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*Our classroom Valentine exchange will take place next week*

Science: Grace was our fearless leader today and opened our class with prayer. We read a devotional about wind, air pressure, and how God calls us to stand strong even when things around us are changing or adding pressure. We watched a video on how changes in air pressure can create winds and then dove into THREE fun experiments to demonstrate air pressure including a paper towel experiment, the hot/cold balloon experiment, and (the favorite) drink dispenser experiment. I had wonderful helpers (see pics) for all three as we inched our way deeper in our understanding of the atmosphere. We used the final experiment to fill out our worksheet, complete with a hypothesis, diagram and conclusion. Finally, we watched a video to review the history of the barometer.

Geography: After the flag salute, we read Grace read a clue card that led us to Texas! I answered any lingering questions about the country projects we will present next week and then I introduced Oceania. I told the students about my short-term mission trip to Guam and Yap and showed them a few pictures. I think they were most intrigued with the stone money. We practiced saying hello in Yapese and discussed how even though they didn't have a Bible, they knew about the "great flood". We talked about how beautiful the different cultures of our world are and even more so that they are held together by the great big narrative of God. Next, we used our water colors to paint the four parts of Oceania. After labeling them, we glued it onto our mapping paper and tucked it in our notebooks. We didn't have time for our Australia video so we will use that as an intro next week.

IEW: We kicked off our IEW time with Grace and Jett reading their Pecos Bill final drafts. The students worked so hard on these drafts, I wish we had time for more to read them, but I'm excited to read them all myself and hear their new creations with "Busy Beavers". I introduced the idea of summarizing source texts and we spent a minute reviewing topic sentences and clincheres. We explored what it means to "reflect" a word vs. "repeat" a word. Then, we read a fascinating text about beavers and the clever homes they build. Together we crafted an outline of 5 fun facts, a topic sentence, and a clincher. We made sure the outline worked for us. Jax and Abbie successfully used their outlines to retell the information. The students will use this outline to write one paragraph summarizing the reference text. Can't wait to read them!