Posted on: January 17th 2014
Alice recently arrived home from six months in Orono, USA, where she attended an American elementary school. Read about her experience and see photos from her time away:I spent six months in Orono, Maine, a five hour drive north of Boston, living at my grandpa’s house. He is 85 years old and has moved from his house in New York to stay in Maine now. I went to Asa Adams Elementary School which goes from Kindergarten up to Grade 5. My sister Meg went to Orono Middle School. I was in Grade 3 (the grades are different to the years in English school), I was in room 31 and my teacher Mr. Soderberg was really nice. He gave us lollies for being good! Asa Adams had two big playgrounds and a big sports field where I did track (which is cross country running). To get us to quieten down the teachers said ‘Peace’ and we had to make peace signs. We had to swear allegiance to the American flag every morning. I know the words off by heart.
My class, we had a pajama day on the last day of school which was also my birthday.
I cycled to school August to October until it got too cold.
Asa Adams was lots of fun, you did not have to wear a school uniform (I got lots of new clothes), they were not strict, and gave no homework on weekends. I made three new best friends, Katherine, Aila, and Annalee. I would like to go to Middle School there.
I did lots of things like kayaking on my grandpa’s river to his little island, the river had a beaver in it which came out and sniffed our stuff. It also had snapping turtles and my dad was scared to swim, but I wasn’t! We also had a bat in our basement.
I made apple cider the old way at a logging museum, where you poured loads of apples in, and a wood thing squeezed them to make cider! They also had a soldier and you had to say a password to get across the bridge.
We visited the Demeritt Forest trails at the University of Maine, which is up the road, named after my great-grandpa who was a Professor of Forestry.
At thanksgiving we were off school for a week and went to get my cousin in New Hampshire. We went hiking in a big ski place called Bretton Woods. Autumn is called Fall and we had to rake leaves all the time. Me and my sister kept jumping in them.
In December we had a lot of snow and an ice storm, I collected icicles.We played in the snow a lot, and at school we had to bring in snow pants for playtime. The river froze and we walked across it, it was a bit scary at first. I spent my birthday in Maine, too. It was on 20th December and I had a pizza party at school and sleepover at Grandpa’sIt is weird being back in London, everything seems very small, and I do not think the Norfolk House School uniform is very stylish! It is good to see my friends again though.
