By Claire D.
This past semester was quite an end to the year of 2023! So much happened, students participating in epic plays, spirit days and other activities around campus. Let’s sum it up in a little review of Fall 2023!
Starting off strong, all the way back in September we had our first whole school dance! On the second, Neon Night was a great time with music, dancing, and incredibly colorful and lit (literally) sunglasses. Lots of people dressed bright and blinding for the occasion, and our students definitely made Neon Night neon. The basketball court adorned with entrancing balloons hanging by strings, and blown up beach balls being tossed around really completed the theme. This dance was a great occasion to start off the school year.
Keeping the enthusiasm up for our students, STUCO and Spirit set up an exhilarating day on the twentieth of September! Remember kindergarten day? We had a lot of fun activities, including a spelling bee where students spelled words such as chrysanthemum, and delicious snacks like animal crackers and juice boxes to bring us back to the nostalgic days of our youth.
But not long after this fun day of activities, we had an entire week of dress-ups, competitions and overall school spirit! Spirit week was from October 9th to 13th, in which we dressed up as mathletes vs. athletes on Monday, had fun with zoom day on Tuesday, dressed up for wild west day on Wednesday, rocked the barbie outfits on Thursday and repped your classes colors on Friday. In between the dress-ups, our student body had lots of fun playing zorb soccer, dodgeball, and engaging in friendly competition with the other grades!
A couple weeks later, another opportunity for entertainment presented itself on the thirty-first of October - Halloween! Many students arrived at school in costume, setting the mood for a great day including games at lunch and a costume competition. Lots of amazing costumes and groups came up to show their Halloween spirit. We had everything from Oz characters to a working arcade machine!
A couple days after the excitement of Halloween, our drama department had an exciting event of their own to showcase their hard work and dedication to their play, Argonautika. Argonautika was an epic adventure, filled with exquisite acting, stage design, lighting, costumes and dance numbers! Everything came together so well, so kudos to the drama department for a job well done.
Another event, our school’s global faire, happened on the tenth of November. This year’s global faire was focused around South and East Africa, and featured many booths, types of food and incredible music for our school to enjoy. We ended the time with music and dance from the Zimbabwean region, performed by the Chinyakare ensemble, which became interactive at the end and was so much fun for our students!
After global faire, we got to experience some incredible music from our students at the Fall Music concert on the sixteenth of November. This incredible ensemble included the orchestra, who performed songs such as their arrangement of the Zelda music, jazz band, who played a jazzy version of Sesame Street Music and a strong showing from chorus and AVE, who sang songs such as under the sea and an incredible arranged version of Pompei!
The next event in our list is Grandfriends day on the twentieth of November. We had the opportunity to introduce our grandfriends to our classes, have lunch and take pictures. Lots of students brought their grandfriends, and we had a great assembly game where students would try to guess old songs, and their grandfriends would try to guess songs from our generation! Needless to say, it was very entertaining to share a bit of culture from both times, and a really nice bonding experience for our students and their grandfriends.
In the final month of 2023, December, we started with the Fall Art and Chamber show on December first. We had displays of all levels of photography, art, and nexus, as well as an incredible show put on by our chamber musicians that left everyone who attended delighted by the beautiful music. This was certainly a night to remember!
Next, we had our second school dance, the winter formal - this year, dubbed the Snow Ball. On December second everyone was invited to hang out in the gym with flashing lasers, epic DJ music and festive decorations! Our students were dressed to impress, and it was a fun night to hang out, dance to the beats and go outside to gaze at the bubble/snow machine that transformed a small patch of campus into a winter wonderland.
Finally, as the entire school began to crack down in preparation for finals, beginning instruments gave us one last hurrah with their performance on the sixth of December. Everyone piled into the auditorium to hear them perform the pieces they’d been working on in the fall semester, and the applause at the end of their performance was deafening! Such an incredible performance indeed.
After this spirited, exciting and epic fall semester, we all know that finals signaled to us that we were in the home stretch before winter break! That’s the end of the College Prep 2023 recap, and here’s to another great semester at CPS!