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Student Council is a school-wide leadership club. We organize spirit events and fundraising for our school. This year's Student Council features the President, Henry Banksoke , Vice President, Grayden Kron , Treasurer, Lea Moses , and Secretary, Chase Giepel. Each of the officers were selected by the fifth grade class of 2025.

One of the favorite activities we run every other month is the pretzel sale on the first Tuesday of the month. Soar Squad and Student Council take turns on the pretzel sale.

In the Fall, we had a Thanksgiving Food Drive. The food we collected went into large baskets to people in need. The Thanksgiving food drive was a donation to help people in need of food for the holidays. Those donations helped a lot of people.

We had a fundraiser and Pink Out for Breast Cancer Awareness month to donate money to the National Breast Cancer Foundation in October.

For Veterans Day in November, we had a red, white, and blue day to respect people who have served in the military. The whole school wrote letters to Veterans in the military to show how much we respect them.

In December, we had a YAY for PJ DAY to raise money for CHOP. We raised $854.17 for children in need of presents for the holidays. The students wore pjs and brought their favorite stuffed animals.

The Los. Angeles wildfires are still impacting L.A. We collected money for the entire week at the bus stop and the lobby. These donations are helping the people in L.A. and also supporting the Red Cross, firefighters and first responders. With these donations, we can make a big difference.

We had a Kindness Challenge from the 27th to the 30th of January. It will be a spirit week and it was a spirit week that encouraged everyone to show acts of kindness throughout the week. Hopefully, it will continue to happen for the rest of the year.

Starting in January, every Friday till the Super Bowl we had an Eagles day. GO BIRDS! We also had a pep rally with SOAR on the Friday before the Super Bowl.

In February, we have a Valentines Day sticker sale to support Student Council fundraising activities. There will be different varieties of stickers that multiple stickers will be sold.

In conclusion, Student Council will continue doing fun activities to help raise money. We will do everything we can to make this the best school year ever at Afton Elementary!

Ben Hartranft is a speaker and Advocate for autism. He came to our school on January 17, 2025 to share what it’s like to have autism. He called it, Ben’s Journey. All of the students and teachers were interested in learning about his journey. At the age of 2 he was diagnosed with autism. He only knew 20 words when he should have learned 200 words by then. As a child his family helped him learn how to read,speak,do math,and write.They taught him to never give up and Ben always persevered. Ben was Homecoming King and Mayor of Student Council at North Penn High School.

Ben gave us many messages during his presentation. He told us to be kind to everyone because everyone has different things going on in their lives. One kind person can change the world!

Ben was always a loyal Eagles fan and became a spokesman for the Eagles football team. Ben carried the trophy for the Eagles when they won the NFL championship in 2022. Now he goes to schools to speak to students about understanding autism. Ben has met every Eagles player. Once he went to an amusement park with Jason Kelcie. Ben has traveled across the United States to present his journey of life with autism. Ben loves his life and likes to teach people to follow their dreams, and work hard. He said, “That sometimes to accomplish something you have to do things you don’t want to do.” Ben was able to go on shows called The Price is Right and The Ellen Show. Ben was very lucky on The Price is Right to win a new computer. He also played a guess the price game about grocery store items and what they all cost. He was lucky enough he that he had worked at a grocery store which helped him win $16.000. on the show.

When Ben was on the Ellen Show he answered questions about his journey of autism. He encouraged us to sit with someone who is alone, and make new friends. Ben is an inspiring speaker for everyone to hear. He feels that people should be treated the same, even though they are different from others. We can all learn from Ben Hartranft’s message.

On January 30,2025 our school had the annual 5th grade volleyball tournament. Mr. Sodano prepared all of the fifth grade students to play volleyball during our physical education classes.

The games were played back to back from 10:20 am to 12:10 pm. Each game was 10 minutes long. There were nine rounds of two matches each round. The gym was split in half. On one side there were two fifth grade teams playing against each other. On the other side the teachers were playing against the fifth graders. The rules of the game were:

- No spiking - the servers had to stand at the back right corner to serve.

- The servers - got only two attempts to get the ball over the net each point.

- If the server does not make the ball over the net on the second try, it is a point for the opposing team.

- There is a three point max for each server before the opposing team gets a chance to serve.

- You cannot hit the ball more than twice in a row.

There were nine teams: The Thunder Snow, Below Zero, The Fast and the Flurries, the Big Freeze, Up to Snow Good, Arctic Nation, Chill Factor, The Ice Breakers, And the Yetis. The games were invigorating. We saw great talent and sportsmanship with both the fifth graders and the teachers. Overall, the teachers won most of the games and everyone had fun and got lots of exercise playing volleyball.

When we think about the future the first thing that comes to mind is most likely robots. Robots come in a variety of shapes and sizes, and each robot can do unique things. Even now there are robots that clean and even do surgery, with assistance of course.

In Mrs.Koch’s class we read a fictional book called 2095 by Jon Scieszka.The book was about 3 boys,Joe, Fred, and Sam who accidently traveled into the future. At first they met advertising robots that would ask for their credit card numbers to sell you things.The boys became trapped in the future, but luckily they were saved by their great-grandchildren. They found a “special book” that had a magic square that would make you travel to different time periods. The book was passed down to them from their Uncle Joe. It was a great mystery that made you think about the future.

When we finished reading the story we discussed new types of robots we would like to invent. We each made a prototype of our new robots out of recyclable materials. We also made advertisements on Canva for our robots. Some examples of our prototypes included: a robot that gets you ready for school and events, a cooking robot, and a robot that pitches and collects baseballs, and many more. After sharing them with our class we invited the third graders to see our new creations. Finally, we invited our parents to come and see our robots as we presented our Canva presentations to them. Everyone was impressed with our interesting robots.

The gifted students learned about all kinds of robots and their part in the future. We enjoyed this project and hope to do more projects like this.

The fifth grade students, directed by Mrs. Gougher, presented the play, Descendants, to the students and families at Afton School. After almost 4 months of practicing singing, dancing, and memorizing dialogues, the students did an amazing job of recreating Descendants as a play. Their hard

work and dedication resulted in a command performance that wowed the audience. Many students enjoyed seeing the costumes put together by parent volunteers. Other students liked dancing to various songs with their friends. Some students were proud of saying their lines with confidence in front of an audience. The stage crew loved watching the actors and actresses perform from behind the scenes and changing the sets during the performance. The entertainment critics would have given this play a 5 Star rating for the incredible show that entertained everyone with amazing singing and dancing by the fifth grade students.

Imagine a world where everyone is kind. That is why everyFebruary February, Kindness Week is celebrated around the world. Over 40,000 schools participate,135 countries from around the world, and there are about 1 billion kind deeds that are made each year during this special week. This year is the fifteenth year for Afton School to participate in Kindness Week.

Mrs. Callahan, our school guidance counselor runs kindness week every year and we love it! During kindness week, we haveach a theme for each day. Every child can participate in spreading kindness.

The themes for the week were:

Monday: Hat Day

Tuesday: PJ Day

Wednesday: Afton Gear Day

And Thursday: Jersey Day.

We had Friday off, so there was not a theme for that day.

Every student received a sheet of paper listing lots of kind acts that you could do if you choose to do during that school week. There was no prize because it was not a competition but every student who participated earned a certificate that even had their name written in the middle of it.

Kindness week is not supposed to be a week you have to be kind, it is a reminder so we can all remember that kindness matters and should happen every day of the year If you are wondering why there was a spirit week with it, it is to get people excited.

Lastly, the teachers had a few choices sent from our guidance counselor of fun activities that they could do with their class as well as visiting our little buddies. Every class has another class they are assigned to meet with each month. Each student is assigned an older buddy or a little buddy. When we visited our buddies we had a fun craft and a little slideshow about how to be kind everywhere, every day, and to everyone.

Always remember to treat people the way you want to be treated.

The Pi Day tradition at Afton has always been a great opportunity to celebrate math in an exciting way. This year, 5th graders in Mrs. Murphy’s AMP class used Canva, an interactive digital tool, to create a colorful and engaging presentation all about circles and Pi.

The 5th graders presented their slideshows to Kindergarten, 1st, 2nd, and 3rd graders. The slideshow featured simple yet captivating graphics that showed how circles are made, why Pi is important, and how it relates to the circle's measurement.

The 5th graders did more than just read from a slide—they took on the role of educators. They explained concepts like circumference, diameter and radius. The slideshow also included catchy songs and a read aloud, which captured the attention of the younger students. "It’s amazing to see how excited the younger students are about learning something like this," said Mrs. Murphy, Afton’s math specialist. "Pi Day is the perfect opportunity to teach them something simple but fascinating, and the 5th graders did a fantastic job teaching the younger classes at Afton."

Thanks to the creativity and hard work of the 5th graders, this Pi Day will be remembered not only for its celebration of mathematics but also for the wonderful connections made across grade levels.

As for the younger students? They’ll never look at a circle the same way again—and they’ll always remember that special number, Pi, 3.14…….

The math students in Mrs, Myrphy;s fifth grade class had a blast on Pi Day 3.14.

First graders at Afton School really love reading Fancy Nancy books. For the past 17 years the first grade students have shared their fancy words with their parents and teachers. On Friday, March 28th everyone gathered in the lobby of Afton School to cheer for the first graders' new words. They presented a boring word and found a synonym which was a fancy word. Then they used a fancy word in a new spectacular sentence. Then they took a bow and walked down the red carpet and presented their special movement that they made individually. Everyone clapped and cheered for each first graders’ new words with joy. The meaning of this fancy day is for the first graders to learn more detailed words, have lots of fun, and add new words to their vocabulary. The first graders enjoyed learning how to use more descriptive words in their writing.

On March 18, the Afton students got to watch the National Theater for Children (NTC) give a live performance. They taught us four ways to be energy efficient: how to save energy, how energy is made, what are renewable energy sources, and how energy is consumed. We learned from the NTC’s actors why conserving energy is important through an entertaining and interactive way. They selected volunteers from the audience to be detectives and help solve a word puzzle that would lead to a solution.

The play was about Detective in Training (DIT) Watson, who was a junior detective for the detective Sure Luck Ohms. There were more characters that helped with the investigation. Their names were Greeny, who was a person that wanted to be the mascot of the Philadelphia Eagles, The Right Brothers, one of them was a balloon that had a face drawn on him and the other was an airplane pilot, and Rusty Torx who was an engineer. The characters came out on stage to help solve a word with jumbled up letters that were in Sure Luck Ohms’ files. The actor and actress played most of the roles as representatives of the company PECO, who encourages everyone to be energy efficient.

The students were amazed and being part of the show as detectives to solve the case. It made us all realize the severity of all of the energy we use each day. I hope we will all switch to renewable energy sources to save our planet!

Every year we have a different themed school! This year's theme was candy, and it was called the Sweetest Small and Tall Ball. Every student was invited along with their parents to buy a ticket for the event.

The PTO decorated the whole school for this special night with sweets, colorful lights, and a balloon arch for everyone to go through to enter the ball. DJ James played music and fun games for us to dance and enjoy and you could win prizes from him also! He is one of the best DJs ever! We also broke the record for the longest Conga line in a school!

Once you arrived at the ball, you could have your picture taken in front of the gumball machine which was made by the Girl Scouts! You could also get your picture taken in the gym, you could get a regular or one where the camera spun around!

In the cafeteria there was an assortment of foods, drinks, and candy galore! Kids and adults were wearing light-up bracelets and dancing with light-up wands! DJ James had us play fun games where you could win prizes like a one pound chocolate bar or a gummy bear float. From all of the fun, dancing, and having a sugar rush, it was a fun and yummy night of all times!!!!

On March 25th, 2025, the Fifth and Fourth grade Gifted Support classes went on a walking tour of Historic Philadelphia on behalf of the National Constitution Center Favorite Freedom Essay Competition. Reuben, our winner, wrote the winning essay about his favorite freedom from the U.S. Constitution. He was asked to read it to everyone before we started the tour. He was presented with an award and certificate for his excellent essay.

The tour began at the National Constitution Center, where we met our tour guide. Many parents accompanied their children on the walking tour. The tour guide proceeded to take us on a tour of Colonial Philadelphia, where there were 21 stops for us to view while he told us interesting facts about each place. A few of the places we visited were the: Declaration House, where Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Robert R. Livingston, and Roger Sherman wrote the Declaration of Independence, the President’s House Site, where both Thomas Jefferson and George Washington’s house used to stand, and The Christ Church Burial Ground, where Benjamin Franklin, the person who started the first hospital, fire department, and circulating library in America was buried.

A few of the facts we learned were that George Washington held slaves in his basement. One slave, Ona Judge, became very famous for escaping slavery while George was in Philadelphia. Also, Benjamin Franklin stated that he wanted to be pictured as a Roman if anyone made a statue of him. On top of his library, it shows Franklin dressed in a Roman toga and King George’s scepter pointed downwards. Since the King always pointed the scepter up in a gesture for power, when Franklin is depicted with the scepter facing downwards, it’s like he is saying, “Down with the King!” Furthermore, the Liberty Bell wasn’t a symbol before the Civil War, a group of abolitionists, people who stopped certain activities or practices, such as slavery, made the Liberty Bell famous. Additionally, people toss pennies on Benjamin Franklin’s grave because it is said that you get some of his wisdom, but it is also an act of remembrance towards him.

All together, it was a very educational experience and we enjoyed learning about Philadelphia’s colonial history. If we could say one thing about the tour, it would be that everyone should go on it and learn more about how our country started.

On the 26th day of March, the three Reading OlympicTeams of Afton Elementary School traveled to Neshaminy High School for the Reading Olympics Competition. The team had to read 25 books from the official list and practice answering questions to prepare for the competition. The Reading Olympians had to come in early every Friday before school to practice answering questions about the books they read while working as a group. The teams met in the different homerooms which were assigned to their team. The Reading Olympians choose their team names and the three names were: The Rawrtastic Readers, The Sigma Speedreaders, and The Revolutionary Readers.

On the day of the competition we had a pizza party before we left for the competition to celebrate what we had accomplished. During the competition, the Reading Olympians had to answer questions about the 25 books the students had to read. We had three rounds of questions against 3 different teams. If the team you are going against gets the answer to the question wrong, then the other team has a chance to steal the point by answering the question correctly.

The Reading Olympics competition gives students a variety of ribbons based on the amount of points the team scores. For example, a blue ribbon is based on 50-60, or more, points. The second place ribbon is the red ribbon which ranges from 40-49 points. The third place ribbon is the green ribbon which ranges from 30-39 points. The lowest-rated ribbon is the yellow ribbon resulting in 29 points or less. Like the rest of the Reading Olympians before them, all of the Afton Elementary teams came home with blue ribbons which is the highest category and biggest accomplishment. This continues a streak that happened for two years before this year. No pressure 4th graders!