Field Trip to the Kirby Smith Center

On Monday the Lipsky Team traveled back in time 100 years to experience life as a student in Gainesville in 1911. Our time machine is out for repairs, so instead we rode in a school bus to the Kirby Smith Center.

The Kirby Smith Center was originally built in 1900 as a public graded (elementary) and high school. It served as a school for 80 years and then became the School Board of Alachua County headquarters. It retains an original classroom from those early days for students to discover what life was like back in those days.

While back in time the girls got to wear pinafores, and the boys wore suspenders and collars. We went by old-fashion names such as, Hiram, Ezra, Amos, Ruth, and Grace. We read from a "Level 3 Reader" that was published in 1897. We practiced writing our new names in script on slate with chalk. Our school marm, Mrs. Smith, taught us about life in the early 1900s. And then students were split into groups to act as detectives and discover information about life in Gainesville over 100 years ago.

We had a great time! What was your favorite part?

Happy Earth Day!

Our school decorated brown grocery bags with Earth Day messages. The grocery bags were borrowed from Publix and will be returned so that shoppers requesting "paper" will receive one of our bags and messages. Take a look at the Lipsky Team's Earth Day Bags below.

The idea came from www.EarthDayBags.org. Lipsky Team if you could give the world one message on Earth Day, what would it be?