Michael's Brooksville Elementary Page

I graduated from Brooksville Elementary Fundamental School of Global Studies. Our colors were Purple and gold, and the leopard was our mascot and we were proud to be leopards! In 2000 they changed the name of our school from Brooksville Elementary School. Even though there is a new name, It will still be BES to all of us.

2001/2002:

My last year, I had a great teacher, Mrs. DeWitt, and have my best friend Robbie in my class once again. It was a great year.
I am happy to say I got the Superintendents award once again for all "A"s on each of my report cards.

2000/2001:

This was really a neat year! My report cards came out with each of my grades being a high A so mom and dad are very happy. I also received the citizen award for conduct and a perfect attendance certificate for the whole year. Mrs. Hays, my teacher, has "the great sticker race" she puts a sticker on each perfect paper we have during the year. We place those stickers on the envelopes we use to take our papers home each Tuesday after our parents have seen them. At the end of each grading period she hands out an award for the top people in this great sticker race. I won the first grading period, and placed in each of the other two. For the last grading period I was back to 1st. I ended up with the highest grade average in each and every subject this year and that was real good.

I am still in Quest and where last year on early release days we only got to go to quest for half a day, this year on these days we go to regular class and the following day we get to go to Quest with the fifth graders. That is real cool! Now I can revise this. Now I go on Thursdays instead of going on early release days at all. The reason is I have been placed into the fifth grade Quest program. I now am doing advanced fifth grade work on Thursdays while keeping up my fourth grade work the other four days.

I am also still on the news team only in fourth grade we are reporters and I hope to contribute to the newsletter all year. My first article was published in the first newsletter.

My dad has been re-elected as the S.A.C. Chairman this year and as Chairman will once again along with Mrs. Draper run the A-Team meetings. All children of S.A.C. members are on the A-Team, this is my fourth year. We are working on projects to help the school again this school year.

Mrs. Hays has us being very active this year. I am going to try to keep track of all we do here on the Internet, I sure hope I don't run out of room.

Our first field trip this year was to MOSI in Tampa. Both my mom and dad were able to go with us and it made the trip even more special to have them along.

For our second trip we walked to the Government Building in Brooksville, we were recognized by the chairman of the Board of County Commissioners during their meeting and got to see a court holding first appearances. At the end of the morning we got to be part of the ceremony unveiling the new fire logo for the new united Hernado fire units. It seems that the fire departments have all joined together with the EMS group to be one department. We then walked over to the park across the street where we ate lunch and got to play. Dad sure helped by hauling all of the coolers and lunches to the park in our van. He only had to walk from the park to the Government Buildings, and then back to the park. But he had to load and unload the coolers and everything, and he still got to be with us for everything but the walk from the school to the park and back where he got to drive.

Our next trip was to the Indian Mounds in Citrus County we visited three different types of mounds and had a great guide who taught us a lot! We even saw one of the first calendars in Florida, two rocks that when lined up with the Sun at sunset and sunrise and by using a stick with marks on it told you what day it is. When the tour of the mounds was over we went to an old sugar cane mill to have lunch and learn about how the sugar was milled from cane about the time of the Civil war. Again on this trip mom could not come, but dad was able to work his schedule so he could come again. Thanks dad.

On Monday night October 30, 2000, Mrs. Hays held a pumpkin party. We had 75 people attend mom, dad and Uncle Joe all were able to come and help carve our two pumpkins. The entire group carved 17 pumpkins into jack-o-lanterns. We had a lot of neat food most made from pumpkins. Our class went on stage after the carving was done and read some of the work we have been doing. Each of us had a Pumpkin Anthology that held the body of our class work on the subject. I was selected MC for the event and mom and dad said I did a good job. All of us had work we read at this event here are the three I wrote that I got to read.

1. A Clerihew - - A humorous poem about someone: it has 4 lines that rhyme: it is named after Edmund Clerihew Bentley, who created this verse form: he was a writer of detective stories in England in the early 1900's.

My Clerihew:

Here is Mary, the witch
She is stuck in a ditch
She can't get her broom
So she'll ride a big vacuum

2. Name Poems - - Describe yourself in a verse in which each line begins with the letters of your name.

My Name Poem:

3. The third and last thing I wrote and got to read on stage was a short story. Here it is.

Uses for Pumpkins

By Michael Anderson

October is my favorite month, because we can use pumpkins. You can use pumpkins in many ways. How do you use a pumpkin?

To start with, I would like to talk about carving my pumpkin. What my dad does is, he takes out the seeds. Then he draws the face of the pumpkin. Then he cuts it out. Presto! Now you have a jack-o-lantern. Two years ago, our jack-o-lantern had triangle eyes and a big spooky mouth. But it isn't the way you think it is. It isn't as easy as it sounds. It is very hard work. At least it is for my dad and I.

Next I will talk to you about using your pumpkin for decoration. To use your pumpkin for decoration, you have to do a good job. There are a lot of ways to decorate your pumpkin. But I just cut mine out and put it outside for Halloween. I don't know what you do with your pumpkin, but I bet it's good!

Last, I will tell you about cooking pumpkins. You can cook a pumpkin in many ways. You can make cookies, pie, etc. I have never cooked a pumpkin before. I have never tasted pumpkin before, either, but I've heard it's very good.

Now you know how I use my pumpkin in October. After you are finished with your pumpkin, you can do what my dad does. He throws it out in the woods for the birds and animals to eat.

November 17, 2000 we went to Fort Cooper to be part of a reenactment of one of the Seminole Wars battles. There were too many people there at each event and it was hard to see and hear everything, but it was a great experience anyway.

December found us going to Dade City and going though a really neat museum and putting decorations on a tree in an old one-room schoolhouse. We learned a lot about old time woodwork. We also went to the museum here in Brooksville and learned a lot about our areas past while putting decorations on a tree they had. Mrs. Hays also had us go to the public Library and after having a tour of the place and being read a neat story we got to decorate their tree too. As if that was not enough for one month we also got to go to Rogers Christmas House and see all of their great things and buy a gift or two for our families. December ended with a great Christmas Party in the classroom.

Wow a field trip to see our adopted manatee in Citrus County was a great sucess in March.

I am real lucky as my dad has been able to attend each and every event we have had this year and mom has been to over half of them too. I told Mrs. Hays I know how lucky I am to have my parents attend so many things with me.

1999/2000:

I ended the 1999 / 2000 school year, once again, on the high honor roll. I received the Principals Award for Outstanding Academic Achievement for my all "A"s. This year I also earned a Young Authors Trophy for a special report I did. Once again I was recognized for my work on the A-Team as in years past.

This year I was selected to be a part of the News Team. Every Friday we met with the teacher that puts out the school newsletter, Mrs. Poore, and work for half an hour with her on our school newsletter. I enjoyed this very much.

This past year I also received another great honor. I was one of only three students in our entire school to be enrolled in "Quest". Quest is a program for the academically gifted student. I feel very honored to have been part of this program. I spent every Wednesday at Quest, which left me just four other school days to get all five days of my regular class studies done. As you can tell by my straight "A"s I was able to do it all. I think mom and dad were surprised that I was able to do all of this extra school work, all of the sports that you can see on my other pages and keep my grades up. I just love everything we do and I can't think of anything that I would want to give up that I do right now. School is fun and great, Scouts is a lot of fun and a family tradition. Soccer, Baseball and Martial Arts are done formally, but I still play miniature golf, basketball (with dad a lot), football, badminton and of course make it to the skate rink every chance I can to roller skate. The once a month skate night for school is the greatest. I hope I can keep it all up next year too.

This year my dad was Chairman of the School Advisory Council and ended up running the A-Team with Mrs. Draper. We did a really good job of bringing problems to the attention of the SAC committee according to my dad. He says we helped the school a lot this year. I need to add here that Mrs. Stoops gave my dad and the PTA President both trophies at a big breakfast for everything they did for our school this year. She also called them to the stage and gave them pins at the kindergarten graduation, and called dad up and honored him at my promotion ceremony. Mom received special recognition at a breakfast too. My parents are always there to help in every way they can, and I'm glad that everyone realizes how much they do for all of the kids in our community. They are the greatest parents in the whole world!

1998/1999:

I ended the 1998 / 1999 school year, once again, on the high honor roll. I received, for the second year in a row, the Superintendents Award for Outstanding Academic Achievement, which is only given to students who earned straight "A"s for the whole year. I also earned my second Citizenship award this year. My dad was Co-Chairman of the School Advisory Council. All children of members of that committee are on the A-Team and worked with Mr. "D" on school problems. This was my second year on this committee and I liked it a lot. At the awards ceremony June 1^st My mom, dad and myself were all given an award for our work for the school. I was also on the committee, made up of students and adults for cafeteria improvement. Mr. "D" said we helped a lot improving the cafeteria.

Mr. "D" has left BES to become the Principal of another Brooksville School, this is a great honor for him, and of course all of us. We will miss him a lot, however we are enjoying working on our committees with Mrs. Draper who is now Assistant Principal of BES.