ANGELS WITHOUT WINGS

There are angels in the building, of that I’m sure.  Intervention from heaven’s helpful unseen angels is something for which we are humbled and thankful.  But here at Penn View we've got a vast collection of the wingless angel variety as well.

Our angels can be found laminating and making photocopies.  

They are sometimes standing on precarious chairs while stapling colorful construction paper to hallway bulletin boards. 

Library books are checked out for students by these wonderful helpers.  


















Others offer their services to make health screenings in the nurse’s office go quickly.

Some of these assistants manage the annual comb supply, straightening wayward strands of unruly student hair in the minutes before annual cheesy grins are flashed for the school photographer.  

I occasionally pass angels in the drafty elementary school hallway.  They are perched on painfully miniature student chairs but seem undaunted by the temperature and the chairs as they patiently turn pages and offer loving encouragement to our smallest readers. 

Tireless angels don aprons and hats, serve funnel cakes, cut strawberries, and organize games for children.  A team of angels works all year long to prepare for the annual Country Fair and Auction.

Ryan's mother, volunteering during kindergarten art class 

Those with the capacity to tune out earsplitting enthusiasm might be found in the cafeteria midday helping to corral feasting students during lunchtime.  Some might wish for earplugs as the lunchtime chatter volume can be a bit overstimulating! 


Fine motor skills are required of these angels as they spend a lot of time freeing apple wedges and saltine crackers from their zealously-sealed protective wrappers.  Our angels are splashed almost continually by juice boxes, long tubes of yogurt, and frustratingly difficult containers of mandarin oranges.  It’s amazing how far those sneaky packaged foods manage to spit at the person trying oh-so-carefully to open them.

Not all of our wingless angels are seen. Many are behind the scenes, giving precious hours of their time for planning, cutting, assembling, and praying. 

Penn View’s parent and grandparent volunteers are a most wonderful and appreciated category of angel.  We sure love having them as part of our school community.  

LET'S TALK TURKEY

Traditions are plentiful during the holiday season.  A favorite way to launch myself into Thanksgiving each year is to take a stroll down the fourth grade hallway.

When you think Thanksgiving turkey, you undoubtedly think Butterball or maybe your mind goes to our local Bolton Turkey Farm.  But having a vegetarian daughter (who believes with her whole heart that Tofurky is an adequate substitute for the anchoring entrée of most Thanksgiving meals) has pretty much ruined me for roasting pans and cornbread stuffing.  So it’s a really good thing I’ve got some other turkeys to enthusiastically enjoy. 

For as long as I can remember, there has been an extraordinary turkey decorating contest in the fourth grade.  The Statue of Liberty and the Phillies Phanatic are both memorable past entries. We can even boast that George Washington (at least a rough bird depiction of him) once slept here.

My son is now a grown man.  When he was a Penn View student he chose to dress his cardboard turkey in the garb of a pilgrim.  I’m not convinced classic black and white puritan apparel is an accurate historical reflection of pilgrim, but Isaac’s turkey was all that.  The details are a bit sketchy after eighteen years but I’m certain there were tinfoil shoe buckles involved. 

Eight years later, my daughter's turkey bore the uniform of a cafeteria lady, its craft store feathers attractively mingling with a turkey-sized green Penn View apron.  I wish I still had a photo. In fact now that I think about it, I lost a nice miniature wooden spoon to that school project....

Regarding present-day turkeys…
the entries this year did not disappoint!

Clowns, mummies and pop stars, OH MY!

As you can see above, a diva resplendent in her feather boa was looking elegant despite being tacked to a festive bulletin board.  Her red-haired friend next-door was lovely.  

Soccer players, butchers, superheroes, and lambs were affixed side-by-side, jump-starting holiday spirits for passersby in the elementary hallway.  

An interesting twist this year included a number of turkeys doubling as hunters. Some of their cardboard bodies were bedecked in camouflage, their feathered fingers carrying archery supplies and in the case of one pilgrim portrayal- musket armament.  How the tables have turned (pun intended) - Feathers on the hunting end of the equation! Perhaps our young turkey designers were hoping to give Thanksgiving turkeys a fighting chance…. 

Being quite fond of nature the way God so amazingly shaped it, I’m always a little partial to the entries which still bear some resemblance to fowl. Feathers are good and this soccer player needs a shave.

I enjoy them all, so thankfully I am not part of the judging panel. 





I have a rather sentimental attachment to Waldo (of Where's Waldo fame) but the tacky tourist is my personal favorite this year.

Holiday fun, creativity, and a little friendly competition.  

Just three of the innumerable things for which we at Penn View are incredibly thankful. 

Some of Mrs. Roth's turkey designers hamming it up for the camera.

NOT JUST A ROCK

SCIENCE ROCKS!  This is never truer than during the first five minutes of Mrs. Reichley’s fifth period class on a Friday morning.

Mineral identification has a long and wonderful history at Penn View Christian School.  I think fondly (while wincing a bit) when I recall the days our now-retired and beloved middle school science teacher Mr. A directed his students in rock-licking as part of the mineral identification process. Though we can all appreciate the advantages of lifelong recall from recognizing the flavor of salt in a lump of halite, you’ll be relieved to know that in the interest of health over science (and because Harry hated to see me cry) this practice was discontinued.

But our teachers are still sneaky, finding ways to encourage minds and stretch imaginations.  I paid a little visit to a middle school science classroom one day last week.  To say Mrs. Reichley’s seventh grade honors class was enthusiastic to start their weekly tradition of mineral identification would be an extreme understatement.  In fact, before the bell rang, there was one boy standing with the chattering assembly of students around Mrs. Reichley and her little striped box who didn't even BELONG in that class! (She spotted him and shooed him out lickety-split.)  

In preparation for the MINERAL OF THE WEEK, Mrs. Reichley gives her class one fact each school day about the mystery rock which will be featured on Friday. Facts taught include things like the rock's assigned mineral grouping, characteristics, and designated rating on Mohs scale of mineral hardness. Because the students are practically falling over themselves to have a shot at answering the questions, this process necessitates the pulling of a number from a box. How naïve was I, assuming this number-pulling sort of excitement was reserved for things like Christmas Pollyanna gift exchanges and cellophane-wrapped raffle baskets….

Miguel was effectively disqualified from the competition because he is so mineral-wise and number-lucky, he’s already won specimens TWICE during the first quarter of the year. 

Providential number twelve belonged this particular week to Elizabeth.  The drawing of #12 gave her exclusive dibs on answering each of the teacher’s questions from the facts shared earlier in the week.  Elizabeth's efforts were practically Herculean.  Her answers were swift and sure, those smooth mineral facts rolling off her tongue like Shakespeare’s Hamlet, winning her the coveted mineral of the week.  The little nugget selected for identification this particular Friday was a silicate called tree agate (known by lesser scholars like the school nurse as a“little green rock.”)

Elizabeth joins Miguel in the elite club of students excelling not once, but twice at mineral identification; winning pocket-sized samples of sought-after inorganic material.  

A suitable science trophy, indeed. 

Miguel and Elizabeth smiling for the camera. The rock in the photo is NOT ACTUAL SIZE for the Mineral of the
Week but rather a lovely random rock I fortuitously discovered in Mrs. Reichley's science room.  Makes a nice prop, right?