And the beat goes on...

Thank you so much for all the Valentine's Day love! We had a blast in our class that day, reviewing math through some "sweet" games, doing some creative writing, and enjoying a celebration at the end of the day. I truly adore your kiddos, and I'm so proud of all the work they've done, all the fun we've had. We're moving through our year at full, and I mean FULL, speed. Spring conferences are just around the corner, and we have two field trips coming up in the next two weeks. February and March have so much going on! Make sure to check out the list of upcoming events below.

Mrs Ikeda

Class Website and Video

As your children may have told you, we have worked on some creative and dramatic projects together, like some journalistic podcasts, stop motion videos, and more recently a dramatic representation of the Constitutional Convention. I would really love to share some of these creations with all of you without making them fully public. In order to try to keep that balance, I've tried to create a page within the Lowrie website to use as a host for our videos and podcasts. It's very much a work in progress page, and I don't have much in it. BUT! Our video is published!!! So please check it out here. You might have to sign in as a Lowrie user, so let me know if you can't access it and I'll look into it. I'm so proud of them, I have to share this video with all of you!

Dates to Remember

February 27th—5th grade musical (8:00-8:45am)

February 28th—Field trip to the OR state capitol

March 2nd—Field trip to watch the musical "We the People"

March 4th—Early release (12:10pm)

March 16th - 19th—Spring Conferences

March 20th—No school (Spring Conferences)

March 23rd—Spring Break

Click here for the Lowrie calendar

Field Trips

We have two field trips coming up very, very soon! Next Friday we'll be visiting the Oregon State Capitol as part of our government unit. We'll hear about Oregon's legislative and executive branches, and even meet one of our legislators. Then the following Monday we'll be watching a musical theater performance called "We the People."

The permission form for the State Capitol has already gone home with the students. Please sign it and return it as soon as you can this week, and please let me know if you can chaperone.

The second permission form will be going home on Monday, so be on the lookout for it.

STEAM in our Class

Science and art have more in common than we imagine - both involve taking risks, experimenting, learning from mistakes, trying it again.

Our last unit in science involved explorations of matter and its properties - substances dissolving and creating solutions, chemical vs physical reactions, and more. At the end, our class dissolved sharpie inks on fabric with some rubbing alcohol (making quite a mess!). Many students were not happy with the way their pieces of fabric were coming out, so I asked for them and turned them into a class quilt. We turned out "mistakes" into a piece of art to hang in our class from now on.

What have we done?!?

We're finishing the following units this month:

Math - We have been exploring data tables, patterns, constant rates of growth, and the very early stages of linear functions. Students are also expected to graph on a coordinate grid, interpret graphs, connect the shapes to the information on data tables, and very importantly, justify their conjectures.

Reading and Writing - Students are doing research on historical events during the Civil Rights movement (1950s-1970s). We are learning the importance of text structures, perspectives, and special text features, such as maps and timelines, that authors use in their nonfiction texts in order to present facts about history. Furthermore, we are exploring the importance of interpreting facts, making connections, and finding patterns across time and events to make sense of history, for example the causes and the effects of certain events. Students are then using their research to make their own reports on the Civil Rights movement, including their unique interpretations, analysis of the facts, and making connections to our lives today.

In closing

As always, please let me know if you have any questions at ikedai@wlwv.k12.or.us.