Happy 200th Birthday Charley!

The Lower Division sang Happy Birthday Charles Dickens at yesterday morning's Town Meeting. The two pound coin features his portrait created out of all the titles of his books.

Here's a link to the official celebration site.

See this partial list of events worldwide.

Dickens video tribute

BBC animated cartoon on Dickens life

What's Going On This Week?

Parent conferences are Thursday....with some on Wednesday and Friday after school.

The science project research on a species needs to be finished tomorrow. Students will take what they have learned about an invasive species to write an essay in class on the theme of how this species is hurting Florida and what can be done about it. Next week students will begin a unit on realistic fiction that will use what they've learned about their invasive species to create a story on this topic.

We are also working on a project to have our class more sun smart. Dr. Mary Harris led a discussion on the topic last week with the class taking notes to start things off.

We're having the first of regular assessments in for Reading Comprehension. On Friday there's a quiz about the first 5 chapters on our class novel Phantom Tollbooth. Students are expected to be able to spell and define select words from chapters 1-5 as well. They have study guides for both. We also have a math box quiz on Wednesday.

Oldie Goldie book sale is coming up...please send in for resale any kids books no longer needed.

"We Haz Video"

"We Haz Jazz": the entire show here.

Author Share

What a great event and turn-out!





Celebrating young writers.....yes!

It's the Lens: Yeah!

This just in....vote of 7 to 1 for the Lens.

We watched some of the City Council discussion live this afternoon. We saw Mr. Ballestra busy answering questions as the proceedings headed for that big vote.

Invasive Species Project

http://www.buzzle.com/img/articleImages/30122-37.jpg

Pythons have devastated small animal life in the glades. Where will they go next? Listen to this.

Homework for the next few days will be for students to complete their research on an invasive species hurting Florida. They all have research folders with work sheets and guidelines. Please supervise their looking at various resources on the web including images, videos, news articles and other links. We started with information on Wikipedia. But we did not click the various external links found at the bottom of each page. Students are also expected to know something about the homeland of the species they are studying. They are to ponder why these species do not cause such ecological damage in the places in which they are indigenous.

All this will lead to an essay in which students will be challenged to come up with some possible solutions to the problems created by these invaders.

In addition, what they learn about these species will become part of a piece of realistic fiction writing project to be introduced next week.

We Haz Jazz: Back Stage Views

Second performance is Friday at 8:30.