WW2 Unit/capts. (2)

Omaha Christian Academy

http:/ www.omahachristianacademy.org/ admissions.php#vta:video

Omaha Christian Academy, originally called Temple Christian Academy, was founded in 1972 by Temple Baptist Church, located at 2702 N. 61st Street in the Benson area of Omaha. That first year, the school served 30 elementary students with a faculty of four teachers, covering Kindergarten through fifth grade. Pastor T. Reynolds Hall was the first principal. The next year, sixth and seventh grades were added and enrollment tripled to 90. By 1977, construction had begun on a new facility at 8345 Crown Point with plans to include a gym and secondary classrooms. The construction was never completed, but enrollment continued to climb. In 1978 there were 178 students, and the first senior was graduating from Temple Christian Academy. In 1980 the school was scaled back to grades K-8. Five years later, with enrollment at 128, a ninth grade was added. Once again, the secondary school began to grow.

Each year, in early November, Omaha Christian Academy hosts a “Creating Futures Scholarship Dinner”. The purpose of this event is to raise funds for need-based scholarships and to honor a member of our community for their exemplary community service. Thursday, November 6, 2014 was the 5th anniversary of this event. This year, we were blessed to have Dr. Ben Carson as our keynote speaker.

Benjamin Solomon "Ben" Carson, Sr., is a columnist and retired American neurosurgeon. He is credited with being the first surgeon to successfully separate conjoined twins joined at the head. In 2008, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President George W. Bush. After delivering a widely publicized speech at the 2013 National Prayer Breakfast, he became a popular figure in conservative media for his views on social issues and the federal government. Dr. Carson delivered his popular speech entitled, “America the Beautiful: Rediscovering What Made This Nation Great.”

We were also honored to have Dr. James and Nancy Armitage serve as this year’s Honorary Dinner Chairs. Dr. Armitage is internationally renowned for his expertise in bone marrow transplantation. He is also a leading expert in the management of lymphoma worldwide. Dr. James and Nancy Armitage are being honored for not only their leadership to the Omaha community, but also their contributions to research and training in the medical profession. Dr. Michael Longley served as our Master of Ceremonies. Dr. Longley is a fellowship trained and board certified orthopedic spine surgeon at Nebraska Spine Hospital and a faithful supporter of Christian Education.

Every year the whole school is invited out to “Grandpa’s Farm”. Mr. Bob Sweeny owns a farm in Blair, NE. and we join with others for an evening of food, fellowship and fun at the start of the school year. We enjoy games, making old time crafts and eating kettle corn popped the old fashion way. The kids take hayrack rides and learn how to drive a tracker. The picture to the right is of our schools assistant principal, Amy Nylin, and her nephew testing out the trackers getting ready for harvest.

In 1988, Temple Baptist turned administration of the school over to a parent-led organization. The name was changed to Omaha Christian Academy, and the school began to look for a home of its own. In 1991, the interdenominational school moved into the General Motors (GM) training facility at 80th and Dodge.

Parents, teachers, students and staff went to heroic lengths to convert the GM facility (with paint bays and engine hoists) into a school building. Enrollment continued to climb and was soon at 220 students. During the next few years, OCA received Nebraska and ACSI accreditations, added a day care, and began graduating seniors again. By Spring of 1997, enrollment was 265 and classroom space was getting tight. In August, OCA celebrated its 25th year by moving into a "real" school building at 78th and Western. This facility included a gym, a football field, and an actual band room with space to grow. Twenty-eight teachers and nine staff members provided a quality learning environment for our students. The school grew to over 370 students! Westside's school district did some restructuring and OCA had to vacate their facility by June 1st, 2005. Where did OCA's 340 students go? In answer to prayer, sections of the former Ryan High School would be leased from Liberty Christian Center. Renovations were made and the move completed in time to begin classes on August 17, 2005. Enrollment numbers began to decline during the stay at this location.

Following a $1.7 million capital campaign, property and buildings were prepared creating OCA first permanent home in nearly forty years. Classes began in the new location at 10244 Wiesman Drive on August 18, 2009 with an enrollment of 266 students. This enrollment was an 8% increase over the previous year. Future plans include building a gymnasium and sports complex.

Our High school Choir and ensemble are well known for their contributions of time and singing to local nursing homes and other small schools in Omaha and the surrounding areas. This past school year they were asked to sing the National Anthem for a Lancers game. They did great. They take two trips every year to sing and volunteer their time and efforts to help others. They when to Trinidad last year to help build a school. They also traveled to New York to sing in competitions at Carnegie Hall and to visit a sister church there in the area to sing on that Sunday.

At the start of this school year we were in preparations for building on to our school with a gymnasium and theater.

We had a ground breaking ceremony with the Mayor and seven other representatives of the city. School was dismissed early so everyone could come and see the first holes dug for our new facility. Now half the parking lot is full of big truck sand lots of lumber. We anticipate this project will be done in the summer of 2015.

Our Drama Department performs two shows a year, one being the One Act which they take to competition in another school district, and the other being the Melodrama or the Spring Play. I was the Drama teacher up until this year when I went down to part time. The years that they do the Melodrama is the best years. The Ensemble and the Drama kids collaborate to create the ultimate “Hoedown”. We eat pulled pork right off the wagon and throw popcorn at the villain. Some of my best memories of the High School students is from this play.

Grandpa’s Farm making hand spun rope.

Our Jr. High students love spirit week right before Homecoming.

Each day is a new character for them. The schools Jr. High students total 42 which is the best we have had in a long time. We added another English teacher last year to help split the class scheduling for the other teachers. Here you can see they really got into the whole “Hippy” day theme.

Me with the cast of “A Snake in the Grass” Melodrama.

Omaha Christian Academy, Jenna Rice

Now that you know a little about the school as a whole, here is the front of our little preschool where both my older children have attended, and than gone through the ranks to 5th and 2nd grade. I have been here for four years and love being the Library Media Specialist. My teaching certification is for Kindergarten through 6th grade. I have taught 6th-8th grade English and Literature in past schools. This school is a Christian non-denominational school for Preschool through 12th grade. The class that I worked with was the 5th grade.

The 5th grade class has Mrs. Saiz this year. She has been with OCA for 13 years.

She has her B.S. in Education with a M.S. in Sign Language. She actually has had a few hearing impaired students and this has been very helpful.

Every year Mrs. Saiz starts off reading with her class the novel Number the Stars

by Lois Lowry. This book and one other are her prequel to WW2 and discussion about Hitler and Jewish Religion.

Though events of Number the Stars are based in actual historical fact, the specific story is Lowry's own mixture of fiction, oral histories, and research. The novel takes place in Denmark in 1943, three years after the Germans invaded Denmark. King Christian X was the Danish king from 1912 to 1947. He had a cold and indifferent attitude towards the Nazis and was unwilling to recognize their public presence. The King's attitude the attitude of the Danish people toward their invaders. One of the unique aspects of the German occupation of Denmark was that the monarchy was left intact. Other concessions were also made to the Danes, largely because they provided food and transportation for Hitler's army. However, these concessions did not erase the offense of the occupation, and a resistance movement gathered force in 1942 and was mobilized in 1943. The greatest accomplishment of the Danish Resistance was the mass rescue of Danish Jews in October of 1943.

During the students time in the library, through instructions for goals to meet, they were given a “KWL� chart to fill out with me as I asked them questions about what they already knew based on their literature circles in the classroom. I offered them 20 or so library books to peruse in search of information on weapons used, the lives of the families with people serving in the military, and information on Hitler and his agenda. Some of the State and District standards that we based our objectives on were; SS 5.4.5 Students will develop historical research skills.

SS 5.4.4.a Analyze sources on Early American History through determination of credibility, contextualization, and corroboration.

SS 5.4.3 Students will describe and explain multiple perspectives of historical events.

I was able to create an environment of capable instruction based centers. I divided them up into smaller groups for diverse learners and they rotated between searching the books, discussing, and using a computer to research information. We also came back together as a class to finish the “KWL� chart, making the stresses of not all finding the same answer ok, with discussion and collaboration.

As stated earlier, for informational and instructional resources, I grabbed 20 or so books dealing with events around and with WW2. I had them take turns looking at them and asking questions about what they would like to jot down on their charts for home front and Hitler.

They also used this website, http:// www.bbc.co.uk/schools/primaryhistory/ world_war2, to let them research further with games, pictures, and reading excerpts.

https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=lIcBPoD42OA

I was able to meet with and collaborate with Mrs. Saiz a few times, including sitting down in her classroom to talk about objectives and how she would like to see the class accomplish some of them. Mrs. Saiz also met with me in the library to view progress on my written ideas and talk about other options. We are very good friends so sometimes I had to remember to limit my school talk to just the times that we set aside to discuss things. We eat lunch together and see each other outside of school so even the smallest ideas were easy to pass by her.

Some of the other objectives that Mrs. Saiz and I discussed were: The student should be able to: Recognize and understand the courage and heroism of the Danish and Swedish people and all others who resisted the Nazis.

Realize that each of us has the capacity to do good as well as evil.

Analyze and understand the reasons and motivations that caused certain people to take a stand.

Recognize his or her own ability to work for justice and

make a difference in one's own society and culture.

Based on the AASL Standards, a few can be specific for this lesson; Demonstrate mastery of technology tools for accessing information and pursuing inquiry (1.1.8).

Demonstrate creativity by using multiple resources and formats (1.2.3).

Use technology and other information tools to analyze and organize information (2.1.4).

Connect understanding to the real world (2.3.1).

Recognize new knowledge and understanding (2.4.3).

Some of the processes we used were discussion, like; − What is a war front? − What is a home front?

As one of the informal assessments, I had them work on a Timeline: add dates for the home front.

Again, ask students to choose dates or illustrations to place on the line.

For a more formal assessment, I had students pull together the information they gathered about children living in a home front and what they looked like and did. They put together a costume of their choosing and wrote an oral report about the person they were. They were to come up with a made-up name and family and then tell the class who they were about their family and how they helped during this war time. Every student was to choose a different child occupation.

My hopes were that they would somehow relate to the WW2 child's life and times and how hard it was for them.

The unit, as a whole, saw students study the World War II home front. After an introduction to the origins of the war, they study the effects of the war on the U.S. economy; citizen participation in the war effort through saving, rationing, and resource drives; the fear of invasion or air attack on the mainland; and the imprisonment of Japanese citizens in internment camps. Many excellent primary sources related to these topics are available online, including oral histories.

The lesson in the library went very well. I visited on a few occasions in the classroom when they were reading and presenting and they all came away having learned the difficulties of war and what really happened when Hitler wanted to rule. Their costumes were great and their oral presentation came out wonderful. They all were able to make up a character to play for their role and they stuck to it. Mrs. Saiz and I have agreed that we will do this again next year and try to make this an annual thing. She liked my involvement with this unit and wants me to help with more lessons in the future.

http://www.youtube.com/watch? v=kgnt2dPs6NE

Citations for Electronic Images

Library Pictures Jenna Rice (Teacher/Librarian). (2014). WW2 Unit [Online magazine Issuu Final Project], Retrieved September, 2014

Omaha Christian Academy Pictures Donna Blum (Administer of Advertisement). (2014) Title: Various [Facebook page for parents and teachers], Retrieved November, 2014, https://www.facebook.com/ OmahaChristianAcademy

Picture of little girls Carrot stick treats [Photograph], (1939). Retrieved November, 2014, http:// downloads.bbc.co.uk/rmhttp/schools/primaryhistory/images/world_war2/ children_at_war/ww2_3_children_carrot_sticks.jpg