All In a Day's Work

Today was busy, what am I talking about, every day is busy around here! We finished off our portrait board, some budding journalists had their work displayed, and Mrs. Crowell showed us a monarch caterpillar (which is going to turn into a beauty!).

We Were Curious?

Today in science we learned about the world of invertebrates. As a matter of fact 95% of the species of animals on Earth are invertebrates. Remember...that means that they don't have backbones. An annelid is a type of invertebrate. You will find a lot of worm type animals in this phylum. We were curious today about the "ring" around our friend the Earthworm. Drum roll please...it is called the clitellum. We hypothesized about what this "ring" could be, but come to find out it is a place where eggs are deposited. Believe it or not Earthworms are very helpful creatures to our world. If your curiosity is still swirling, here and here will slow your head down.

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