TRITT SUMMER CAMP 2023! Specials teachers will once again be offering the best of Visual & Performing Arts, Library Learning Commons & Technology, indoor & outside Games, and Science & Gardening in a summer camp for rising 1st-5th grade Tritt students. Students will be separated by grade and will rotate to each subject throughout the day. Camp will run from May 30th - June 2nd from 9AM-3PM each day, for $250. Payment is due at the time of registration by check to "Tritt Elementary" with "Summer Camp" in the notes or using MyPaymentsPlus (set up after you register). Proceeds to be shared among LLC, Technology Lab, Music, Art, Science Lab, P.E. and Robotics Lab. Spaces are limited! Register here!
Robotics Club Application
Students in 4th and 5th grade can apply each August to join the Tritt Elementary VEX IQ Robotics Competition Team, Tritt United Robotics Club, for that school-year. Weekly mandatory practices allow the students to design, build, drive and program VEX IQ robots to compete with other schools in that year's challenge. This year’s team will practice on Mondays from 2:15-3:30, August thru March. The program fee is $250, which includes all equipment, a jersey, and tournament fees (excluding playoffs). Club size is limited to 20 students. Interested students can complete this Interest Form and download the application.
Teams Zeta & Gamma earn invitations to VEX Robotics World Championship!
Tritt Elementary was represented at the Georgia State VEX Tournament by 6 of the 8 teams comprising Tritt United Robotics Club. Team Zeta, pictured below, took home the Design Award, earning an automatic invitation to the VEX World Championship in Dallas, TX in May. Team Gamma earned an at-large bid for their prowess in the Skills portion of the State Tournament. We are so proud of the growth we saw from all of our teams this year! Congratulations and good luck in Dallas!
Robotics Team earns State berths!
In the 2021/22 season the Tritt United Robotics Club was back in a big way with 8 united teams and 24 students.. Team Zeta earned a Teamwork Challenge Award at a December Tournament earning a berth to the State tournament and an Innovate Award at a nationwide tournament in January. Team Gamma earned a Skills Award and Team Theta a Design Award at tournaments in January, also earning berths to the State tournament. Three other teams (Beta, Heta & Gamma) earned at-large berths to the State tournament in February.
Tritt United Robotics Club is BACK!
Students in 4th and 5th grade can apply each August to join Tritt Elementary's VEX IQ Robotics Competition Team (Tritt United Robotics Club) for that school-year. Weekly mandatory practices allow the students to design, build, drive and program VEX IQ robots to compete with other schools in that year's challenge. This year’s team will practice on Mondays from 2:30-3:30, August thru March. The program fee is $150, which includes all equipment, a jersey, and tournament fees (excluding playoffs). Club size limited to 18 students. Interested students can complete this Interest Form and download the application here. See VEX Robotics on the Main Page for more information and to view this year’s challenge.
Water Wednesdays in the Tritt Gardens, 11:30-Noon
There are blueberries, blackberries, tomatoes, peppers, peas and more growing in the raised beds along Post Oak Tritt Road.
Join Mr. Giunta every Wednesday this summer from 11:30-Noon in the Tritt Gardens to weed, water and harvest!
Email Mr. Giunta at joseph.giunta@cobbk12.org with any questions.
Canoeing with Mr. Giunta! #TigerPaddle
The Chattahoochee River not only supplies the drinking water for 70% of metro Atlanta, including the Tritt school community, it is also the heart of the Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area (CRNRA) - 48 miles of river and parkland through a major metropolitan area!
I spent 12 years leading canoe trips on the river with Chattahoochee Nature Center, and now I would like to invite Tritt families to go paddling with me! I can provide the boats, paddles and life jackets for up to 5 people.
On a two-hour canoe / kayak trip we can search for animals from Great Blue Heron and Kingfishers to White-tailed Deer and Beavers, all while learning about the history and importance of the river, and listening to frogs and insects call to us on this relaxing sunset paddle.
Take a look at what fun some of our Tritt families have had out on the Chattahoochee!
VEX Robotics Winners
Congratulations to the 40+ students who participated in VEX Robotics Challenge in the 2020-21 school year!
Most of these students had never used VEX before and only had twelve days to learn the system before their showcase. We kept score all year and here are your top 3 finishers:
First place (31 points): Alex M, 5th Grade
Second Place (tied, 30 points): Hanniel C and Austin W, both 4th grade
Journal of Ingenious Science Experiments
The following Science Fair contributions were submitted by 16 of our incredible students! This year we weren’t able to meet in-person, but these dedicated students worked independently and voluntarily to create experiments to answer questions of their own devising!
A big THANK-YOU to our Science Fair judges!
The winners of the 2021 Tritt Elementary Science Fair:
1st Place: Mira B (Blue Ribbon winner at the County Fair for 5th Grade)
2nd Place: Hannah H (Red Ribbon winner at the County Fair for 3rd Grade)
3rd Place: Amelia K (Blue Ribbon winner at the County Fair for 4th Grade)
4th Place: Akshay C (Blue Ribbon winner at the County Fair for 4th Grade)
5th Place: Sophia E (Red Ribbon winner at the County Fair for 3rd Grade)
Congratulations to all of our participants. A big shout out to Caroline, our first 1st grade participant!
The Science Review: NASA's Perseverance Rover
The premiere episode of The Science Review! You can learn more here: https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-s-mars-perseverance-rover-provides-front-row-seat-to-landing-first-audio.
Six Experiments in Sixty Seconds: Quarter 3
Check out some of the lessons your students are completing in the Science Lab this Quarter!
Six Experiments in Sixty Seconds, Part III
Check out what our Tritt students are learning during Quarter 2 in the Science Lab!
Okefenokee Adventures
This weekend I took a trip to Okefenokee Swamp down in south Georgia! It was my first time visiting there. I was able to paddle about 20 miles with some friends from the Georgia River Network. Here are some of my pictures!
We saw really cool carnivorous. plants ones that don’t get enough nutrients from the soil, so they capture and dissolve small insects! We also saw lots of flowers, towering cypress and billowing Spanish Moss.
We also saw a lot of wildlife! Woodpeckers and Catbirds, turtles and snakes, and lots of Alligators!
Six Experiments in Six Minutes: Part 2
Check out what we are up to in the Science Lab this week! Two versions: six minutes, and sixty seconds!!!
Six Experiments in Six Minutes
Check out what we’ve been up to in the Science Lab during our third rotation this quarter!
Have you seen this snake?!?!
There is a large stack of bricks (hundreds) by the fire pit in my backyard. I put a piece of plywood on top so it could serve as a table. Well this spring I found an Eastern Kingsnake living in there!!!
A friend of mine is running a citizen scientist project to collect data on Kingsnakes. You can read more about her project here and download a flier here. She came out to collect data on the snake and take pictures, and then we moved it outside my fence to keep it safe from the dogs.
Having worked at the Chattahoochee Nature Center, I was able to identify it immediately as harmless. You can learn to identify snakes of Georgia too by visiting the Savannah River Ecology Lab website.
Code your own virtual robot with VEX!
Want to practice your coding skills this summer? Use VEXcode VR! Program your own virtual robot using the same code we use to run our real bot in the Robotics Club. Just click on the picture below to get started!
Gardening with Mr. Giunta - Ep. 2
Welcome back! In this episode I am going to plant some onions underneath the trellised sugar snap peas.
The hardest part of gardening (IMHO) is the waiting! It has only been a couple of weeks, so I am trying to stay patient, but I’m ready to find out which of these plants are going to produce a lot of food!
We did add a couple of pots of peppers and tomatoes off the to side, just to see what would happen planting them so early, and then of course we had consecutive nights of sub-40 temps. We’ll see!
Wily coyote caught on camera!
Did you know that Tritt Elementary School partners with the Atlanta Coyote Project? After purchasing trail cameras with a grant from the Georgia Science Teachers Association, we were asked to provide the data from our trail to the organization tracking animal movement in the Metro Atlanta area.
Recently the Atlanta Coyote Project helped track down and relocate a rare black coyote. You can check out the story here: https://www.businessinsider.com/rare-black-coyote-friends-with-great-pyrenees-2020-2 and video here: https://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2020/02/19/black-coyote-dog-friendship-orig-vc.cnn.
In the meantime be sure to clink on the Trail Cameras tab to see what we’ve found on the Tritt Nature Trail!
Happy Spring Equinox!
What a wonderful day! Happy SPRING EQUINOX! Today we have “equal” lengths of day and night, or at least, that is what the word equinox means, and it is pretty darn close.
Our 2nd and 4th graders both studied astronomy earlier this year! Ask the former about their playground experiment and the latter about indirect sunlight and seasonal changes!
This is a great video to share with our elementary school students:
This video get into the real deal if you are curious, but it might confuse our kiddos: