The End of an Era

This year Adam reached a milestone - he is done with elementary school!  He went out with a bang as several projects and events took place during his last two weeks of school.

One project was done in ALP and involved making a scale model of a playground using at least six geometric shapes.  Many class periods were spent measuring and drawing on graph paper in preparation for building his playground.

The playground was then built at home.  This project was 100% Adam designed and produced.  Can you pick out the merry-go-round, the grassy field, the slide, or the climbing wall?

Check out this water feature - a splash pad - with blue pipe cleaners spiralling up to represent water.  The silver structure below it with the orange dots is a climbing wall.

Here is the feature Adam was most interested in including on his playground - a working park light (bottom right hand corner).  I think he got the idea from the park lights in our backyard.  Dan took him to Radio Shack where they picked up the necessary equipment.  Dan showed Adam how to build it and taught him how to solder.  And not long after that Adam came out with this:

Can you see that the light is on - lighting up the art work on the playground?  It has a switch on the opposite end of the playground.  Adam did a great job!

The next event was Adam's final band concert.  He has made good progress this year and will continue with the trumpet next year in junior high.

Every year the sixth graders build castles at the end of the year.  Adam has developed quite a talent in building things out of cardboard.  He took over my work space in the laundry room and began cutting and gluing cardboard.  Once again this was 100% Adam made with the rest of us working only as consultants.

Here is a close up of the castle before it made the trip to school.  Do you see the working catapult?  And the moat?  There is a list of components that each student must include and label in their castle.

They line the main hall of the school with tables and all the castles are put on display for the entire school to view.  Each student sits with their castle to answer questions - and to "guard" their creation.

As you can see the castles come in all shapes and sizes -- and colors!

On the final day of school instead if a formal "graduation" ceremony, the sixth graders take a final walk through the school.  All the other grades come out of their classrooms and line the hallways.  The mascot, the Sonoma Ranch Stallion, leads the procession and takes the sixth graders down each hall of the school as the other students cheer and clap for the "graduates". 

It all happened so fast, this was the only picture I got of Adam in the crowd. 

Congratulations, Adam!!

Next year Adam will go to the Gilbert Classical Academy.  It is still in the Gilbert Public Schools district but has grades 7 through 12 and has much smaller class sizes - there are only 80 students in his entire 7th grade.  He will be wearing a uniform and will be given a laptop computer to use in and out of school for assignments and classwork.  He is very excited about this new opportunity and we think it will be a good fit for him.