Student Life
Student Council
The Student Council is made up of students from the third through eighth grades. These students are elected by their classmates. This is a wonderful way for students to learn about government and responsibility, and also provide a voice in various matters.
Sports
Flag football, and volleyball are available for students in Grades 5-7. This usually involves competition with Calvary Lutheran in Silver Spring. A Spring Track and Field Day is held for students in Grades 3-8 and features friendly competition with the Lutheran Schools of the Washington Area. In Middle School an interscholastic basketball program for both boys and girls is offered. A cheerleading squad is also offered for students in Middle School.
Field Trips
During the course of a school year Ascension Students take many interesting and educational field trips. Some of those are:
Londontown
The sixth grade took a field trip to Londontown, a 17th and 18th century Maryland Community. During their visit they learned about 17th and 18th century life using information gained from archeology.
Wye Mill
The 8th grade took a field trip to historic Wye Mill in Wye Mills, MD. While at the mill they learned about milling and the importance of milling to an 18th century community. They also learned the history of milling from the time of the Romans to the present.
Classroom Activities
Pioneer Day is an annual celebration in Third Grade at Ascension. Each year students and parent volunteers participate in a variety of hands-on centers designed to integrate art into the Social Studies curriculum. Students may dress as a pioneer child in the 1800’s may have done. Activities such as dipping candles, making yarn dolls, stringing cranberries, cooking fry bread, making applesauce, and churning butter are designed to show the hard work of preparing for a pioneer Christmas. Students learn to appreciate how much effort it is to make everything homemade. Pioneer families were forced by circumstances to be self-sufficient. Our activities help students to experience on a small scale what that was like. Guest speakers, who re-enact history often, join us to share stories of the pioneer experience. Literature studies such as our reading of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House in the Big Woods and Avi’s, The Secret School during Language Arts instruction are also part of third grade’s integrated curriculum designed to help us appreciate life in pioneer America.
3rd Grade Pioneer Day
