Cape Cod Lighthouse Charter School News: Skyflyer visits CCLCS by Skyflyer and Maddy Niles

Hi! I'm Skyflyer. I'm a peregrine falcon, an endangered bird. I'm traveling around to different schools in different states. Soon, I hope to go to all 50 states. Right now, I am spending time with students at the Cape Cod Lighthouse Charter School, in Orleans. It's great!

After traveling in a UPS truck for a week, I finally got to venture out to see the school. It was amazing. There was snow everywhere. Cape Cod had just experienced one of the biggest snow storms in 100 years.

After school that Monday I joined the Pleasant Bay Avian reserach group that meets after school on Mondays. I was with the seventh grade science teacher, Mr. Trull, and a small group of students. The blizzard drove many birds off course, so we got to see a bird that was rare around here, the Iceland gull.

On Wednesday I traveled with seventh-grader Andrew Smith. First we went to the math room where I learned about population graphs. I even got to help use the calculator. After that, Andrew and I went to Mr. Trull's science class. We learned about weather. Next we reported to Language Arts where we filled out a review sheet about a book Andrew was reading: Watership Down. It seemed like a really good book. After that we finally got to go back to Andrew's homeroom for lunch. There isn't any cafeteria at this school, so they don't eat cafeteria food. On this day, pizza was delivered from a restaurant. In social studies Andrew's class started studying ancient Greece. The last class we went to was an enrichment class. We played "Watership Down" jeopardy.

The enrichment class was the last academic class we had, but Andrew wasn't going home yet. Andrew is in a club called The Brick Project. The kids in Orleans weren't the only ones in the club. Three other schools, one in Lithuania, one in Zimbabwe, and one in India are also part of the project. They are like four corners of a brick. The schools would talk to each other over the internet. Andrew showed me where the four schools were. Some seemed so far away. It would be really awesome to go to those countries. Then Andrew went home.

Next I got to go to a coffee shop named after a bird. It is called The Hot Chocolate Sparrow. When I got back to the school it was meeting time. It was meeting for the eight students and two staff who were to travel to Japan this summer.

Thursday was seminar day for the students. For an hour and a half on Tuesdays and Thursdays all the kids went to seminars. I visited the Amateur Radio seminar, the Lord of the Rings seminar, an advertising seminar, a children's book seminar, a making monsters seminar, a percussion seminar, a mock trial seminar and a sewing seminar. And that's not even all the seminars at the school. Everyone seemed to love their seminar.

On Friday I went to an after school club called Roots and Shoots. We talked about a school in Tanzania that the kids are communicating with as part of the One World Youth Project. This is a group of kids from all over the world. Schools have sister schools they talk with.

It is amazing how the charter school is involved in so many projects and groups. Kids and teachers seem to have fun learning. It looks like a great place! I hope I get to stay a little longer.

Cape Cod Lighthouse Charter School student Maddy Niles helped Skyflyer write this article. Skyflyer is a stuffed falcon being sent to schools around the country by children at the Mount View Middle School in Marriottsville, Md. Each host school is adding to a journal that accompanies Skyflyer.