Jumping into the Second Quarter, and a New Award-Winning Story!
Greetings and happy Halloween, Philomath friends! Here are a few of the recent goings-on at the end of October in our wonderful learning community:
If you didn’t see the previous email, our ELA class will be reading Hoot by Carl Hiaasen starting Monday, November 6th. Please get a copy of this book for your child as soon as possible so we can all begin reading it as a class—you can get it from your local library (that’s what I did), a local bookstore, or Amazon if need be.
We’ve started our new Social Studies unit, and for the next two and a half weeks your child will be working on designing a website to share what they learn about an ancient civilization of their choice. There will be some time in class to work on this project, but students may need to spend some of their time outside of class reading or writing to complete the project by the deadline of Friday, November 10th. Additional information and resources can be found on Google Classroom.
As a reminder, there will be no school on Tuesday, November 7th in observation of Election Day, and our Thanksgiving Break will run from November 23rd–27th.
And now, the real star of this blog post: the winner of our school’s October Story Contest! This month students were inspired by the Halloween season to write scary short stories, and this month our community chose sixth grader Andrew Butler’s story “No Entry Beyond This Point…Deck 11” as our winner. Turn out the lights and prepare to be thrilled by Andrew’s gripping story about time traveling horror. Congratulations, Andrew!
The summer was hot and humid. The Jonson family wanted to get away, when they were watching tv they saw an ad for Ante Cruises. The next day, the dad called their travel agent and booked a flight to New Orleans on American airlines and a room on the ship. They were excited because they knew they'd be chilling on the poolside on a deck aboard a giant cruise ship in two short weeks. Two weeks later, the family drove to the airport early because they liked their airport lounge. When they came down to go to their gate, they passed a gate where a plane was coming from New Orleans. The daughter noticed that the people coming off the plane were wearing a dazed look of terror. The mom and dad didn’t seem to notice.
When they arrived in New Orleans, the Jonson family left the airport quickly. As they approached the port, they saw an enormous red, black, and white vessel, called Bèl. As they boarded the cruise ship, the friendly crew greeted the family. After receiving the safety briefing, they stepped onto the elevator, headed for the pool, then noticed a mysterious button. The button said in small print “Do not press”. Afterward, they sailed away.
On the cruise ship, the son mistakenly pressed deck 11 instead of deck 12 when going to see a show later during their vacation. They found they could not press any more buttons when they stepped off the elevator. The temperature on the deck was hot, like being inside an oven, with red lights and an endless hallway. The elevator miraculously disappeared. They were running the find an exit back to the elevator.
In a matter of seconds, the deck cooled down, and along with the temperature change, the hallway changed too. The hallway turned into a large space with blank walls, and monsters were lurking. A zombie-like creature launched at the daughter, but the dad could protect her. Then there were a few bird-fishlike creatures with sharp teeth that bit the family. When the family enters a random cabin through the window, they can see a gigantic megalodon. The large shark-like creature launched out of the water and smashed into the window.
When they left the room, the hallway looked abandoned. The odor of the moldy carpet was unbearable, and the wallpaper was torn to reveal walls that had giant holes in them. It looked like something from a dystopian future. They could see the elevator, but it was not operational. There was no one out there when the family yelled out. There was a sound like a torch being lit. After searching for the sound for some time, the family was about to give up. Until they saw a robot with cameras that looked like glasses. There was a staircase in front of them, and the robot pointed them there.
The family walked down it and could get to the theater at their current time, not in the future. The family started to process what had just happened; they were traumatized that they went to the future and back. The family stayed in their rooms for the rest of the trip. When they flew back to Chicago, Chicago, they looked like the people they saw coming off the plane before their trip.
