We are quickly approaching the end of the year, and graduation for our Class of 2018. We're asking our wonderful 8th grade students to reflect on their time at ILS, as well as share some of their future plans, as we continue our "Meet Us Monday" series with the members of our ILS Class of 2018. We hope you enjoy getting to better know our wonderful 8th graders, and we thank them for taking the time to respond and share more about themselves!
Meet Us Monday: Henry E., ILS Class of 2018
1. How long have you attended ILS? I’ve attended ILS for seven years, since 2nd grade.
2. To what house do you belong, and how have you developed as a person by being involved in it? I belong to the house Augustine. My personality has developed because I became more competitive and I want to win house competitions now. In previous years, we’ve gotten 2nd and 3rd place, but this year we want first. I’ve become more active in the houses because I have more responsibility now in the higher grades, such as making sure my house is running well and everyone is staying calm and not being crazy (I could name other houses but I won’t). You have to make sure your house is not too loud or too quiet because too much yelling makes it difficult to run smoothly, but if it’s too quiet they might not be motivated … everyone might be listening but you want to make them more engaged, to compete like it’s everything in the world to them.
3. What was your favorite House competition? Probably the Peeps Diorama. It’s very competitive but very friendly and supportive; houses even share supplies. The Peeps Diorama is when we take actually marshmallow Peeps and we put them into shoeboxes we decorate that represent something we’re learning about. My house did “Frankenpeep” because we were reading Frankenstein, and it was Frankenstein’s lair as he was making the monster. It tied for 1st place with House Ambrose’s “Rivendell” diorama in the Literature category.
4. What is your favorite ILS memory? (Or, which ILS tradition will you remember the most?) My favorite tradition is probably from 2nd grade when Ms. Kramer told us so many stories at lunchtime. The stories were about her childhood disasters, but when she ran out of those she made up a super long story about us called the Class of Awesome and in it all our names started with “B”, like “Benry” instead of “Henry”, because she always said it was just fiction. Basically, we were goofy super heroes, a mix of comedy and action, or “caction.” There was this evil kid named Brandon Barrington the 3rd who was trying to destroy the world, and we were the class of awesome so we had to stop him.
My favorite memory is when we wrote the Class of Awesome book when I was in 5th grade. We each were assigned a chapter of the book to write and it had to contain an illustration. I was the chief illustrator and had the final say on what illustrations went into the book. Everyone gave me their illustration drafts but I turned them into the final version.
5. Which event did you most look forward to during your 8th grade year? Adventure camp. It’s a fun time. We go to this camp in Hemlock Park, with a ropes course, kayaking, rafting, ziplines, team building exercises, getting people over the wall, playing tag in the woods. It’s really great.
6. What was your favorite class at ILS, and why? Art. It’s really fun and freely organized, so we can talk as we work. I love art; I like to doodle a lot, really a lot, and it helps me focus just on what I’m putting on the paper and not anything else. It’s stress relieving. We definitely do a lot of painting and sketching. Last year, we painted this picture of a sunset on water with rocks and a mountain. It was a long project and really fun to experiment with mixing colors, and it was fun to see how it turned out at the end.
7. What was your favorite ILS field trip? We took a trip to the zoo a few years ago when I was maybe in 3rd or 4th grade. We ate lunch on the front hill and got to roll down the entire hill and even teachers did it.
8. Where are you attending High School? I’ll be attending Bishop Ireton. I’m glad I’m attending it because it feels like a community, like ILS. The teachers know the students and the students know the teachers too. It feels more friendly and community minded than other schools I visited.
9. What will you miss the most about ILS? I’ll miss the community – everyone is very loving. People care about you here.
10. What is something a teacher told you that you will never forget? Pastor taught us some interesting things about saints. He also taught us that we don't have to do good works to get into heaven. We are already saved by grace. We just have to believe and do our best. If we fail sometimes, we can still go to heaven.