Happy Holidays! The White Elephant Gift Exchange.

We had our annual White Elephant Gift Exchange on our last day before Winter Break. The kids brought in lots of great presents and we had a lot of fun! Happy New Year!

Yesterday, several students were able to travel to the Janice Charach Gallery in West Bloomfield to view the Journal Project, an interactive, community based art exhibit in which professional artists as well as community members, including schools, were asked to contribute a journal page expressing something about themselves. The Academy contributed a whole journal with contributions from eight art students under the guidance of Joannah, who contributed a page herself. The Gallery loved the Academy's journal, and featured it in some of their publicity! Becky Hankin and Joannah took seven of the students who contributed to the Gallery yesterday to view the whole project. While they were there, they also got to make another journal page to be part of the ongoing exhibit. It was a lot of fun, and we plan to take more students to the exhibition in the near future. Thank you to Joannah and Becky for making this happen!

Halloween Party Fun

We had our annual Halloween Party on Wednesday afternoon, and it was a lot of fun. We started with a skit from the drama class, who performed two numbers from The Rocky Horror Picture Show (pictures below). Then we had our costume contest and pumpkin carving contest. Chad's advisory made a scary video on Advisory Day that they showed us (I'll post the link when I get it - it was amazing!). And Eric, who is a professional storyteller when he's not teaching reading, told us a spooky story that really happened to him. It was a wonderful afternoon!

The Student-Teacher soccer game

We played teachers vs students today in a (mostly) school wide soccer game (not every student participated, but most did). The teachers' team had some help from Nigel's grandpa and four students, and we won 2 - 0. We're already talking about the rematch! Great game, with excellent plays on both sides. Go Blue Herons!

Mole Day!

Avogadro's number, 6.02 followed by 23 zeros, is a concept used in chemistry that is really hard for students to wrap their heads around. If you have 6.02x10^23 atoms of an element or molecule, you have a mole. And a mole is something you can work with. It's a bit like having a dozen eggs.

But, it's a really big number to visualize. Mole Day (10/23 - get it?) is a way to focus on helping students to understand this central concept in chemistry. Eppie's classes drew pictures of moles in zeros - one for every place value in Avogadro's number - and also weighed out a mole of pure aluminum and formed the foil into the shape of a mole. Great stuff! Students also visited the Kelsey Museum of Archaeology at U of M to learn more about ancient world cultures. All in all, a great day!

Spirit Week!

We had our fall Spirit Week last week, and I got some pictures on Student-Teacher switch day. The teachers were supposed to dress like students and the students were supposed to dress like teachers. The results were a lot of fun! Thank you to Wiyaka Brave-heart, of our National Honor Society chapter, for organizing Spirit Week! We have some brand new members of NHS as of last week, and I'll post more on them soon. Until then, enjoy the pics!

Ann Arbor Academy Blue Herons soccer

For many years now, we've been hoping to get an Academy sports team together. We were able to make that dream into a reality this fall, with the debut of the Ann Arbor Academy Blue Herons soccer team. We had a team to play and two games scheduled, so we started practicing three times a week, and by the time of our first game, the team was ready to roll. Both games were against the Ypsilanti Middle School team, and we got to play on the high school varsity field. It was really exciting, and the team played wonderfully. It was great to see all the things they had practiced come together on the field. Although we lost both games, we scored in each one, and the team pulled together and played hard. Thanks to all the players, and to assistant coach Mike. Go Blue Herons!