Share Your Great News!

Make sure that you submit some good news that you see going on around you to great.news.grizzlies@gmail.com. We are looking for random acts of kindness, strangers helping strangers, you catch the drift. We want to focus on all the great things happening around us all the time. Check on Mondays for our favorite submission from the week!

Supermodels!

As you know last week my students hammed it up for a photographer friend of mine! He did a great job capturing the kids' personalities. We will use these photographs to make an art exhibit in our room this week, but I had to let you see them too! If you would like to view them click on the link below. You can also order from the website! Thank you Gjergj at Volaj Photography!

The password is: whitaker (all lowercase)

http://www.imagequix.com/photog.php?id=Z9QAN9Z&ec=gilchrist

Classfying Critters

This morning is science we used this website to test our classification skills. It is a fun one to use at home! Test your family on their classification knowledge!

http://www.hhmi.org/coolscience/forkids/critters/critters.html

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

What is a Senator?

Next week we will embark on our first reading theme, Competition and Cooperation. Most think of sports when we say these words, but what about democracy? I had the opportunity to intern for Senator Kennedy in his Capitol Hill education office during my college years. I saw first hand that hundreds of men and women must compete and cooperate to run our nation. Our class set out to answer some questions:

1. Why is it called Capitol Hill?
Kids' Guess: The Capitol is there and it is on a hill.
Real Answer: The Capitol sits on a hill in Washington, D.C. This was part of Pierre L'Enfant's design.
2. What is a senator?
Kids' Guess: The leader of a state and he/she works with the president.
Real Answer: A senator is an elected official that represents his or her state.
3. How many U.S. senators does each state have?
Kids' Guess: 2, 8, 3, 100
Real Answer: We have two senators from each state.
4. Who are Florida's two U.S. senators?
Kids' Guess: Sen. Lawson
Real Answer: Sen. Nelson and Sen. Martinez

It was a good one!

Smile, it's the first day of school! Students arrived on time and with beaming smiles on their faces! It didn't take them long to realize that fifth grade was going to be a lot of fun, a lot of work, and hopefully a year to remember. My throat is sore due to all of the yapping I had to do today, but soon enough my little ones will be sailing smoothly on their own. What a great bunch of children to share my days with. I feel very fortunate and I truly look forward to getting to know each of their unique personalities. I took some pictures of all the happenings today, but I've got to wait for you to say it is okay to share online (so make sure to sign those media/Internet forms in their holder folders). Stay tuned for pics!

Welcome Back!

Yesterday we were busy as bees as we prepared to welcome students back to school! Here are some pictures of our day. See you on Monday!