Effective Citizen Lesson with Mr. Phillips and Mr. Woodward

We enjoyed a fabulous lesson Wednesday on Citizenship! Mr. Phillips, our Superintendent, and Mr. Woodward, one of our town's selectmen, came in and shared a special lesson with us on how to be effective U.S., Maine, Bridgton, and S.B.E.S. citizens. We started with a little magic performed by Mr. Woodward and then we talked about the importance of obeying laws, voting, keeping informed on the important issues, monitoring leaders that we've voted for, and paying taxes to help support roads, schools, teachers, firemen, and police departments! We also talked about doing community service and the groups that volunteer like the Lions Club, L.E.A., the Community Center, churches, Rotary, and the scouts. We also discussed volunteering for the armed services and serving on juries. Wow! Then, we talked about our awesome rights as United States citizens as well as the responsibilities that are connected to them. Mr. Phillips showed us an example of a, "Declaration of Interdependence", that he helped to create with some kids in Blue Hill, Maine. It stated rights and responsibilities like, "the right to learn; the responsibility to let others learn". We loved this project and are going to work on something like it in class. We ended our day with a fun readers' theatre piece about the preamble of the Constitution. We want to thank both Mr. Phillips and Mr. Woodward for helping us to understand the importance of being Effective Citizens!

Science

The fifth graders are using google docs to construct a slide show presentation about the changing Earth. This is an exciting project and the kids are loving their work on the computers. Perhaps you've seen them practicing logging on at home and e-mailing friends at school. I will let you know when we are done and you can come in and watch the presentations.