Thank you! Great work! Congratulations!

After the first official day of spring and a fairly sunshine filled week, we have the biggest snow of all! Luckily it seems the snow will be melting quickly and warm weather will be coming back.

I want to thank all the family and friends that came out to Lincoln's Fine Arts Night last Thursday. It was a wonderful evening filled many smiles and great works of art! The sixth graders should be proud of their last performance. 🎶 🎨

This week our major changes have been with our diversity of life science kit. It has kicked off with a great start! We are focusing on how to determine if something is living or nonliving. 🌿🌞🌈💧
So far we have identified characteristics we believe to be identifiers of living things and have used them to help us sort items into three different categories: living, nonliving, and undecided. This list will help us throughout our investigations and is sure to change as we determine more qualifiers and/or remove items from the list.
We have also set a few cuttings into small jars of water to figure out if they are living or not. This includes a carnation, potato, branch with leaves, and philodendron which we provide with air, water, and indirect sunlight.
The students have also created mini-habitats consisting of soil, grass, leaves, berries, and sticks filled with some pond water. We will continue to keep these containers sealed and set aside, checking them occasionally for any changes.
Lastly, we have put together five mystery vials to observe over several days for any signs of life. Some of the students have become confident in their idea of what some vials consist of and whether they are living or nonliving.
Each of these activities has already proven to get the students thinking more in-depth about what it means to be living. Challenge your student to determine if something is living or nonliving and request their thinking as to why. 🔬🌱

🏀📚This past week also took us through two March Madness book face-offs! We have found our final two mach: Hunger Games versus Wonder! It will be an exciting match next week!

Weekly math and spelling lists should have come home yesterday in addition to the spelling and vocab words being posted online. Don't forget current events will also be due on Friday.

I also would like to give a shout out to our very own Elli Hagedorn who has received the City Council Leadership Award! This award is given to select students who show leadership qualities that go above and beyond within school as well as around the community. If you would like to attend the award ceremony, it will be held at the Iowa City City Council Meeting on Monday, April 2nd at 6pm. Congratulation Elli!🎉

I hope you all enjoy your weekend and hang in there while we make our way through this crazy Iowa weather!