By Gillian Graham
Staff Writer
    
Like most third-graders, Samantha Friel loves to hang out with her friends during recess.
But when the school bell rings, she gets right down to work studying her favorite subjects so she can grow up to be an elementary school teacher.
Samantha, 8, lives in Biddeford with her parents Sandy and Greg, her 12-year-old sister Brooklyn, 9-year-old brother Grant and their dog Shadow. She is a student in Jessica Leclerc’s third-grade class.  
Samantha sat down last week to talk about life at Biddeford Primary School, how third-grade is different from second-grade and how she overcomes nerves before swimming competitions.

Tell me about your dog.
My dog’s name is Shadow. He’s a black lab and he’s one-year-old and in human years he’s seven. We got him a year ago and it’s really fun to have him because if we get sad we always go and see him. He likes to play with sticks and he loves us. When we throw stuff in the air he always catches it.

What is third grade like?
Well it’s really fun that we get to switch classes and I really like how we just do fun projects. One fun project we’ve done is English and we’ve done a test already.

What’s your favorite thing to study in school?
I like reading. My favorite book is the “Series of Unfortunate Events.” I just like sad books and adventurous books.

What is your least favorite thing to study in school?
I don’t really like social studies. I really worked on maps and I don’t like working on maps. I like working on other stuff.

What do you do each day in school?
First we go in and we take off our stuff, then we go right to our morning work. Then we do writing, then reading and recess and lunch and special. We do math after, then it’s social studies and science. Then we get to pack up.

How is being a third-grader different from being a second-grader?
We get to switch classes and we didn’t do that in second grade. We didn’t do social studies last year and we didn’t do science either. We go to a different room for reading and math. It’s fun to have different teachers.

What do you like to do for fun when you’re not in school?
I like to play with my brother and my sister. I let my sister do my nails. I like pink, but that’s not my favorite color though.

Do you play any sports?
I do swimming and track. I’ve done Manta Rays (swim team) at the YMCA for about two years. I like the breaststroke because it’s really fun. If you do the pencil dive you can do it going back up. We practice a lot. I’ve been to the state meet. It’s really scary because there are all kinds of people you don’t know. It’s all the way in Bangor, so I had to ride all the way there.

What do you do when you feel scared before a meet?
Just forget about it. I just play with my friends.

Do you know what you want to be when you grow up?
A teacher because I play with my Nana and we always play school. I like to play with her because she’s really fun to play with. I want to be a second-grade or third-grade teacher because I don’t want to go too high or too low. I just want to be right in the middle.

What is the best thing about being a student at Biddeford Primary School?
I really like the specials here. My favorite special is gym and I really like the teachers. We do gym, computer, music, art and library.

What do you use the computer for while you’re in school?
In school we play school games and learning games. Sometimes we play other games. At home on the computer I usually look up some of the games from school.

If you were in charge, what would you change about school?
I would add one more grades to it. There are a lot of classrooms that are left over that don’t have any teachers there, so I’m thinking we can add one more grade.

How do you feel about going to a different school next year?
My brother’s in that school. He’s in fourth-grade. It will be fun to be in the same school again. I’m looking forward to switching every class and I think they have a really fun playground.

Why do you like to be in the same school as your brother?
It’s real fun because if I don’t know where to go I can go and see him.

Staff Writer Gillian Graham can be reached at 282-4337, ext. 220.