Spring Trips Next Week!

Calvin Christian High School will be going on spring trips next week. Every other year the freshmen and sophomores travel to Arkansas and canoe down the Buffalo River, except this year plans have changed and they are going canoeing on the Upper Iowa River in Iowa instead. At this time the 11th and 12th graders fly to Washington, DC and explore the history and monuments of our nation’s capitol. These trips begin on April 28th and they will be arriving back in Minnesota on Saturday. Many students are very excited for spring trips, it will be a very fun and interesting experience!

State Fair: CCHS Spring Musical!

Most people love the Fair, with its smells, sights, sounds and food, especially the food. That is partly why the director of the spring play, Lydia Thoreen chose to do “State Fair.” She comments “I chose this because I love the state fair so much. My family and I would go to every single booth and walk around the state fair 10 times. I also enjoyed the fact that it has great music and an interesting storyline.”

The story begins at the Iowa State Fair, and follows the romances and adventures of the Frake family. The main characters include: Able, the father ( Nathan Mulder), Melissa, the mother ( Maddie Vande Kamp) Wayne, the son (Matt Silker), Margy, the daughter ( Abby Peterson) , Pat, Margy’s lover ( Jack Harrison) and Emily, Wayne’s lover ( Kellie Hedberg). So far the cast has been working with the dancing and singing pieces, pushing through the songs of the musical before moving to acting. The final performances are set to be performed the evenings of May 23 and 24th.

What can you hope to see during these performances? Lydia replies “I am looking forward to the dancing in this show, it is going to be fun and lively, but it is really hard to pick just one thing. A huge part of it is working with the students; it is my passion to work with  theater and to work with youth. Passing on my knowledge is something that I am looking forward to and also  making sure the audience is enjoying the production itself.” As the cast members continue to pour time and effort into this production, the audience can continue to hope and expect a great play.

- Gabe Modder

CCHS: International Student Program

Merging American and Chinese High School Students

This week Calvin Christian High School is hosting a group of twenty five international students from China for two weeks. Members of the journalism class interviewed a group of these students about their views of America, and how it differs from China. When asked about some differences between their schooling and ours, they replied that our classes are longer. Back in China classes are only forty five minutes and here they are an hour long.

Host families and some American food have been their favorite parts of being in America. They feel very welcomed here by everyone's openness and outgoing personalities. They also enjoy seeing the cultural differences and being able to experience some activities outside of school, including going to Bethel University on Monday April 14th for registration and to sit in on classes as well as attending a visit to the Minnesota Art Institute on April 8th. They also will get to to experience going to a Minnesota’s Twins game on Thursday April 18th, Overall, this new program has been beneficial to both the Calvin and International students.

- Angela Balboa and Connor Bartz

Early Release: CCHS Learns to Dance!

This month's early release day was very different from the others. After the last class of the day, students made their way to the gym for free dance lessons from Ms. Christian. Many of the students were hesitant to dance at first, but near the end the room was full of energy and confidence; that was the purpose of the dance lessons. CCHS's goals for these lessons were to give the students confidence during the night of prom, to learn a new dance style, and appreciate dance as a form of art. Now, most of the students know what to expect on the night of prom and prepared for the dances they learned. If any student should wish to continue these lessons there are extra lessons tonight and Thursday night!

- Johnny Erickson 

Spring Activities!

Spring has finally arrived after many months of snow, and the weather is cheerful and energizing, making an environment for fun activities. If adventure is what you’re looking for, taking a hike is a great activity for you, and it’s also great exercise! It can be just a simple walk in Minnehaha Park, or a climb up a waterfall in Cherokee Park. Another common, but fun and industrious activity is gardening. Planting gorgeous flowers or tasty vegetables in the sunshine is enough to brighten anyones day. Just taking a walk around the block admiring God’s beautiful creation beginning to flourish is a great after-school activity. Mollie Kelderman, a freshman, mentions some things she likes to do in the spring, “I like to go on the trampoline, zipline in my backyard, and take my dogs on walks.” Warm weather brings many fun activities, and joy as we watch the world wake again.

- Ava Krueger

Sophomore Physical Science Language Arts: Wind Turbine Unit

As the classes at CCHS move towards their final units of the year, the sophomore class has a big final project for the year. The physical science class, taught by Mr. Vande Glind, will be working on building wind turbines. Each student will be paired up, and will be given magnets and coil from Mr.V... that's it! The objective in doing this is to teach students the works of energy and how it moves from one place to another. Students will have to figure this out together. The journalism team will keep you posted on updates of their projects.

- Angela Balboa

If you don't know what a wind turbine is, you can go to this link to learn more:  http://energy.gov/eere/wind/how-do-wind-turbines-work

Dance Lessons at CCHS

Tomorrow, April 9th, free, yes you heard me free, dance lessons will be provided in the gym after school. Keep in mind that there is an early release tomorrow and if you expect to leave, fill out a signed by your parent permission form and bring it to the CCHS office in the morning. There is no registration needed for the dance lessons. Student Council's hopes with these lessons are to build community, to give confidence to the students when they show up for spring prom and don’t want to embarrass themselves dancing... and to have fun!

- Johnny Erickson