It has been a busy week full of Red Ribbon Week activities.

The Red Ribbon Campaign, the oldest and largest drug prevention program in the nation reaching millions of young people during Red Ribbon Week Oct. 23–31 each year, started in 1985 when a drug enforcement agent was killed in the line of duty.

The tradition of displaying red ribbons as a symbol of intolerance toward the use of drugs began in honor of the agent.

Among the many activities students participated in this week, our students have “tied one on against drugs” by wearing interesting ties, “teamed up against drugs” by wearing their favorite team jersey and “used their head” by wearing crazy hair, hats or wigs to show support for a drug-free lifestyle.

Tuesday, students ‘shaded out drugs’ by wearing sunglasses. Wednesday, all students and faculty were encouraged to wear red shirts and mismatched or a crazy pair of socks to “sock it to drugs.”

Last week we had the election for Citizenship Club leaders.

The candidates were either running for secretary-treasurer, vice president or president. They had to make a speech in front of the entire school. After the speech, the candidates went to join their class to vote for the leaders.  They could vote for themselves or for the other candidate.

In the end, the winners for our election were Britney Nelson for president, Emily Carlson for vice president, and Harper Cassady for secretary-treasurer.

On behalf of Lisa Dill, her husband Joe, and their six children, they would all like to extend a heartfelt “thanks” to all of you who donated items after a recent fire destroyed their home.

The generosity of those within our school family is appreciated so very, very much. A sincere “thank you” to all who donated items!

A million ‘thanks’ go out to an incredible group of parents who have come to assist in the library!

Because the school name has changed we must re-label every book and item in the library (over 12,000!) to reflect the new school ID.

We welcome volunteers at any time, all year — but could really use a hand now.

Whether you can spare a few hours each week or only a few minutes, we need you!

If you can assist, please call the school office at 626-0277 or just drop by the library.

Last Friday, our school’s fifth Project Jubilee students went to Dauphin Island with Daphne East’s Project Jubilee to learn more about marine biology.

On Friday morning, they learned about different sea creatures. During a touch lab, they picked up many preserved sea creatures, like a baby shark and an octopus. Then they dissected a squid! After lunch, they went back to a classroom and learned about ocean waves. They took a quiz to see how much they already knew. At the end of the lesson, they took the quiz again. Once they knew more about waves (such as frequency, troughs and crests), they went out into the water and measured them. All the students got very wet and had lots of fun with this activity.

Saturday morning, the students did one final activity. Everyone went out to the other side of the island and got wet and muddy in the salt marsh. First, they went to what our teacher called the muddy side of the island. Here, while everybody’s shoes got very muddy, they learned how important salt marshes are to many smaller marine animals. When they were done in the mud, everyone trekked out to another part of the marsh. This part had a large open body of water. The students fished with nets and went seining. The instructor teaching that lesson told them about what they caught. Before they knew it, the time to leave had come. The students and parents rode the bus back to the Sea Lab and waited for our parents to pick us up. All the fifth-graders had a great time on the field trip! A big thank you to our parent chaperones for the trip: Mrs. Cross, Mrs. Parker, Mrs. Peterson, Mrs. Parke, Mrs. Ward, Mrs. Gay, Mr. Lawson, Mr. Kirby, Mr. Stephens and Mrs. Nichol.

Every Monday, Wednesday and Thursday, our school will be doing light training in our P.E. classes to help prevent accidents while doing the Presidential Fitness Test. We expect to take this test later this school year. This test will include push ups, stomach crunches, sit ups, the 1-mile run and the v-sit and reach. Every year our school takes this special test to help us keep in shape.

LaShaunda James, a fourth-grade student, received a letter of appreciation from Soliloquy Learning.  Our principal, Mrs. Dana Horst, presented the letter thanking LaShaunda for a video that tells how she feels about this reading program.  The video is featured on the software Web site at www.soliloquylearning.com. 

LaShaunda participates in a daily reading program that uses Soliloquy to build her reading fluency and comprehension.

In Mrs. Debbie Smith’s fifth-grade all-boys class, they have been doing a project on the atmosphere. The teacher split the class into groups and they were assigned a layer of the atmosphere. They had to draw about that layer.

One layer was the mesosphere. Not a lot happens in the mesosphere so it was hard to find what to draw. After some dedicated research, members of the group, Alex Scott, Jarrett Laird, Dustin Lunsford and Christian Parke found some things that go on in the mesosphere. Some examples they used were satellites and rockets that fly through there.                                                                                                                          

The fifth-grade classes of Mrs. Benita Battle, Mrs. Debbie Smith, Mrs. Jennifer Curenton and Mrs. Angela Stewart are excited about going to the University of South Alabama on Nov. 2 for a field trip.

They will be participating in PAWS, or Powerful Activities With Students. These are activities from across the curriculum that will challenge the students to think ‘out of the box.’         

They will also be touring the Engineering Department, where they will get a first-hand view of the dune buggies the college students design for a college competition.