Thoughts on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day and the Inauguration

Today we viewed the video, "Yes We Can" with Mr. Willis' class. After our discussion I would like you to respond to the following prompts:

• Comment on the connection between the celebration of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, whcih was on Monday, and Barack Obama becoming our 44th President on Tuesday.

• What does President Obama mean when he quotes the Declaration of Independence saying, "We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created equal."

• What does "Yes We Can" mean to you?

Be thoughtful, and be sure to edit your comment with your partner before posting.

This photo is a picture of people sliding quarters at quarters for our science workshop. Two of the quarters fell off of the stack and onto the table. Every time we slid the quarters at the quarters we wrote down what happen. We wrote down how many quarters fell off the stack. Usually one or two of the quarters fell off the stack. Most of the time, it was the bottom quarter that fell off. My partner was Liam Drake; we both got to slide the quarters at the stack to see how many we could get to fall off. Then the other person had to pick the stack up.
By Nevin Hood and Liam Drake

By Grace and Laura

Last week Pinnacle students were in groups. Marybeth was teaching Newton’s second law and so was Mr. P. too and I was in both groups. We used 2 books and I clipboard and a ruler and a Lego car. We put the clipboard over the 2 books and put the ruler on the bottom and made a ramp and then we let the car go down the ramp and marked how far it went. Then we put 5 magnets on the car and let it go and then we marked it again on a piece of paper. Then we put 5 more on it which makes it 10 and then it went slow. It was fun!!!

We were in Mr. Willis’ group we got a table cloth and a water bottle filled with water and we tried to have it stay in place on the table and not even fall over. It was very very hard to keep in place. We tried it with a slippery side up and slippery side down. There were different table cloths and water bottles at each table. Each table had a table cloth and a water bottle. The activity was very fun. I am glad I was in Mr. Willis’ group. We were learning Sir Isaac Newton’s first law of motion.
By Nathalie Paquette and Sierra Polley

In Mrs. Petersons science workshops, Mrs. Peterson blew up a balloon and we tied it to a string that went across the room. When Mrs. Peterson let go, the balloon flew across the room. When there were pennies in it, it didn’t go very far. It only went about half as far as it did without pennies in it. The next day we tried different balloons. We tried a yellow, lumpy balloon, a long, straight, green balloon, and a small, red balloon. The yellow balloon went the farthest and the smoothest. The red balloon didn’t go anywhere but it spun in circles. The green balloon simply deflated immediately. When we timed the normal sized balloon, it took only 4 seconds!

By Griffin and Seth

We were pulling on a tablecloth and trying to keep the water bottle on the table. We were in science work shops in Mr. Willis’s class in Pinnacle house on Monday. There were three people in every group.
It was hard but we did it. The peoples name in my group were Nevin, Danielle, and Sophie.
By Sophie

New Year's Resolutions

Today we have talked a lot about the word resolution. At this time of year lots of people like to make a New Year's Resolution, or goal, for the upcoming year. I would like you to think about resolution for yourself that has to do with literacy. Your resolution can be about anything that has to do with reading or writing. Below is an example of a resolution:

This year I would like to read more non-fiction books for pleasure. I always have a book going, but tend to stick mostly to fiction. I am going to have every third book that I read be a non-fiction book. I just finished reading Barack Obama's "Dreams From my Father," which I absolutely loved. One non-fiction read for 2009 already!

Respond to this post with your own literacy resolution for the 2009 year. I can't wait to see what your hopes are for yourself for the year!