STINGRAY NEWS

After 18 rounds, the last 6 of which were a head-to-head spelling battle between our final 2 participants, we are proud to announce the 23-24 Gamble Rogers Spelling Bee winner and runner up. Congratulations to Jack Greaves for winning with the word “saddlebag”. Jack now advances to the St. Johns County District Spelling Bee. If he is unable to attend, Ella Dixon, our runner up will attend in his place.

Recently, winners of the essay contest were announced by our local Daughter of the American Revolution.

Jane McManus is the essay contest chapter winner and fellow 8th grader Lillian Massey is the chapter's second place winner. These two accomplished writers wrote moving articles on the first public performance of “Stars and Stripes Forever”. Best of luck at the state competition!! Below is their photo with Jane on the left and Lillian on the right.

This week's SR Fever winners are: Jimmie Adkins, Tessa Moody (Rucker), Rhett Power

Their tickets were drawn this week after they demonstrated this month's focus, the ability to Show Self Control, this month's focus. We missed last week's winners: Journey LaBeach, Owen Caldwell, and Collin Denman

Ms. Bonfiglio's classes participated in their version of the Shark Tank recently. They created a product (there were some really great ideas) and presented to the Sharks! Participation and engagement was wonderful and everyone had fun learning. Ms. Wysocki, Ms. Gassman, Mr. Butler, and Ms. Downey were the Sharks (judges). Products presented included a self sharpening pencil, a wrist corn on the cob holder, and an ankle protector shoe for skateboarding. Some proud entrepreneurs below:

In Ms. Major's 6th grade math classes recently, they did "relay" races as they pulled out the important information from word problems, set up the ratios, solve, and connect to the correct answer, which included another problem to solve. They were racing to correctly solve 10 problems. Try your luck below, answer on the right.

The Best Buddies has their annual Friendsgiving during lunch on Wednesday. It was a wonderful day to share with friends. Enjoy some pictures below🙂

Attention 8th grade Students and Parents

School Counselors will be introducing the High School four-year plans to all 8th grade students on Monday November 20th during their scheduled ELA class. Students will receive a copy of the four-year plan to share with parents. A timeline of important dates has been placed on the School Counselor page of the Gamble Rogers website: https://www-grms.stjohns.k12.fl.us/ . Also, some important links with more information concerning high school academies and programs are also available on the site. If you have any questions, please contact your school counselor.

Tony Canoura Last Name A-L tony.canoura@stjohns.k12.fl.us

Amy Kelly Last Name M-Z amy.kelly@stjohns.k12.fl.us

We had a nice turnout for the Art Festival Friday evening. It took many people to pull this off successfully, including parent/student volunteers, GRMS custodial staff, and our Arts teacher, Ms. Demaio, Ms. Branning, Ms. Chandrasekerhan, and Mr. Doenges, as well as our librarian Ms. Ayrish Booysen. The student performers did a great job, and we enjoyed viewing the art work displayed. In case you were unable to make it, we've included some pictures below.

We have a student vs staff event taking place Tuesday prior to dismissal. Students may qualify to participate and/or view the competition. Please see the flyer below.

A dance is scheduled to take place after school Friday, Dec. 15th. Students qualify to purchase tickets if they have had no full days of ISS or OSS during the 2nd quarter, Oct. 16 until the day of the dance. Tickets will be on sale for $5 during lunches beginning on Monday, Dec. 11. Due to concerns of space in the gym and cafeteria, there will be a maximum of 300 tickets sold. the dance will conclude in a staggered manner, with 6th graders finishing at 4:00, 7th graders at 4:15, and 8th graders at 4:30. Hopefully this will mitigate traffic concerns. Please do not arrive more than 5 minutes early unless you and your student have agreed they will be leaving earlier than others in their grade. We could use assistance in ticket sales, chaperoning, and supplies. If interested, please use this link: https://www.signupgenius.com/go/10C0E4DA9A72EA2F8C34-46153746-ugly#/

We caught a bee enjoying one of the beautiful sunflowers in our garden. The sunflowers have attracted many all important honey bees in the garden as well.

We have been sharing a Dad Joke each morning as part of our announcements. It started in October when someone had printed off a calendar of Halloween jokes and placed it by the public address system. I enjoyed reading them, at least most of them, so decided to continue the tradition in November after looking up a list of Dad Jokes. We'll share one each week as long it continues at school each day. This week, since we've been doing it a few weeks, we'll share three. Remember, they are dad jokes, so keep your expectations low!

"I made a pencil with two erasers, it was pointless."

"How can you tell it's a Dogwood tree? From the bark."

"What do you call a fish wearing a bow tie? Sofishticated."

On Thursday afternoons, Ms. Bouchard is assisting students needing help with Algebra. Students will go to room 530. Tutoring will last until 3:30. If needed, students may get on a bus here and ride to Pedro Menendez to go home on the high school routes. However, if bus transportation is needed, we must know in advance to be sure students are aware what bus they need to ride from PMHS. Please email Mrs. Downey and she will inform transportation, who will inform us of the correct bus so we can tell your student. Mrs. Downey's email is: renee.downey@stjohns.k12.fl.us

With your help, we continue to make great progress towards our goal. Your help is truly appreciated! For convenience, if you have an Amazon account, you will be able to use this link, login, then choose Gamble.

https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/dl/invite/aT6WVYJ?ref=cm_sw_sm_r_un_un_8XxthfmaLi15y

You are invited to join us as we discuss student achievement data and discuss assessments. Imagine the exciting discussions you can have around the dinner table when you know even more than your student about assessments and GRMS' results! Note that while we are discussing FAST, we will not be FASTing ;-)

Please see the flyers below regarding the promotion of November as Family Engagement month in Florida. As you likely saw in this edition of SR News, we have had parents involved and hope you will take advantage by attending our Data and Donuts as well as the Fall Arts Festival.