Each year a special week is designated for celebration of Lutheran schools. Each school plans special emphases and events to call attention to their uniqueness. Here is what happened at Forest Hills as recounted by Joy Gehlen, 1st grade teacher.
What a fun, exciting and busy week we’ve had at school! This year for our National Lutheran Schools Week experience, our students were grouped into “circle communities” spanning all grades. There were 12 of these communities and each day they gathered to celebrate our theme: discipleship. Each group was led by a 7th or 8th grade “elder” and consisted of 14 or 15 students.
Our days began gathered as a school community where we reviewed our theme, introduced new concepts, sang songs, and listened to “Acts of Leadership” stories. On Monday, the elders read the book Heartprints and the groups discussed what that meant and how they could leave heartprints on others. This was related to how the Holy Spirit works through us to show love to others and this begins with our thoughts. On Tuesday communities talked about how our actions leave heartprints on others. And on Wednesday the focus was on specific words and phrases we use to leave heartprints.
Each day’s meeting included an activity which culminated into a poster representing the community. Come see them hanging in the main hallway by our classroom! The week wrapped up with a whole-school worship celebration where we had time to share highlights from the week, sing together, and give thanks to God for our school.
I encourage you to talk with your children about what they’ve learned about heartprints and how they can continue to be a disciple by showing God’s love to others. It was a very special week.