Pupils enjoyed creating their own Washington portraits using a process called micrography, in which they used words to decorate the background and clothing of our first president.  Amber Mintert, our "artist-in-residence" for the week, led them through the process.  She will be back this Friday to conclude her time with us, and she will accompany us when we take our field trip to Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas, this spring.

The first tours of Hoggatt Cave 2019 were yesterday.  Hoggatteer tour guides were very excited to spend a large portion of our day in the dark..

​Students got a taste for public speaking, and nerves were popping, but they made it through.  Every group that comes through is different, so students may have felt like they needed to adjust as each new group came through.

I plan to schedule some tours of Hoggatt Cave, this week, after which Hoggatt Cave will be put to rest for the remainder of the school year.  At the same time, I am leading students into the world of spying, starting with George Washington as the nation's first spymaster, and then working on some fun activities to support the theme of spying through the ages.

On Thursday, we have an important awards assembly, where our monthly citizenship and SOAR awards will be presented.  At this month's event, the principals will also present award certificates for meeting or exceeding their projected growth on the NWEA tests a few weeks ago.  For this, they may receive Bronze for succeeding in one subject, Silver for two subjects, or Gold for all three.

We're looking forward to Friday, when we will enjoy our celebration for positive behavior throughout the month of February (for students with no major office referrals).  This month's celebration is a movie and popcorn.  Later in the day, Amber Mintert, our artist-in-residence, will return for one last activity, where she will lead classes in a collaborative project that will be displayed in our hallway in anticipation of our field trip to Crystal Bridges this spring.

Amber Mintert, art professor at Missouri Southern State University and our liaison with Crystal Bridges, has been in our classroom, this week, sharing art and history with students.  We have thoroughly enjoyed her visits and the projects she has led.  These pictures are from Tuesday.

Yesterday, Mrs. Mintert returned for "George Washington Day", and shared two of Crystal Bridges prized possessions - the portraits of George Washington, depicted at Yorktown and near the end of his presidency.  The kids loved playing the expert to her questions about our favorite first commander-in-chief and president, and they learn a lot in the process as she challenged them to find more and more details in the portraits.

We're looking forward to just two more days with our "artist-in-residence" and for an upcoming field trip to see these and other artworks for ourselves in the spring - all of which are made possible by a grant program our fourth grade teachers participated in last summer involving a week-long residency at the Bentonville, Arkansas, museum.

I have some bonus video footage of our boat design challenge.  These are short video segments, but long enough to capture the excitement students have for this type of activity.

I didn't catch very many shots of our annual valentines exchange, last week.  The class seemed to enjoy itself.

A few of students planned their wardrobes appropriately for the day.