The Spire Crier, October 2015

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Red Ribbon Week teaches many lessons

By Malena Tewari, Sofia Hegewisch, and John Lucas Turner-Smith Red Ribbon Week is a time when you can be happy, and you can respect yourself and be drug free.

We celebrated the national event with a poster contest for students in first through third grade. There was also an essay contest for students in fourth and fifth grade. The prizes for the first two winners in each contest were $20 gifts card for Toys “R” Us. Congratulations to the winners.

Emma O'Conner and John Lucas TunerSmith won the writing essay contest.

And Ethan O'Conner and Megan Vinas won the poster contest.

Also, every student got Red Ribbon Stickers.

On October 18th the Red Ribbon Committee, or Helping Hands, decorated the school courtyard. We had a Dress Down Day the next day and students got to wear red clothes for a $1 donation and wear jeans for $2. These donations will be given to Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD).

We had a special speaker, Mr. Witty, who talked with the fifth grade students during Senior Chapel on Monday about the collection of Pledges.

And October 20th to 23rd, we turned in our pledges that we signed to promise not to take drugs. All of the pledges collected were blessed by Father Mario at Chapel.

Officer Friendly also visited to speak to the Jr. and Sr. Preschool and kindergarten students.

This was an important week at St. Thomas and at schools around the country.

Volume 28 Issue 1 October 2015

Inside this issue:

Mystery Teacher

2

Science News

3

Fun Zone

4

Film Review

4

Student Fiction

5

Student Poll

6

Special points of interest: 

New LEGO® Minecraft ™ sets are fun to build.



The Mystery Classroom has a blue rug and a Word Wall.



Graphene is 100 times stronger than steel.



The Mystery Teacher loves the movie “Frozen.”



Is your favorite ‘toon in the student poll list?

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The Spire Crier

Student Poll: Is your Halloween costume in the list?

By Melanie Pozo and John Lucas Turner-Smith It’s that time of year for fun with costumes.

We asked students and teachers what their favorite costumes are in a poll and here is what we found out.

Two students like Wonder Woman, 1 Peter Pan, 1 Superman, 2 Witch, 1 Darth Vader, 3 Princess, 1 Soccer Player, 1 Pumpkin, 1 Cat, 1 Snow White, 1 Greek goddess, 1 Pencil, 1 Police, 1 Rainbow Dash, 1 Sumo wrestler, 1 Pink Lady, 1 Eyeball, 2 Dragon, 1 Wizard, 1 Minion, 2 Crab, 1 Princess Leia, and 1 Scary clown.

Have fun with your costumes and we’ll see you at the parade.

Mystery Costume question. Can you guess who these people are?

Hint: They have something to do with music!

The Mystery Teacher wakes up at 5:15 a.m.

By Sofia Hegewisch and Sofia Manguson See if you can figure out who this mystery teacher is. We will give you some hints.

This teacher's favorite place to vacation is Disney World in Orlando.

Her favorite shampoo is Redkin and her favorite color is lavender.

This teacher’s favorite movie is “Frozen” and her favorite thing to do is to go on vacations with her family.

This teacher goes to sleep at 9:30 p.m. and she wakes up at 5:15 a.m.

This teacher’s favorite food is steak. Do you know who it is?

The answer is on the last page of The Spire Crier.

This Mystery Classroom has a “Word Wall”

By Sofia Manguson and Sofia Hegewisch There is a beautiful classroom at St. Thomas. Can you figure out which one it is?

Here are some details to get you started.

The theme of this room is “Under the Sea” and the rug is blue. There are self-portraits on the wall.

At the end of the school year, you graduate from being in this room.

There are two teachers and students have Reading Buddies.

There is a “word wall” in this room and there are a lot of books. On the window they have stickers that say “Happy Halloween” and they have Halloween lanterns on the ceiling. On the bathroom wall they have “A Sea of Good Helpers” sign.

Do you know which room it is? The answer is on the last page.

Volume 28 Issue 1

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Science News: Graphene is stronger than steel

By John Lucas Turner-Smith You may not have heard of it before, but scientists have been theorizing about “graphene” since 1859.

Graphene is a material that is arranged in a honeycomb structure made of carbon atoms that are just one atom thick. It is extremely thin, strong, flexible, and electrically conductive and it has the potential to improve electronics as well as other technologies around the world.

Modern pencils do not contain lead. The “lead” of a pencil is really a mix of finely ground graphite and clay powder. Graphite is, technically, many layers of graphene stacked on top of one another.

The very strong graphene is made in the following way, but do not try it at home!

An Irish/United Kingdom team of chemical engineers poured graphite powder, used in pencils, into a blender and then added water and dishwashing liquid. They then mixed it at high speed.

The precise amount of dishwashing fluid required is dependent on a number of factors and the black solution containing the graphene must be separated after the mixing.

According to the research of chemical engineers, graphene has many potential uses. Engineers are searching for ways to make “defect” graphene in large amounts. This material promises many applications in everything from computing and energy to medicine.

The researchers have said, “it provides a significant step towards deploying graphene in a variety of commercial applications.”

Here’s a Fun Fact for you to think about: Graphene is 100 times stronger than steel!

Graphene promises many applications in everything from computing and energy to medicine.

Check out the fun new LEGO® Minecraft ™ sets

By Matthew Rodriguez and James Furniss-Roe There are some new LEGO® Minecraft ™ sets for 2015. Try The Desert Outpost! The skeletons are attacking! Drop the TNT and activate the trap.

Also, check out The Snow Hideout. Build the snow golem and shoot the snowballs! Bring a fan to The Nether Fortress! It’s red hot here. Attack the zombie pigman and run from the Ghast. Steer clear, there's falling lava!

Find the treasure and let's go back through the portal.

Finally, The Dungeon. Watch out for the zombies, destroy the spawner, and collect your loot!

Start an adventure and take on a designer challenge at http:// www.lego.com/en-us/minecraft

The Dungeon

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The Spire Crier

Fun Zone

Film Review: Minuscule creatures reach for the skies

By Melanie Pozo Minuscule is a film that follows a young lady bug on his adventures. This movie is absolutely amazing because it is stop motion animation and the tiny characters are made out of clay. The film took a lot of time and a lot of work. The filmmakers, Hélène Giraud and Thomas Szabo, had to portray a story with no words and use just the camera to show the emotions of the characters. I thought the movie was absolutely amazing.

It was very hard to believe that it was actually a stop motion film. Even though in this movie the characters did not talk, and only made a little amount of noise, I totally understood what the characters felt. I also loved how the movie was very humorous and relatable.

I think the people who would enjoy this movie are very artistic and they will appreciate the creativity.

You can watch the movie on Netflix or YouTube. I showed some people the episode from the series “The Lady Bug” and this is what they think.

Sophia Hegewisch—“Absolutely amazing.” Melana Tewari—“Marvelous, but I felt bad for the spider.” Mrs. Mayo— “Beautiful and riveting.” Olivia Pozo—“It was very cute, and I felt bad for the spider.”

Volume 28 Issue 1

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Fiction: “The Dragon Quest”

By James Furniss-Roe and Matthew Rodriguez

-----Prologue----In the deep woods, the trees stirred as someone, or something crawled out of the brambles.

The creature was large, but it had chosen the time well. The shade from the trees and the position of the moon made it almost invisible, unless one stared closely. It was night, and there was a full moon like an eye staring hard at the black earth below.

The creature hated this.

All of the fresh and unique forest scents were ruined by the Two-legwalker’s new sky-dirt that came from those roller-circles-loud-engines. And the air was stained with that smell, unlike two centuries ago. Or three? It could never remember.

It was many years ago they were invented. Also, those metal-flyers.

When the Two-leg walkers got into fights, unlike a long time ago, they used them. Especially in some conflict, a few years ago. It did remember that loudsmoke-metal-flyers-war.

All that destruction, all caused by them. It remembered that conflict well, for it had served a little in that too, just burning a few two-leg-bigcommunities. World War One? No, Two. That was it.

Then, returning its mind to the most pressing matter, it looked at the building in front of it. The building was large, some of the Two-leg odd material, and some stone. A gold spire poked its way out the top. Gold? It thought.

Paint, that was it. It went closer.

There was no movement, just the wind ruffling the branches overhead as it spread its blue wings, and flew.

It flew over the spire, soaring over the building to see a safe place where it could put the bright green pear-shaped object it was carrying, and it knew it would be safe, for the rest of its race to find it, otherwise it might…

It pushed that thought away and landed on a tree in the middle of a courtyard, with rooms a fair distance away, and as it landed, the tree lurched, threatening to break, but it held, and it laid the object down, and lodged it in one of the branches.

Once it was certain it would not fall, it carefully spread its wings, jumped and soared flying back to where it had flown from, hoping this would be not the last time it saw the object, but by then, it knew, it might be a little different than when it last saw it, precariously lodged on one of the branches, where it would be safe.

Hopefully.

“The best advice I ever got was that knowledge is power and to keep reading.”

—Author David Bailey

The Spire Crier

St. Thomas Episcopal Parish School 5692 North Kendall Drive Coral Gables, FL 33156 305-665-4851

The Spire Crier is published by the fifth grade reporters in the Enrichment Journalism class at St. Thomas Episcopal Parish School.

Reporters: James Furniss-Roe, Sofia Hegewisch, Sofia Manguson, Melanie Pozo, Matthew Rodriguez, Malena Tewari, John Lucas Turner-Smith Journalism Advisor: Ms. Christina Mayo Class Aide: Allison “Miss Alli” Williams

W E’ RE ON THE WEB AT S TEPSMIA. ORG

Mystery Answers Teacher: Mrs. Jarrell Room: Mrs. Orms’ kindergarten class

Beep Beep! The Road Runner and Looney Tunes tie for first in poll

By Matthew Rodriguez We had almost 40 students answer our Favorite Cartoon Poll this time.

Looney Tunes and The Road Runner tied for first choice with eight votes each. Tom & Jerry came in second with five votes.

There are a lot of good ones here. Do you see the show you like best?

Scooby-Doo: 4 Steven Universe: 1 Looney Tunes: 8 Tom & Jerry: 5 Teen Titans: 3 Big Nate: 1 Gravity Falls: 1 The Road Runner: 8 Mickey Mouse: 1 Uncle Grandpa: 1 The Simsons: 1 The Smurfs: 1 Casper The Friendly Ghost: 1 Inspector Gadget: 1 VeggieTales: 1 Regular show: 1