News

The Band, Some Buckets, And Lots Of Beats!

If you passed the Band room last week and thought you heard what sounded like someone banging on an empty bucket, you wouldn’t have been wrong!

The band is currently studying a unit where band instructor Mike Doll is teaching them the art of bucket drumming.

“We had to learn the basics of bucket drumming: how to hold the sticks, which parts of the buckets make different sounds, what sounds good/bad, etc.," explains Doll. "Once we had the basics, we played along with several songs on our buckets. We were able to use our music reading skills and put those together by playing cool grooves on the buckets.” 

As a final project for the nine week unit, each student will pick their favorite song from Christian radio and write a bucket drumming part to play along with the music. Students must write their part out in musical notation, create the music on the computer, and teach it to the class. 

The band will be performing a bucket drumming cover to MercyMe’s song “Happy Dance” for the Fine Arts Coffeehouse on Thursday, October 28 so make sure to come out and support both the band and choir!

Physical Education In The New SLC!

Going to the Student Life Center for PE is unlike anything our lower school students have experienced. 4th graders Caroline Bennett, Brie Williams, and Amelia Hoffman raved about the new gym in the SLC. They went on and on describing how big everything is and how PCA is stamped over everything. "There's like a million basketball hoops!" Caroline's excitement is evident through her overestimation.

Now that our PE department has access to a full gym, they are no longer having classes next door to the noisy lunchroom. We have the ability to have two PE classes going on at the same time, with the installation of a large curtain that comes down in the middle of the new gym. Even with the curtain down there is still a large enough space for two volleyball nets to be up or two basketball games to go on at the same time.

Coach Shelly Kaiser remarked, "The space is amazing. With the new gym we have more options and we are less likely to have injuries. It's opening up the possibilities of more units and growth in the PE department." Some of the future possibilities of PE include units on tennis, badminton, pickleball, and the hope of having a future archery team for PCA. All of our lower school teachers, coaches, and students are thankful to the Lord for the positive impact that the new gym in the SLC has had on their PE classes.