Legacy Christian Academy

Allowing and promoting opportunities for students to be creative is a focus at Legacy Christian Academy! In Ms. Bock’s fifth grade, the students had a great opportunity to partner with and teach Mrs. Anderson’s preschool students about construction zones and the importance of these areas. At the beginning of the week, fifth graders used slideshow presentations and posters to explain different aspects of a construction zone including: workers, tools, vehicles and equipment. The fifth graders and preschool students then created prototypes of the zones using materials from home, including paper tubes, paper towel tubes, boxes, cotton balls, tape, popsicle sticks, buttons, random art supplies, and more. Finally, the PreK classroom was turned into a construction zone for the prototypes to come to life.

The fifth grade students were able to use technology to create presentations that included math principles of costs, area and dimensions, and volume. They were also able to present to the preschool students and discover their love for public speaking and teaching. As demonstrated in the pictures attached, art was included in the design of posters and ultimately the construction zones themselves. Both Ms. Bock and Mrs. Anderson were filled with joy as they listened to students share ideas, collaborate together, and then come up with a plan and a solution to fulfill their plan. It is amazing what students come up with all on their own given basic household supplies!

As a fun bonus, Mr. Mulvihill and Kinghorn Construction allowed the students to wear hard hat construction helmets to encourage their creative spirits! Thank you to the parents and school friends who made this project possible.

First graders joined forces with preschoolers for a STEM Design Thinking project building gingerbread man traps! It was so fun to see the first graders in Ms. Kubly’s class be leaders and collaborate with Mrs. Klobe’s students, and to see the amazing ideas that they came up with together. They started by researching three different types of traps and then the PreK buddy picked a type of trap that they wanted to build to catch a gingerbread man. They worked with their first grade buddies to design their trap, draw a blueprint, and determine a materials list for building. First grade buddies collected materials from home and then we built! Following the design thinking process, each group built, tested, revised and retested their traps. Many had to adjust their original plan as they were building which was a great lesson in flexibility. In the end, most traps were successful in catching the elusive gingerbread man and those that weren’t were still a success because of all that was learned through the process. We love watching the wheels turning and the pure excitement as our students learn together and grow as innovators and creators! All in all the gingerbread trap project was a blast for all involved!

The National Honor Society (NHS) is the nation’s premier organization established to recognize outstanding high school students. More than just an honor roll, NHS serves to recognize those students who have demonstrated excellence in the areas of scholarship, service, leadership, and character.

On Friday, November 15th, Legacy affirmed 15 students (3 seniors and 12 juniors) as new members to the National Honor Society and recognized the ongoing accomplishments of an additional 9 seniors who were inducted last year.

Please help us in congratulating these exemplary students as new inductees:

Seniors C. Manske, J. Olson, & C. Sharp. Juniors E. Coolbroth, D. Cruz, A. Domeyer, T. Harrison, M. Johnson, M. Johnson, R. Juelich, H. Kendall, K. Sauve, A. Simpson, T. Steffen, P. Stromquist

They join the following seniors as National Honor Society Members: L. Block, K. Darling, J. Davie, A. Hamann, J. Kotelevskaya, M. Nelson, M. Posey, T. Schmidt, W. Schwalbe.

In addition, at the recommendation of this year’s Faculty Council, it was a tremendous privilege to recognize our own Mrs. Kowalchuk with an honorary NHS membership. The honorary membership recognizes the many ways that she, too, has demonstrated the NHS pillars of character, scholarship, leadership, and service to our school, our students, our families, and our community.

On Monday, August 19th, Legacy welcomed 567 students into the building to kickoff the 2019-2020 school year.

The high fives were flying, the music was pumping and the smiles were lighting up the halls! We could not be more excited to have our students back in the building!

From our youngest learners to those ready to launch, the end of the school year is all about celebrating our students!

PreK students celebrate their first year of learning in big ways.

(More videos on YouTube)

From student to alumni, we say “goodbye for now” to our Seniors as they take their final walk across the stage & turn the tassel.

A graduation program complete with Tributes to Parents, Tributes to Staff, Graduate Reflections, Faculty Challenge and Prayer of Blessing all preceded the Ceremony of the Tassel for these amazing LCA Class of 2019 graduates.

Senior Class Verse

“May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you the same attitude of mind toward each other that Christ Jesus had, so that with one mind and one voice you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Romans 15:5-6

Congratulations! (¡Felicidades!) to Legacy Spanish students attaining national recognition for excellent performance on the 2019 National Spanish Examination (NSE).

The National Spanish Exam is a voluntary assessment; only top students choose to take the challenging test. Therefore, the placement medals were earned in competition between the elite Spanish students in the United States!

The percentile scores below are not simply a number of questions correct, rather they are a ranking within all testers. Among that elite group, our 14 Legacy testers garnered these medals:

Silver medal – 85-95%
M. Demars, Level 2 (90%)

Bronze medals – 75-84%
L. Thomas, Level 2 (83%)
G. Weissman, Level 1 (80%)

Honorable Mention – 50-74%
A. Domeyer, Level 2
T. Harrison, Level 2
T. Price, Level 2
E. Schiebout, Level 2

Profe Oberg says to all testing students – “You dared greatly! You stepped into the arena! And YOU learned, you achieved, and I AM more than proud of you!”

Attaining a medal or honorable mention for any student on the NSE is very prestigious because the exams are the largest of their kind in the United States with 146,000 students participating in 2019.

“It is my privilege to teach students who love a challenge and to watch our students compete and excel among the elites of Spanish!” Profe Oberg

Our first grade classrooms were transformed into a makers space as the students completed the plans for their robot and then spent time creating!

First, the students planned their design. Their robot needed to solve a problem or help others. We learned in our reading stories that many inventors created new things (like the light bulb) because there was a problem (the gas in the lights were causing homes to burn down). So, the students made a plan for their robot’s job and gave a description. We practiced writing helpful adjectives to describe their robots.

Next, the students used their plans to create their robot. We stayed busy for a long time! We learned some hard lessons – our ideas may not always go as we planned. Failure isn’t fun, but it sure is a good learning experience! When this happened, I saw students help others, give ideas, and work together. During work time, this was overheard:

“Inventing is hard — and FUN!”
“Woohoo!”
“This is really fun!”
“Everything is awesome!”
“Holy moly – that’s big!”
“Look at ____’s robot! Cool!”
“This is the BEST day of school!”

Legacy is proud to share that teachers Mrs. Henderson (3rd grade) and Mrs. Oberg (Spanish) were selected to receive the Heart of the Class honor through 98.5 KTIS.

Listeners were encouraged to nominate an educator who made a difference in their own life or someone they knew. The submissions were then evaluated by The University of Northwestern School of Education based on supporting evidence cited by the person submitting the nomination. The 50 teachers who were chosen for the award demonstrated the ability to go significantly above and beyond in a) helping students come to know God’s love, mercy, and strength and b) helping students become their best.

In recognition of this honor, Mrs. Henderson and Mrs. Oberg have been invited to a private event hosted at University of Northwestern by Thrivent Financial this month.

Please join us in congratulating both of these amazing teachers for being lights in the lives of Legacy students!

On Monday, March 25th & Wednesday, March 27th our 6th grade scholars had the tremendous opportunity to be involved in our fifth School-to-Work Connection with Pizza Ranch of Andover. This partnership involves learning about how to bring glory to God through running a business and all the proper steps in the job application process.

Back in February, students began working with Mrs. Lunderby, LCA Guidance Counselor, to build their own resume using Naviance software. They then heard from Mr. Randall Hubin, owner of multiple Pizza Ranch franchises, on how to be an Entrepreneur. They then completed the Pizza Ranch online application and submitted a letter of recommendation. This led to the next logical step…the interview! Students dressed professionally and sat with one of four managers to practice interview skills and interpersonal communication.

Finally, they received the job offer and on-the-job training! From 10am-2pm, while the restaurant was open to the public, students gained valuable hands-on work experience!

Legacy students C. Block, H. Montenegro, and B. Murdoff received Honorable Mention Awards for their Magnetic Flexible Building project in the Toshiba/NSTA ExploraVision National Competition. This award places our student project among the top 10% of all projects submitted. In addition, over 400,000 students were a part of the competition. This means, at minimum, 100,000 teams entered a project. Our students were one of about 500 teams to earn an Honorable Mention and the ONLY MN Middle School team to compete!

We are so proud of how hard our students worked!