Janeway, and her two

In sixth grade they are learning how to track and see where earthquakes and volca-noes are, and having a lot of fun with it. They are having a “Secret Santa” party.

In seventh grade, they are working on their PowerPoints on their re-search paper person,

program. The song they sang was Angels We Have Heard on High.

In second grade they have been learning about Advent, and have been singing songs about Advent and how many days until school is over for Christmas break. They sang in the Christmas program. In the Christmas play, they

sang a quartet. In multi-age, they

sang in the Christmas pro-gram, and they had cele-brated St. Nicholas’ day, which is a day where chil-dren leave out their shoes to find a treat in them when they wake up, so they left out their shoes that they had made and each of them got a treat.

In kinder-garten, they were ready for the Christmas pro-gram. They sang one song with their fifth grade buddies and one with multi-age. How fun it is to sing!

In first grade, they are learning what other countries do during the Christmas time. They too, sang in the Christmas

In third grade, they sang in the program also, and with all this happening they are learning persuasive writ-ing.

In fourth they had a Christmas feast, so all the kids in the class brought a treat to share

4th grade Christmas feast

Kindergarten, Multi-age, First Grade, and Second Grade

Sixth through Eighth Grade

By Kayla Limbeck

Third through Fifth Grade

Check out what’s happening in all of our Forest Hills classrooms!

The Christmas tree in the 8th grade room, filled with Secret

Santa presents

By Kayla Limbeck

By Kayla Limbeck

The 5th graders making their way

onto the stage at the Christmas

program

Many people are exited for Christmas, and when there’s Christmas there’s Christmas break too. Which I think there just as exited for! On Christmas break people do many things, such as flying to relatives houses or sledding down a hill. People have been hoping it will snow for a while and it’s coming early. It would be a nice gift un-der the tree for there to be a blanket of snow on Christmas morning! The real thing we should be thinking about on Christ-mas is how or Lord Jesus Christ was born into the world.

The modern world does not realize this and they celebrate the Christ-

mas with Santa and Ru-dolf when it’s about Je-sus being born. Even though we don’t always think about Jesus we can still have fun such as put-ting up Christmas lights and a tree. We get each other presents which is kind but it blots Christ out.

People do many things over Christmas break and I am asking people what they like to do on this fun and excit-ing part of the holidays. The choices are sledding, Christmas shopping, fly-ing to relatives, and go-ing to zoo lights. Katie Eros’s favorite things to do at Christmas are to go sledding and after-wards have hot choco-

late. Many people want there to be snow so this year they can go sled-ding and snowboarding. Even if there is not much snow there is almost al-ways snow at Mount Hood! Adam Sahnow said that he would want to fly to relatives during Christmas break the most. Petra Flemmer said that she would most like to sled on Christmas break. Even though people don’t always realize that Christmas is about Jesus coming to earth to save us a lot do. We can only hope that the number of people that know what Christmas is really about will grow.

Christmas Break Adventures

Page 4 FALCON FACTS

You’ll definitely be doing some of this!

By Taylor Bassel

Games

Use numbers one through nine to fill in the missing numbers to make the equation true. Each num-ber can be used only once. Puzzles created by puz-zlemaker.com

Puzzle Level: Medium-Hard

One of the many Christmas deco-rations you will see this break

of the piece. The lower the ranks the better. For example a 1 will knock out a 2. Once you have placed all the pieces on the board and the six bombs they can’t be moved until your oppo-nents run into it them. Stratego is rated 4 ½ stars by Amazon for the amount of fun it is. The ages for the game are 7 and up because of the

Stratego is the most amazing board game and is really fun. The game is based on capture the flag. To play Stratego, each player gets 40 pieces: 33 mili-tary fighters, 6 bombs, and 1 flag. There are red and blue teams of pieces and you will have to de-cide which player wants what team. There are ranks on the bottom left

small pieces. I like this game because of how much fun that is in the game and how much adrenaline you have while playing this game. This game will teach you to use mathematics. I like this game because of the amount of strategy you put into it.

Game Review: Stratego

By Dallas Underwood

LEST Fun Facts

Compiled by Jessi Beyer

FHLS is one of 15 participat-ing schools, and one of 7 from

Oregon Forest Hills has one re-turning 2011 champion, the boys basketball team, as well as three returning 2011 blue ribbon per-formers, the choir team, and Sarah Sellke and

Ross Mackinnon on piano

The FHLS boys basketball team has won their division 5 times, and the girls

have won twice

94% of the FHLS eligible students are participating

in LEST!

“LEST is more FUN than a barrel of monkeys!”

- Mr. Hobus

“Something stu-dents remember for the rest of their lives.”

- Mr. Brown

The science team has placed in the top four in two years, 2008

and 2010

FHLS has 4 returning champions from previ-ous years: the science team, Jessi Beyer in math, David Gehlen in writing, and the boys basketball team

The board for Stratego, with all of the pieces

set up

ISSUE 3 Page 5

Chess, one of the events at LEST

There are only 64 days until the first day of LEST!

Page 6 FALCON FACTS

Editorial Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow! That’s kind of ironic, because one of Mrs. Foster’s fa-vorite Christmas songs is Let it Snow! Snow is a wonderful thing to have at Christmastime. It blan-kets the ground and seems to cushion every-thing, even sounds. That

whole peacefulness fac-tor is one of the things I love about Christmas! You always know the holiday season is here when you wake up in the morning to a fresh blanket of snow. And what better a gift than to be able to go sledding on Christmas day? Or have a snowball

fight behind snow forts you made yourself? I have to say, snow is one of my favorite things about Christmas. I know I’ll be praying for snow all through the holi-days...maybe it will even come early!

By Editor Jessi Beyer

Hopefully we’ll get some of this over Christmas break!

Survey What’s Your Favorite Christmas Song?

Compiled By Jessi Beyer

Have you ever been Christmas caroling? If you have, you know how many fun Christmas songs there are. But which one’s your favor-ite? The staff at Forest Hills were asked which Christmas carol was their favorite, and there were many different answers. In fact, two songs seemed to be very popular with FHLS’s adult population: O Holy Night and Silent Night. Joy to the World also had more than one vote, but the remainder of the songs, like the 12 Days of Christmas, Mary Did You Know, and Angels from the Realm of Glory, had only one vote. The graph to the left shows the amount of votes the top songs got. You never know...maybe your favorite Christmas song is on there!

When asked what their favorite Christmas carols were, many people had to take time to think, like Mrs. Hofrichter. Some also gave more than one an-swer because they could-n’t choose! Mr. Seim asked if he could have three, and Mrs. Foster says that her favorites are many. I know I can’t choose my favorite Christ-mas song, but can you? Submit your own favorite by emailing: falconfacts@gmail.com

* The other cate-gory, while the largest, had the most varied votes. No song in that category had more than one vote.