Here they are - student images and memories from the past 10 months.  Enjoy the pictures and the descriptions in the following articles, and feel free to add your own memories by posting comments (keep them positive, please!)  The following two pictures represent our class at the beginning and the end of the school year; they were drawn by Olivia.  Thanks for the wonderful year! - Mr. Mac

The Science Fair was great, at least for some people. Kaedon and Leah hated it. Kaedon said the judges were weird and you had to keep presenting your project over and over. Leah said no one came to her board. Robbie, Blaise, Olivia, Ella, Kristen, and Jackson all thought it was great.

Hot Wheels became one of the most popular toys this year when Mr. Mac brought his tub of Hot Wheels tracks and case of cars for Science.  We used them so that we could learn about gravity with the loops, acceleration and friction with launching the cars then by putting the mat under the track then launching them again to see if they slow down, velocity with the tracks, and speed with launching the cars from a height off our chairs.

One Friday morning, everyone went to school in their Field Day colors. This was a day everyone had been waiting for! It was Field Day, and everyone loved it. Almost everyone in my class said “I loved Field Day!” After the events, we got Kona Ice. Everyone had a great Field Day. 3rd place was the Tie-Dye team, 2nd place was the Purple team and 1st place was the Yellow team. In one activity called the Noodle Javelin, they measured how far you could throw the noodle. Another one was where you put a ball in a toilet plunger and ran down the field, around a cone and back. They measure how long it took you to run around the cones and back. Field Day was the best day ever!

At, the end of field day we played capture the flag and kick ball. We watched the kick ball game first. It was 7-8th grade vs. all the teachers. It was a tie, but I think that the students would have won if they kept playing. Later, the middle school played capture the flag.  They all got powers because it was "Percy Jackson" week.  My favorite power was armor. The way it works is that when you say “123 tough” then nobody can tag you. When the last round came, 4th grade got to play but we did not get powers. I scored the last point. It was really fun!!

One of the things we do during recess is tag. We play very intensely when it is only us on the play structure. Sometimes we get hurt playing tag, but we never thought that Jacob would get his hand stomped on and break it; we thought it was just a bruise, but it was broken!! Here are a few words from Jacob, “At first I thought it was nothing much but it started hurting really bad and my mom took me to the radiology center to get an x-ray. They read my x-ray and said I fractured 2 bones in my hand and then I knew it was major!!”

The Country report was great. We all did great looking up the information and presenting it to the class. Robbie did a report on Egypt and his favorite thing about it is that they mummified the people. Jackson did a report on Canada and his favorite thing about it is the delicious Nanaimo bars. Kaedon did a report on Brazil; his favorite thing was the Amazon Rainforest. Blaise did a report on Ecuador and his favorite thing about it is the great variety of animals (he is an animal lover). I did a project on Germany and my favorite thing was the 146 castles. Kristen did a report on Greenland (even though technically it isn’t a country). Olivia did a report on the British Virgin Islands (it isn't a country, either!) Ella did a report on Laos. Leah did a report on Japan. Since Mr. Mac was on vacation in Canada when we did our presentations, we had to videotape them. When he got back he said he looked at the videos and he said they were great. I think everyone enjoyed it.

At the beginning of the year and the end, we had to do Physical Fitness tests.  No one likes Physical Fitness tests. Robbie said he did not like it, Blaise said he hated it, and Ella said it was torture. One of the things we did was run one mile to see how long it took us. After that, everyone felt like they were going to throw up. Another thing we did was pushups. We had to do them in two minutes. After that, we were done with Physical testing. It was awesome!

Parties at Ashley Academy were very fun! The best party was the Christmas party. There were presents and doughnuts, and we played games like Christmas Jeopardy, tag, and Santa’s girls. We all got airplane kits- that was the best. We made the airplanes and we threw them all around the room. 

After that we built candy houses out of graham crackers and icing. There was a lot of icing; we also stuffed it into our faces. 

At the beginning of the year, my class and I went to a funeral home for dinosaurs. Everyone glued their eyes onto a nice lady who talked about dinosaurs that I thought I already knew. But, to my surprise some of them I did not recognize. That’s when I figured out that I need to be open to knowledge that is right in front of me. Even the other field trips gave me an example of this!

Our classroom economy is the money system we have in the classroom. We get one hundred Macbucks (a.k.a. fake money) a week for doing our jobs such as news reporter, handing out textbooks, cleaning the classroom, and having to keep people’s bank slips up to date. If you don’t do your job your pay will get lowered.

   We can earn extra Macbucks by winning Jeopardy or getting an A on our tests. These are some of the bonuses we can earn as well as completing challenges and earning 10% interest for the money we have in the bank.