Mad Scientists

This week was full of experiments in our classroom. We are busy studying about plants, so my mini botanists had some experiments to set up and observe. After studying about phloem and xylem, we watched colored water travel through carnations and celery.



We are growing lima bean plants by the window to observe root systems and in honor of Where the Wild Things Are (the children's classic that we just did a book study on).



Being Floridians, we don't get to see many leaves change into those beautiful colors of red and yellow during the fall months. In order to see why this happens we pulled chlorophyll out of some spinach leaves yesterday.

A Pumpkin and a Bottle

You might ask what do these two things have in common??? Well, they are both things that we NEED in our classroom! Next week my students will start designing pumpkins for our school pumpkin contest. Each team just needs one! If your family is able to donate one we would be so grateful. If you made it look like this, we would love you forever!



In science we will be building terrariums soon and each student needs a 2 litter bottle to construct their own. I know some families don't have 2 litter bottles at home, while some of you are slurping down the Coca-Cola products. Please send in any that you have! Potting soil would be lovely too!

Great News of the Week

I am back from the land of flu, and feeling somewhat like a normal human being. While I was under the covers, great things were happening in our world! Here are a few that you all shared with us:

* One parent wrote that she thought that our school book fair was a success because of one very GREAT parent. The Grizzly parent responsible for this year's bookfair is Meg Gibson. Ms. Gibson has twin daughters in the 1st grade, and her husband is a professor of law at FSU. Ms. Gibson is a media specialist herself, and you have probably seen her volunteering in our library. I think that it is Great News that Ms. Gibson dedicated that last several weeks of her life to making our bookfair a huge success.

* One of our students wrote about her mom this week. Every day my mom goes to work, she is the manager of the kitchen at the Cabot Lodge bed and breakfast.She makes the food for everyone in the hotel and she will go outside the kitchen and help people find what their looking for.

* The secret Starbucks fairy showed up again. Kind people paying it forward for others in line. Wow, coffee really must make people happy!

* And finally, it wasn't a random act of kindness, it was just kindness. My husband took very good care of me when I was under the weather. He went to Walgreens, then to Publix, then back to Walgreens, just to make me comfortable. What a good guy!

Keep the good news coming and have a great week!
Mrs. Whitaker's Class

Nature Deficit Disorder

Have ya'll heard of this before? That the amount of time children (and this adult) are spending outside is becoming less and less, so of course there is a disorder for this problem. Well we got a good ole dose of nature today at the Tallahassee Museum (a.k.a. Jr. Museum for those native to the area). We saw and did lots of really neat things...

We moved our "wings" like an eagle.



We said, "GO GATORS!"



We learned that the roots of a Cypress Tree are called knees



We imagined what we would have looked like in the olden days



School looked very different in the 1800s



Many organisms lurk in the water around us



And finally, that everyone loves to play!

Look So Good You Could Eat Them!

We made plant cells out of cookies today with our science buddies in Ms. McKnight's class (my mom!). Please excuse the round shape, in fact plant cells have a more rectangular shape. Just ask your child about that. Our 3rd grade friends helped up design our cells using icing, Twizzlers, Life Savers, Sweet Tarts, sprinkles, and Sour Patch Kids. All of this candy represented parts of a plant cell of course! Make sure to ask your child what the difference between a plant and animal cell is.

What I saw this weekend

I headed to south Georgia this weekend with my family to celebrate my mom's birthday. We had a great time, but I learned some things along the way. Lake Blackshear, where we were staying, is a man made lake. That means that engineers had to build a dam to create this body of water. The lake was named after General David Blackshear, who built Fort Early here in the War of 1812 (we talked about this war last week). The lake was created in 1930 when the Flint River was dammed to provide cheaper electricity.

My niece Pearce and I sitting on the dock


On our boat trip around the lake



On our journey home from the lake we stopped by my husband's old farm. I snapped a shot of some honeybees doing their thing. Just a couple of weeks ago we learned about honeybees and even tasted their sweet treat! This is an example of symbiosis, a mutually beneficial relationship. The bees get nectar from the crops and in return the crops get pollinated.

Great News of the Week!

Our great news of the week is that we were awarded a grant from the Gulf Winds Track Club for a project that our fifth grade here at Gilchrist is going to do. You will learn more about it soon, but a hint is that it has to do with exercise and being kind to others!

Have a great week, and please email us! Our inbox is empty!