Week of October 13

 On Tuesday, the Peacocks and Narwhals were visited by Mr. Robert Anderson, former Lieutenant Governor of Iowa as a guest speaker. Mr. Anderson talked to us about the unusual dynamics of our government, particularly in the use of local government in decision making. He was great about answering all of our questions.

 

Some questions we asked:

"Which college did you go to?"

"As a lieutenant governor, what are your duties?"

"Does every state have a governor?"

"How was the experience of being lieutenant governor for you?"

"What qualifications do you have to have to run for governor in Iowa?"

 

This visit worked well with our study of the articles of the constitution where we have focused on learning about all of the intricacies of how the constitution impacts our government. We've learned a lot about what the president can do and why we have a senate and congress.

 

On Wednesday we made ice cream sundaes out of model magic, then made them out of real ice cream! Everyone made their own variation of a sundae by using different colors or combining colors. 

 

 

 

 

 

Week of October 6

The kids had a great time at the Seattle Art Museum today.  They saw the pop art exhibit there.  The students were asked to write a paragraph when we returned about their favorite pop art piece.  Here are their paragraphs. 

       My favorite piece of pop art was an ice bag.  It was made by Claus Oldenburg.  It was made up of cloth.  It inflated and then deflated.  It was a very interesting sculpture. 

       I liked John Cumberlain's steel sculpture.  It was like a block of steel.  It was very cool!  I liked it better than the red one. That was a cool artist. 

      I had two favorite artists.  Margarita Cabrera and Andy Warhol are my two favorites.  For Andy Warhol, it was the sparkly shoes painting.  For Margarita Cabrera it was a slug bug, old car, yellow car.  Those two are my favorite artists of all time. 

      I really like Vanishing Cream by Edward Ruscha.  I think it was interesting he used egg yolk to make it.  I also think it was interesting he called it Vanishing Cream.  I also like the Made in USA by the same person.  He used paint splatters.  I think it was really cool. 

       My favorite art work was Hair Portrait # 20.  I like it because it was sparkly.  It's a picture with ladies' faces that have rhinestones on them.  I also liked it because it was mostly black and white.

       I chose Hair Portrait #20.  The artist was Mickalene Thomas, who is my favorite pop artist.  It was crazy.  It had a lot of sparkles. 

     What I like about Yellow Cab is that its color is my favorite color (yellow).  It is my favorite type of car (bug). The artist is Margarita Cabrera.  It was made in 2004. 

     My favorite piece was Yellow Cab by Margarita Cabrera.  It was my favorite piece because it was simple.  Also it was my favorite color.  Another reason is that it is a Volkswagen.  That's why it is my favorite. 

     My favorite art piece is Yellow Cab.  It is made by Margarita Cabrera.  It was made in 2004.  It is a sculpture.  Yellow Cab is my favorite piece. 

     Yellow Cab, from Margarita Cabrera was my favorite.  It was because it was made of some leather-type stuff, well most of it.  Second, it was a full-sized Volkswagen Beetle!  Last, you could probably drive it if it had an engine.  That is why Yellow Cab, from Margarita Cabrera is my favorite work of art. 

Week of September 29

 

This week the Peacocks started learning about the creation of the U.S. constitution.  Our reading of a Jean Fritz book all about the planning and writing of the U.S. constitution will prepare us to do some summary writing. For art, we started creating Pop Art collages using commonly recognized images from media. We also created historical postcards depicting important events from our fiction reading from September.

 

 

In our science experiment, they learned about titration! This process involves breaking down iodine into a new form by introducing vitamin C.

 

Here you can some of us testing for the vitamin C levels in lemon juice by using an iodine solution and a little starch. By testing how many drops of fresh lemon juice, orange juice, or store bought juice it takes to change the solution from purple to white, we could determine which had high concentration of vitamin C.

 

 

Below, a few of our students are creating a starch testing solution.

 

 

 

In these tests, we recorded how much vitamin C it took to clear the discoloring that iodine causes when starch is added. The results allows us to evaluate which of these vitamin C sources had the most vitamin C.

 

 

 

The week wrapped up with a big First Friday Gathering where we were joined by the Middle School students for some presentations, snacks, games, and enrichment activities.

Here are some reflections from the week:

"What I want to work on...more acts of kindness."

"I loved art this week. Art is awesome. Robert Rauschenberg is amazing."

"I'm going to improve on everything next week. You can always improve on everything."

"I think French went well this week. French was fun, very fun, and hard."

"Math is awesome. I love doing decimals."

"In math I could put in a little more effort."

"Science went well because we got to do experiments."

"Things are going smoothly this week."

"I think I have excelled at reading. "

"I think this week's homework was either simple, or I am really smart."

"Also, P.E. was really fun with Ms. Nancy, we played messy yard."

"I did my work quick. I had a lot of fun."