Eagle Academy PCS
New Jersey Ave Campus
17, 18 February 2016
The Eagle Academy New Jersey Ave Campus is the smaller of the two campuses. We held a Tracker Show at the main campus on Wheeler Rd in December 2015.The New Jersey Ave campus has 138 students (pre-K thru 3rd grade).
The Tracker Team arrived on site at 1130 and promptly retired to an eatery across the street. We began the setup at 1230 and had everything completed by 4 PM. We used an 8 module square with the wide radius curves giving an overall layout of 20’ x 20’. We encountered no issues getting to the facility or setting up. We were provided with parking which had easy access to the room. Numerous children looked into the room as we were setting up. They were clearly looking forward to the next day’s show.
Since there were only three of us doing the show, we each ran on our “own” loop with pleennnty of run time for all. We began running trains at 0830 with students arriving in the room at 0900. We ran essentially nonstop from 0900 until 1230. By that time all of the students (134) had been able to attend the show. Classes were brought in every half hour for a 30 minute period. The classes were scheduled so that the younger students came in first and the 3rd graders were the last classes we entertained.
We were asked to stop the trains after about 20 minutes with the 3rd graders and talk a little about the types of trains that used to run and still run now. We discussed Steam, Diesel and Electric power and the types of trains (freight and passenger). The students and staff enjoyed that part as much as watching the trains and looking at the decorations.
One thing we decided for future shows where we have children in the audience is to bring worksheets asking the children to find certain things on the layout (Where is Mickey? Did you find the operating dump truck? etc)
We have been asked to return to both Eagle Academy campuses in November 2016.
Setting up
The Younger Attendees
The Older Attendees