Congratulations CHORUS!

On Friday May 20, 2011 the Garrison Forest Middle School Chorus went to a competition at Hershey Park. (To read more about our trip, read Sophie’s blog from last week). Our group of 39 students had been preparing for months, and when the day arrived we were all very nervous. We left school at 8:00 am so that we could arrive in time to sing our songs at Hershey. 

The selections we sang that day included When I Close My Eyes, our warm-up song, and our two judged ieces, Round Rolling Moon and Dirait-on. Dirait-on was a very hard piece to learn because it is listed as a High School choir piece in the state of Maryland. We sang these selections in a church that was just a couple miles from Hershey, so after we had sung we left for the park. 

"Round Rolling Moon" ; Music in Our Parks Competition in Hershey, PA. 5.20.11

"Dairot-an"; Music in Our Parks Competition in Hershey, PA. 5.20.11

Our Choral Director, Mrs. Flynn, was telling us how great we did on the ride from the Church to Hershey. In the past she has be a choral judge and she told us that if she had been judge us she would have given us superior. At first we didn’t believe her. We thought she was just saying that because she was our director, but little did we know that she was telling the truth.

 

After we sang and realized we had done our best, we were excited to be able to enjoy hours of fun in Hershey Park. We split up into groups and got to walk around the park by ourselves. We got to do many fun things including rides, rollercoasters, and 4-D movies. We also got to stock up on Candy and Goodies when some of the chorus got to go on a trip to Hershey World.

After all of the fun was over it was time to head to the Hershey arena for the awards ceremony. When we heard that the women’s choir awards were going to be announced we became quite eager. After we didn’t win second place in the women’s division we thought we had no chance. Then they announced the 1^st place women’s choir and the school that won was us! We were overjoyed and very excited. 


We were glad we had won after all. We thought we were very lucky to win that award but the really prize came when the Garrison Forest Middle School Choir won best overall chorus including women, men’s, mixed, and treble choirs. 

On the bus ride back we were all very proud but the person who we owe it all to is our director, Mrs. Flynn. We would’ve never come this far with this much confidence without her. At the end of the day we were proud to be representing Garrison Forest School and hope we can do this well in years to come!

-- Text by Emily Oleisky (Class of 2016); Videos and photos courtesy of Mrs. Mary Stewart and Mrs. Rachel Herlein

MINIMESTER - The Best Part of JANUARY!!!

Every year at Garrison Forest we have a week called Minimester. During Minimester we choose two non-academic classes from a catalog. Some of the choices we have are Paws and Claws, Collections and Collectors, Finding and Nurturing your Inner Self, So You Think You Can Dance: Click HERE for more information about the courses offered. Normally, we have Minimester in January after our first semester. Minimester gives us a chance to learn new and exciting things that we wouldn’t learn during the regular academic school day. 

Collections and Collectors

 The classes I chose to take during Minimester were Finding and Nurturing your Inner Self with Mrs. Rao and Mrs. Chrobocinski and Collections and Collectors with Mr. Beretta. Both of the classes I took were very fun. Finding and Nurturing your Inner Self was very relaxing. We learned relaxtion techniques and we also learned a lot of other cool things such what your dreams mean. We also watched movies and made pictures frames using images and words from magazines that described us. 

Collections and Collectors was about people who have there own art collections. It was also a lot about art. Everyday we took a field trip to people's houses that had their very own collection. The things that they collected were very cool. My favorite trip that we took was to a lady’s house who had a daughter that went to Garrison. She collected famous artwork and the artwork was amazing. I learned about  a lot of artists while taking that course. 

If I had to choose my favorite class that I took during minimester I couldn’t because they were both very fun!

-- text by Ashlei C.