Burning of Fort Seybert

My colleague Susan, who is Hannah's 6th grade social studies teacher this year, is very involved in the Treasure Mountain Festival in Pendleton County, WV. Her family has long lived on the land where a colonial era fort stood called Fort Seybert. In 1758 the fort was raided by Indians and the English settlers taken captive. (For links to further details on the story, see here.) Each year re-enactors from the time period gather on the site to demonstrate what life was like in the colonial era and to tell the story of the fort's capture, which concludes with a burning of a model fort. Here are photos from the day. Other than the excitement of the burning, the other highlight of the day was having Mrs. Melendez teach us how to throw a hatchet.

Sophie's 2nd Soapbox Experience

In September Sophie had her second experience racing a soapbox derby car. Here's what she had to say about it. (Photos courtesy of Papa.)

A soap box derby is when two cars race two times each time on a diffrent track.

Now I will be telling what I think of racing

Racing in A soap box derby is really fun you get to race against people you don't know which makes it easier to concentrate sometimes a race against people you do know is fun to for example I have raced against Eleanor Yoder who is a friend from Church I have also raced against Taylor Myers  and sometimes you don't win sometimes you do. My dads friend Matt is the person who runs all of this his daughter Miley races to.

This year I raced to times the first time was the very first time I raced. last Saturday I raced my second time.

Soap box Derby helmets look like this.

Hannah Turns 11

I attempted to get Hannah to write the post to go with these photos, but apparently both she and I have been too busy to get to it! So here's the short version...

Friday after school she had friends over for a sleepover. It involved swimming (twice, once in the afternoon and once after dark), chocolate peanut butter pie with sparkler candles, and sleeping bags in the library. A fun time was had by all!

Saturday and Sunday she opened gifts. Lately she's very into space and robotics. Basketball will be her sport this year, and she's been practicing some with her dad. Sophie got Legos too.

Monday she got to pick the restaurant she wanted to go to with Granny and Papa. Wood Grill was the choice. We had some selfie fun while we waited.

Playing Softball With the Dukes

Photo credit to JMU

Batter Up! JMU Softball Visits 6th Grade

On Thursday, August 27th the JMU women's softball team came to visit and teach 6th graders at EMMS. There were three rotating stations. Each class was split into three parts, and my group started at the ground catch station. The instructors told us what to do, then they rolled balls at us. The point of the station was to catch the rolling ball. After that we rotated to hitting where we hit balls into nets at the batting cage. They split into three groups and we each had a different instructor. We hit into nets and we each got 7 turns to hit the ball into the net. I had a lot of fun at this station. My instructor was nice and she learned our names quickly. After this we rotated to the last station, the catching and throwing station. My partner was Elisabeth, from 6th grade. We tossed the ball to one another and were supposed to catch it in our gloves. This didn't always work too well and the ball often ended up flying way past the person trying to catch it. It was nice to get to practice throwing and catching during P.E. After that we got to play a mini game and my team won 7 to 2. It was fun to get to play with JMU softball team and I wish they would come every Thursday to play softball with us. I would like to give a special thank you to the coaches of the JMU softball team. I would also like to give a special thank you to Mrs. Yutzy for letting me write this for the middle school's blog.

By: Hannah, 6th grade

Photo credits to JMU

Hannah wrote the article above for our EMMS blog. She volunteered to do this and was really excited about the softball team's visit and the opportunity to write about it. It is fun to see her enthusiasm! Her article was also linked on JMU's sports page, where they posted about the visit.

The team also tweeted photos from their time with the 6th graders. Quite a lot of fun and excitement surrounding this visit!

#JMUSoftball getting some team community service in before schools starts at Eastern Mennonite. pic.twitter.com/EZ7KyyieII

— JMU Softball (@JMU_Softball) August 27, 2015

Nice job of teaching fundamentals #JMUSoftball atEasyern Mennonite clinic pic.twitter.com/ViGv3bwPCA

— JMU Softball (@JMU_Softball) August 27, 2015

Hitting is always a camper favorite #JMUSoftball. pic.twitter.com/gpxsMRrKpm

— JMU Softball (@JMU_Softball) August 27, 2015