2020 CCLE Penmanship/Calligraphy Winners Announced

A number of ILS students competed in this year’s Consortium for Classical Lutheran Education (CCLE) Penmanship/Calligraphy contests.

The CCLE penmanship competition was open to students of CCLE-accredited schools and classical Lutheran homeschools. Younger students (ages 4 to 9) were eligible to participate in either the Print or Cursive Categories, writing out Ephesians 1:3 on lined paper. Students ages 10 through 18 were eligible to participate in the Calligraphy Categories, which included both lettering only and illuminated.

Manuscript and Cursive entries were evaluated based on legibility, neatness, shape/slant/connections, spacing, and size. The Calligraphy entries were evaluated on legibility of lettering style & neatness, consistency of letter formations, spacing & size, aesthetic appearance, and creativity of illumination.

Congratulations to the following ILS students for their recognition in this year’s contest!

Print Ages 4-5 Category:

Grand Prize: Landon A.
Runner-Up: Catherine H.

Print Ages 6-7 Category:

Grand Prize: Claudia D.
Runner-Up: Joelene R.

Cursive Ages 8-9 Category:

Runner-Up: Riette R.

Calligraphy Black Lettering Category:

Grand Prize: Erika A.
Runner-Up: Ingrid A.

Calligraphy Illuminated Category:

Grand Prize: Evangeline H.
Runner-Up: Charlotte H.

Science Portfolio Project: The Power of Intention through Words on Plant Growth

Portfolios are projects ILS students complete to showcase their learning. Students in the 7th and 8th grades complete one portfolio project each year. Beginning in the fall and extending through the academic year, students work through a nine-step process to reach their final result. Working individually with a single faculty member, students first must have their proposals approved, then develop a thesis statement and source list. Students spend much of the year in reading, studying, experimenting, and taking robust notes on their given topic. Faculty review and approve initial outlines, then students begin writing the first of three drafts. Their final products are diverse reflections of student personalities, interests, family backgrounds, and aptitudes.

Immanuel's faculty note that not all learning is best represented or imagined via written papers. However, the rigorous and creative process of working on a major project to completion guides students to value excellence and produce their best academic work. This honors the intellect and abilities of the individual student, pushing all to learn and grow, believing all are capable of such in depth work. While no student projects are ever perfect in the end, we celebrate each student's sense of wonder and delight, demonstrated through their dedicated efforts throughout the course of the year.

What We're Reading - June 2020

We have reached the end of the 2019-2020 school year! Though our year ended much differently than we had anticipated when we started out back in September, we remain so grateful for this special ILS community. We give thanks for the relationships and partnerships we have with our families and for the countless ways you have worked together with teachers and staff to support your children over these last months of the year.

We are grateful for the ways that our Immanuel community came together to support one another as we navigated this new path and figured out new rhythms and routines for our families. From Zoom class parent chats, Zoom class lunches, Facebook Live events for our Science Fair and Oration Showcases, to our online virtual Auction event, we have loved the creative and fun ways that we have been able to connect and engage as a community even while physically distant.

As we head into the summer months, which we hope will be restful and a time of intentional leisure for our students and our families, we have our June edition of "What we're reading..." We hope that these articles will continue our ongoing conversation about how we shape our culture together at home and at school.

Thank you for your continued partnership, and for engaging with us in these ongoing conversations and for sharing items you have read that may be inspiring to others in our ILS community! Please feel free to share a link in the comments to email us any time!

ILS 2020 Closing Vespers Sermon

Pentecost Vespers
Pastor Christopher Esget
Thursday after Pentecost
John 14:15-31
June 4, 2014

“Rise, let us go from here.” It’s a strange spot to end a Bible reading. But there it is. Jesus says, “Rise, let us go from here.” Go where? He is going toward His cross. Jesus is determined to obey the will of the Father.

Now we go away from school for the summer. Some, including our eighth graders, are going away for good - at least going away from school.

But wherever you go, you will be confronted by the Zeitgeist - the Age-Spirit. This age is an age of outrage. If you get swept up in this spirit, it will destroy you. The Age-Spirit is a hurricane, blowing down everything in its path.

Jesus promises a different Spirit: The Helper, the Holy Spirit. Earlier in John 14 He calls this Spirit the Spirit of Truth.

Comp. of the Week: June 1-5 (Last week of school!) Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741) The Four Seasons, "Summer" - 1. Allegro non molto

It’s ILS tradition to feature Vivaldi’s “Summer” for the last week of school. The summer solstice, the official start of the summer season, is on Saturday, June 20, 2020. Vivaldi describes summer this way:

Beneath the blazing sun's relentless heat
men and flocks are sweltering,
pines are scorched.
We hear the cuckoo's voice; then sweet songs of the turtle dove and finch are heard.
Soft breezes stir the air….but threatening north wind sweeps them suddenly aside. The shepherd trembles, fearful of violent storm and what may lie ahead.

Hymn of the Week: June 1-5 (Last week of school!) LSB 498: Come, Holy Ghost, Creator Blest

After 50 days of celebration, the official Church Year celebration of Eastertide is now concluding with Pentecost, the festival we celebrated on Sunday. On Pentecost, so-called because it is the 50th day of Easter and “pente” means “five” in Greek, the Holy Spirit came upon the disciples, appearing as tongues of fire over their heads. In “Come, Holy Ghost, Creator Blest”, then, we are singing about the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity, and asking for his “grace and heav’nly aid”.

2020 Upper School Oration Showcase

CONGRATULATIONS to our ILS Upper School students on the successful completion on another year of orations. This year has been different in many ways, and students carefully memorized and prepared orations from their own homes instead of in-person in class. We are so proud of the work of each and every one of our students. The orations showed dignity, composure, and enthusiasm. We wish each of our students could hear the round of applause deserved for these orations.

The top two orations from each class, 5th-8th grades, were entered into the final showcase. It was an intense competition, and we congratulate 8th grader Aria on winning 1st place in the 2020 Oration Showcase! 2nd place was a tie between 8th grader Tyler Reese and 6th grader Emelyn.

Please enjoy Aria’s oration, along with some of the other final pieces included in our showcase this year. Congratulations again to every student for their outstanding work!

The Oration Showcase 2020 participants included:

5th Grade: Brandon, Grace

6th Grade: Emelyn, George

7th Grade: Rory, Hubbard

8th Grade: Tyler Reese, Aria, Margaret

Comp. of the Week: May 25-29 Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971) Concerto in D Major - 2. Arioso

Igor Stravinsky was a Romantic composer and a Modern Day composer, but we put him mostly in the Modern Day category: Modern music! The greats include Stravinsky, Aaron Copland, Prokofiev, and Britain’s favorite Benji. What’s that noise?! It’s sometimes rather strange when atonality pervades most every range. Ohhhh, this is the musical timeline! It starts with the Early Age. Then it’s Renaissance, Baroque, and Classical, Romantic, and not to forget the Modern Day!

Stravinsky composed his Concerto in D Major, including the second movement called “Arioso”, in 1947 when he was asked by a European chamber orchestra to compose a piece to celebrate their 20th anniversary. An arioso is usually a song in an opera; it’s similar to an aria but less formal. In this piece, though, Stravinsky composes it for strings. The lyrical melody rises and falls and stretches at times.

Hymn of the Week: May 25-29 LSB 493: A Hymn of Glory Let Us Sing

Which season of the Church Year are we still in? Easter! That’s right, we are still celebrating our Lord’s resurrection, but we are adding to that the remembrance and celebration of Christ’s ascension into heaven. Remember our hymn from last week: “See, the Lord Ascends in Triumph”? That hymn told the story of the ascension on the 40th day of the Easter season. This week, we are still celebrating with the hymn “A Hymn of Glory Let Us Sing”.

Notice the “Easter A word” repeated over and over again in this hymn. “Alleluia” means “praise the Lord”. We are declaring this over and over again because Christ has conquered death and has ascended to sit at the right hand of the Father. Can you count how many times we sing “Alleluia” in each stanza?

Comp. of the Week: May 18-22 Franz Joseph Haydn (1732-1809) Symphony No. 87 in A Major - 4. Finale: Vivace

Haydn’s fourth and final movement of his Symphony No. 87 is fast and lively, hence the name “Vivace”. Haydn composed this piece for the full orchestra. At first, he uses the strings to play the main theme, a cheerful, easy-to-remember melody. Later in the piece, he uses wind instruments to play the bouncy tune. Then, he brings it back to the strings but changes the melody to minor, giving the tune a darker color.