Hello 5th graders! Very recently, I met with my Cabinet to pick the 13 finalists for my state-wide poster contest with The Department of Children and Families! (DCF) Let me tell you how it went!
On July 17th, I logged on to my computer to join my Zoom cabinet meeting. This time, I was not able to go up to the Old State House because I was away on vacation. So, this time I was joining from my computer!
When the Cabinet members joined the meeting we got started. We started by doing an ice breaker, where I came up with two questions for everybody to answer about themselves. My two ice breaker questions were “What is your favorite ice cream flavor?” and “What is your favorite book, and why?” I loved hearing everybody’s answers!
We continued on with the meeting by sharing our platform updates! I shared about the poster contest and my Outdoors-A-Thon, Houda shared about her Bitmoji classroom, Nathan shared about a poster he was working on, and Cora shared about her “Green Teams” and “22 for the Earth and You” projects.
We had so much fun looking at the posters together!
Afterwards, a special guest from DCF joined our meeting to talk to us about what she does. Her name was Ms. Jacqueline Ford, and she is the one who is in charge of collaborating with the Kid Governor program on the poster contests that Kid Governors have done in the past and continue to do today. Ms. Ford talked to us a little bit about her job at DCF and about the poster contest. The theme of this year’s contest was “What is your family’s silver lining during the Covid-19 Pandemic?” Ms. Ford told my Cabinet and me that it was our job to choose our favorite 13 posters, and that DCF would choose the winner from our top 13. She also said that the posters would be on display at the Buckland Hills Mall in Manchester so people could see them. They will also be on display during CT Family Day, which is a yearly event that tons of people go to to celebrate families!
Ms. Ford left the meeting so we could start picking the top 13 posters. We each wrote down our 5 favorites, and went over all of the posters we liked. It was an incredibly difficult task to narrow it down to 13. All of them were so amazing and special in their own ways, and my Cabinet and I were wowed by how amazing they all looked! It was so hard choosing the top 13 because they were all so good, that our meeting ran long! It was an amazing experience, seeing everybody's silver lining of a bad situation, and it made my day to see how many positive ideas other kids in CT had! We will announce the winner and finalists soon!
The meeting ended after that, but one very important thing I learned was that Connecticut’s Old State House is open for visitors again! For this summer only, all Connecticut children (and an adult chaperone) can get into museums around the state for free! So, if you would like to come see my office, make sure you come down to the Old State House (for free!) and tour my office!
Now, are you ready for the fun fact of the week? Here it is!
- Since I am on Block Island, I will tell you what I am doing! Every year, a glass blowing company makes 550 “Glass Floats” or glass balls about the size of an orange, numbers them all from 0 to 550, puts the year on them, and hides them around the island! The object of the game is that anybody who visits the island can have fun by participating in a treasure hunt for the balls! And if you find one you get to keep it. The point of this is to get everybody outside and active and since it went along with my platform I thought I’d share it with you! And if you're wondering, I DID find one!
Stay Positive! :)
