Science and Language Arts

                                                                  Language Arts 

In Mrs. Johnson's language arts we recently finished a chapter book called Kensuke's Kingdom by Micheal  Morpurgo. The book is about a boy named Micheal. When his parents lose their jobs, they decide to sail around the world. One stormy night when Micheal's parents weren't  watching him, Micheal and his dog, Stella, fall off the boat. In day light they find themselves on an island, hungry and scared struggling to find food.  Then they meet a man on the island named Kensuke, and he helps Stella and Michael survive.  

                               
                                                                   Science
In Mrs. Johnson's science class we have been working on consumer tests on paper towels. We test the paper towels on absorbency or how much strength each paper towel can hold. All the paper towels are different brands, but we know them as A,B,C,D and E. When we finish all of are testing we can choose the best paper towel from our recordings in our science journals. Next we will make commercials about which paper towels are best.

Sincerely,

Mrs. Johnson's 5th and 6th Graders

Below are pictures of us performing tests on our paper towels.  Have a great Thanksgiving Break!

      

Veterans' Day

On Veterans' Day, we had a flag ceremony and we learned about Veterans' Day in social studies
There is a veteran that works at our school, and he taught us about the flag.  In social studies we learned to fold the flag the proper way, how to respect the flag, what the difference between Memorial Day and Veterans' Day is, the origins of Veterans' Day, and about the Tomb of the Unknown Soilder.

     We hope you had a happy Veterans' Day!
   
       Reminders: No school the 26. 27, and the 28.

Sincerely,  
 Mrs. Johnson's 5th and 6th Graders


                                               

                                        

Wanted: Pencils

Help!  We are running low on our classroom supply of pre-sharpened pencils.  If you are able to donate another box of these much needed items, please send them to school with your child.  Thank you for your donations!

Sincerely,
Mrs. Johnson's 5th and 6th Graders

Halloween at Lincoln

Halloween at Lincoln is pretty cool. Every year, people dress up in their costumes, and then we parade through the halls and around the neighborhood. First, the kindergarten go through a class, and then that class follows, and so on, until the kindergarten have gone all the way through the school. Then we go outside and walk with our classes on a route that leads up the stairs and to the back door.

After the parade, we go back to our classes and eat treats that our awesome volunteer parents have for us. Every year teachers dress in costumes that have something to do with our all school project, and keep it a secret from the kids. It's a lot of fun!

Reminders: 

~No Current Events this week.

~Don't forget your costume.

~Don't gorge on candy!

~The parade starts at 2:00 on Friday.

Sincerely,
Mrs. Johnson's 5th and 6th Graders

Happy Halloween!

Iowa Assessments Testing

       This week, the third through sixth graders have been taking the Iowa Assessments Test. The topics are reading, written expression, capitalization, vocabulary, spelling, punctuation, computation, mathematics, social studies, and science. The test is multiple choice, and takes between 15-30 minutes to complete. There are between 20-65 questions on each test. It's taken every year in L.A, and takes up the whole period. On most days, we took the tests at 9:00 a.m, but on Tuesday, we took it a little later because the power went off. The goal of kids taking the Iowa Assessments is to test the core subjects and (sometimes) to place them into future classes. On Friday, we had a party, to acknowledge the hard work students put into the tests. Unlike last year, this year's party had no Gorp.

Reminders:
*Book orders are due Monday, October 27.  You can place your order online.
*There will be no school on Monday, October 20.
*Our Halloween parade will be in the afternoon on Friday, October 31.

Sincerely,
Mrs. Johnson's 5th and 6th Graders

Below are a couple of pictures of us reading during our power outage on Tuesday.  We all had to sit near the window so that we could use the natural light to see.  There is also a photo of a student taking the Iowa Assessments (with the lights on!).

 

Kent Park

This week, the fifth graders went on a two day field trip to Kent Park. On the first day we went on a hike and found a lot of frogs. Another thing we did was learn the history of archery. Some people even got bulls-eyes. We also learned how pollution affects the earth using an enviroscape. And we went fishing. We caught a lot of fish. Then on the second day, went on another nature hike. A guy brought in a snake and put it around our necks. Also, we went to a wetland and tried to catch some animals. We caught frogs and some other things. The last thing we did was after school hours. What we did was had our parents come, and we had a cookout. We ate hot dogs, chips, fruit, and s'mores.
It was a very fun adventure.
   
 Reminders:Iowa assessments are the week of October 13th
                   There will be no school on the 20th.


Sincerely,
Mrs. Johnson's 5th and 6th Graders

Google Drive Accounts

This past week in media we've been focusing on our Google Drive Accounts. We set up our Google Accounts with the help of Mr. Shlitz our librarian. The accounts hold our documents in files until the end of our senior year. We can use them for anything school related, such as sending teachers documents, asking questions about assignments,  and commenting about homework.

On our Google Accounts we have files for Social Studies, L.A., Writing, Science, Tech, Math, Personal, and Classroom. That's what we've been working on over the past week in Mr. Shlitz's media class.

Reminders: wear blue and white on this Friday, and fifth graders remember to have fun at Kent Park next week on Monday and Tuesday!
                                                             
                                                                                            Mrs.Johnson's 5th/6th graders

A student working on her Google Drive account

Solar Science

Last week in science we took careful notes about our Solar System. We also watched a video and answered questions about what learned in the video. We learned the reason why the Solar System is named the Solar System the reason is because Sol means sun in Spanish and the planets orbiting is a system that is why its called a Solar System. Also we did a card sort of the planets and other objects in space. We sorted them in different ways. Such as the order of the planets, we sorted the planets with there moons. Lastly we sorted them from coldest to the hottest planets. We learned about the 8 planets, the space belts, 2 dwarf planet and how the Earth and our moon were formed.We did this because we are going to take a test and to learn about the Solar System. This is what we have been learning about in science.  Below is a picture of the cards we sorted to learn more about the solar system and a couple of our journal pages from this unit.



                                                                       REMINDERS

5th graders remember to bring your Kent Park permission slips (due Friday)

Everybody remember your Current Events (due Friday)

Coming Soon...

Stay tuned!  Mrs. Johnson's 5th/6th Graders will be providing weekly updates about the happenings in our classroom beginning next week.  Check in weekly to see what we've been up to.

Sincerely,

Mrs. Johnson

Visiting Artist

Last week a visiting artist came to Lincoln.  She was here Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday.  She worked with 3rd and 4th graders at our school.  We worked on acting out some plays.  Some of our plays were called "The Bee", "Captain", "Seed Life", and "The New Seedling".  The theme of our plays was plants because we are studying plants in science.

Before we began acting, we warmed up our voices with "pmmmmm."  She told us that actors have three things that cannot be taken away from them: their voice, body, and imagination.  Then she split us into groups.  Each group had five people and sometimes a director.  After we practiced, we acted them out for the class.  The plays were fun.

Reminders:
*Fun Night is this Saturday 4/26 from 4:00 - 7:00 p.m.
*Bring coins for the Children's Hospital Coin Drive (ends Friday 4/25)

Below are some pictures of us working with the visiting artist and performing our plays.

Sincerely,
Mrs. Johnson's 3rd and 4th Graders

Opera Iowa

Yesterday, Opera Iowa came to our school.  Before their performance, Mrs. Johnson's class got to attend a workshop with the performers. They went over the basic opera terms with us.  As a class we came up with a "Fractured Fairly Tale of The Three Little Pigs."  The different settings we came up with were: On Mars, grasslands, and in a volcano.  The volcano was on a grassland on Mars and the three little pigs were building their houses.  Then a bunch of angry peaches were wrecking their houses.  Everybody thought the mini opera was funny.
Later in the afternoon, the performers from our workshop performed The Three Little Pigs for the whole school.  Our favorite part was when one of the pigs picked his nose and went up to some of the little kids and flicked an imaginary booger on the little kids.  We really enjoyed the performance and are glad that Opera Iowa was able to come to our school.  Below are some pictures from our workshop and from the performance.

Reminder: Fun Night is Saturday, April 26 from 4:00-7:00 p.m.

Sincerely,
Mrs. Johnson's 3rd and 4th Graders

Fine Arts Night

During Fine Arts Night we sang for our families and played instruments. The first two songs we played were called "When the Saints Go Marching In" and "Gently Sleep."   We played them on our recorders, then we sang some songs.  The first song we sang was called "Tue Tue."  Mrs. Hill's class made a half-circle and one at a time one kid would come out and do an action to a sentence of the song.  The next song was called "Peace the Whole World Over."  Some people said "peace" in different languages.  The next song was called "2-4-6-8."  When we were singing the verse, five groups of four kids would come out and get in a line and perform their actions to go with the song.  The last song was called "Listen to My Heart Beat."  Some of the people in our class got to play the drums.  There was also a cowbell, snare drum, and the vibraslap.  After the concert, we showed our parents the art we made in art class that was hanging up in the hallway.  Last Thursday night (Fine Arts Night) was pretty fun.

Below are some pictures of our music performance on Fine Arts Night.

Reminder:
Book orders are due online Friday, April 4.  It is the final book order of the school year.

Sincerely,
Mrs. Johnson's 3rd and 4th Graders