Brandan Cooper in Rose Caraballo’s class aat Mariposa Elementary School demonstrates his knowledge of the United States geography by completing his map quiz in the Media Center. Third grade students have been working hard to learn the states by their shape and location as they complete a digital timed map quiz.

An exciting enrichment reading group activity was held in the Media Center at Mariposa Elementary. Third grade students assigned to Charlotte Pennington enjoyed reading a folktale titled “The Paper Crane” by Molly Bang. While reading the story, the students were encouraged to use various reading strategies taught by Charlotte Pennington:  phonics, word decoding, clarifying, story mapping, predicting, questioning and summarizing.  The story taught the students about the nature of gift giving and caring for others that are less fortune then themselves. As an activity, the students learned how to fold their very own origami cup following Mrs. Pennington’s directions.  Before the students returned to … Read More

In fourth grade to practice learning about fractions, students in Michele Graci’s class at Mariposa Elementary decided to do some real world application. This project was helpful for the class to be able to answer the question fractions’ purpose. The students each got a chance to make a cake mix and end up with cake pops to eat at the end of their experiment. The class was put into four groups, and each afternoon a different group was put to the test. They were given a cake mix box and all the ingredients and tools they would need. It was then their … Read More

Students in Maria Nunez’s fourth grade class at Mariposa Elementary School were organized in a cooperative reading group with Kagan structures. There are four to five students in a group and each student has a specific job. One student will read aloud while the others read silently. When the page is read, each student has a task following a pyramid in the middle that says what that job is. Someone will summarize, then another student will predict, and the last student will connect the story to their lives, another book or a movie. After one round, the pyramid is turned … Read More

Mariposa Elementary School fourth grade students were enthralled with a Hobe Sound Nature Center presentation about raptors, also known as birds of prey. Staff from the Center brought in a rescued owl and hawk.  After learning about these amazing creatures, students role-played being scientists. They needed to find out what owls had eaten from an owl pellet. They broke the owl pellet in half, then used tools such as tweezers to pull apart the fur, and find the bones that could not be digested by the owl. Students took home the bones and fur and were asked to re-create what the animal looked like … Read More

The students in Elizabeth Forbes’ class at Mariposa Elementary learned about the Pilgrims in the month of November. The students read books and poems that described the Pilgrims’ exciting journey to their new land and wrote about how it would have felt to have been a Pilgrim child. The overwhelming consensus was that they would have missed electricity! Each student told one or more things for which they are thankful  at the end of the activity. Pictured, from left, are Michael Anderson-Cline, Louisa Davila, Angelee Amperez-Jorge and Aiden Busch.

Mariposa’s first grade students studied marine biology on a recent field trip to the Manatee Center in Fort Pierce. The students were engaged in a presentation on Florida’s manatees hosted by the center’s educational coordinator. Students learned fascinating facts about manatees and other marine animals like sea turtles, tropical fish, and eels. After the presentation, the students got to walk around the observatory deck to search for manatees, take photographs, and purchase souvenirs in the gift shop. Students, parents, and teachers had a wonderful time in spite of the rainy conditions that prevailed. Pictured, from left, are A. J. Cummings, Remington Jones, Tatiana Negron, Nicholas … Read More

Students in Toni Baptiste’s first grade class at Mariposa Elementary School have researched a zoo animal and made a cereal box report about their animal. Boys and girls were excited to share their animal’s habitat, diet and fun facts to the class. In addition, students were able to share information they learned about each other’s animal to a chaperone on a field trip to the Palm Beach Zoo. Pictured, from left, are Brandon Schwochert, My Nguyen,  Isaiah Bissram, Samuel Montgomery, John McCallum, and Sophia Mohammed.

Students in  Ashley Coe’s class at Mariposa Elementary participated in a fun activity to learn about author’s purpose. Using a candy wrapper, they had to find the facts that informed the consumer about the product. Then they had to write an advertisement using figurative language to persuade the consumer to purchase the product. Finally, the students created an imaginative story about the candy product to entertain the purchaser.  

Students at Mariposa Elementary School recently jumped for pledges for the local chapter of the American Heart Association. The goal this year was $7,000. All students spent their resource time, skipping, jumping rope, running an obstacle course and hopping to music.  We thank all those who have made donations on behalf of the students.  It is nice to know students are able to have compassion and place the needs of others before themselves.  Pictured, from left, are Brianna Locklar, Ariya Mosley and Zechariah Araya.

First grade students at Mariposa Elementary enjoyed releasing butterflies after studying and journaling their lifecycle over the past three weeks. First grade teacher Toni Baptiste is pictured helping first grade students release a butterfly.

Jump Rope for Heart is an event that takes place at Mariposa Elementary School’s PE field each year as a fund raiser for the American Heart Association. The program was formed to educate students and the community of the importance of a healthy heart free from cardiovascular diseases and strokes. Pictured, from left, are Kervens Saintil, Javon Clarke and Connor Bagnall participating in the fundraising event.

Students in Maria Nunez’s fourth grade class at Mariposa Elementary School have been exploring their senses and how to describe what they interpret with them. Pictured, from left, Anthony Serrano, Joshua Pierre, Devon Barbour, Joslyn Patterson and Faith White were presented with four centers:  listening, smelling, touching, and seeing. The students had to describe the objects using ONLY their senses. It was an enthralling activity that will help them both in writing and science. Students were engaged and so excited about tying in science lessons previously taught and applying them to their writing.

For Saint Lucia Day, students in Alicia Swink’s second grade class at Mariposa Elementary dressed up in Swedish traditional headdress and costume. The students delivered gingerbread cookies to all the second grade classes while reciting the St. Lucia Day song as part of their activity.

Students at Mariposa Elementary recently invited local veterans, firefighters and police officers to a Hero’s Breakfast in their honor. After the breakfast, students honored the local heroes through songs from the Mariposa chorus directed by Mary McCartney, a “Thank You” presentation from Michelle Smith’s first grade class, poem readings from second grade students and thank you cards from the entire school. The heroes were thrilled to receive the hugs and thank you cards from the students! Afterwards, the local police and fire department invited students outside to view the emergency vehicles and learn about safety. Pictured are Jonah McCrory, from … Read More

Students and staff at Mariposa Elementary School recently enjoyed an assembly with remarks presented by the esteemed international Strength Team, rated #1 in the nation for school assembly programs. The group’s presentations promote anti-bullying, anti-peer pressure, anti-drugs, and anti-alcohol, while respecting others and academic excellence. A great morning was had by all with this motivating message on making the right choices and was received with applause, laughter, and cheering. Pictured is one of the team members addressing a question from the audience.

Theresa Delancy’s third grade class at Mariposa Elementary School practiced being scientists as they explored scientific tools. The students rotated through six centers using tools like a pan balance, measuring tape, thermometer, graduated cylinder, eye dropper and hand lens. The students worked in small groups and performed an experiment at each of the six centers. They recorded their observations and collected data in their science journals just like real scientists do in the lab. Pictured are Joshua Pierre,left, and Juan Navarro.

Students in Maria Nunez’s fourth grade class at Mariposa Elementary did a spectacular experiment recently. Students created Spin-Copters to determine whether the mass of an object would affect how well the copters flew. The students found out that when you add a paper clip to the copter, it would fly a little farther away and spin a little faster on its descent.  However, when you did the same thing with cardstock or heavier paper, the copter did not fly so well because it had too much mass.  The students were engaged in this activity and enjoyed testing the copters further by … Read More

Students in Jeanie Alves first grade class at Mariposa Elementary have been learning about different foods and where they come from, and Ms. Alves’ class selected oranges and picked several from the school garden.  Students learned how to squeeze the oranges to get the juice, which they love!