Please remember that conferences are just around the corner.  I will be holding conferences on Thursday, May 13th form 1pm-7pm.  Spring conferences are held in an Open House style so you may come anytime during conference hours. Your child will be directing the conference so please make sure you plan for them to attend.  Conference this time are focused on showing just how far we have come during this wonderful year together.  

I don't usually post about lunch boxes but today it seems appropriate!  Last week when we took our wonderful field trip a to Fort Vancouver we ended up with a lot of forgotten lunch boxes in the lunch bin.  Those wonderful lunch bags were still in the lunch bin this afternoon. I am not sure why they have not been taken home yet.  Just after school today there was a loud pop and a bottle cap flew out into the hallway.  Another teacher came over to ask my daughter if she knew what happened. She had no idea.  Soon there was a puddle forming of fluid on the floor.  The liquid seemed to be running out of the bottom of the lunch bin. As I went over to investigate I was assaulted by the smell of vinegar.  Soon I located the culprit.  A small bottle of apple juice had fermented just enough to push the cap off and start spewing.  I had the custodian help  me to the janitor's closet where there is a large sink.  My daughter and I spent a good while washing all of the lunch boxes and bags off.  It was impossible to get the smell out of some but we tried.  In the end we were able to clean the lunch bin and put all of the smelly and wet lunch boxes into plastic bags. So if you receive a soaking wet lunch box at home tomorrow, you know it was involved in the great juice explosion of 2010.

Tuesday, April 27th the fourth graders will hop on the bus and travel all the way to the state of Washington!  We will spend the day at Fort Vancouver just over the bridge from Portland.  Going to the fort is one of my all time favorite field trips.  We spend the first part of the day taking a hands on tour of the fort and all of the buildings. We get to see how important beaver pelts were.  We also get a tour of John McLaughlin's house.  He was the chief factor of the Hudson's Bay Company and has a magnificent house at the fort. After the tour we spend a short time exploring the other buildings at the fort.  The next stop is to the museum for a short video and a look around the small museum and gift shop.  We finish of with a lunch under cover outside.  

The students at Orenco are lucky! They are lucky for many reasons but the latest reason is that Mr. Bishop and Mrs. Edwards arranged to have the ENTIRE school 1st-6th grade go on a field trip to see The 10 Grands.  It is Friday, April 2nd at the Schnitzer Concert Hall in Portland.  The 10 Grands are 10 grand pianos and their pianists who will perform and amazing piano concert for all of us.  I sent field trip permission slips home today and need them back before spring break.  There is no cost to students.  Due to the fact that we got more than 450 tickets so we are not able to have any parents attending the show with us.

This Tuesday, March 2nd is Dr.Seuss' birthday and we celebrate at Orenco with a school wide book parade.  Our float this year is from the story Finding the Titanic.  We will parade our Titanic boat decorated wagon down the hallway at 1:30 on Tuesday.  It is always fun to be in a parade and this one really reminds us how much fun reading can be!  Join us for the parade if you can.

On Friday we were fortunate to have a representative from the Army National Guard come to school and give us a presentation on The Lewis and Clark Expedition.  We were able to check out some artifacts and watch a wonderful movie.  Our presentation also included the class participating in a little skit and hearing some great tales of the adventures that Lewis and Clark had on their journey.  We really enjoyed looking at bear paws prints, seeing a real sextant, and touching fur of animals that Lewis and Clark would have encountered.  What a great Friday!  Be sure to ask your child what they learned.