Make a Wish Update

I wanted to update you all on our class's contribution to this year's Make A Wish campaign.  In total, our students wrote an amazing 10,068 letters!  These letters will go a long way towards helping make the wish of a critically ill child come true!  I am very proud of our students, and I hope you are too.

Have a wonderful Winter Break everyone!

Parent-Teacher Conferences

This week I will be holding parent-teacher conferences every day after school.  Please be prompt for your scheduled time, as we only have 20 minutes to meet, and conferences are scheduled back-to-back.  If, for some reason, you are no longer able to make your scheduled conference time, please let me know as soon as possible.  I will do my best to reschedule you for some time this week; however, in some cases, we may have to reschedule for after the Thanksgiving Break.

I look forward to meeting with each of you and discussing your child's progress in 6th grade.  I also hope that you all have a restful Thanksgiving break, and enjoy time with family and friends!

Make-A-Wish

In the run-up to the holiday season, our school is once again participating in the Make-A-Wish letter writing program through Macy's (learn more here).  For every letter our students write, Macy's will donate $1 to the Make-A-Wish Foundation, which helps grant wishes for children diagnosed with life-threatening diseases.  One example of a kid helped by Make-A-Wish is Miles, who dreamed of being "Batman."  The foundation, along with the city of San Francisco, helped make his wish come true!

I am pleased to say that our class has jumped into the spirit of things, and in the past 2 weeks, have written over 1600 letters!  That is $1600 towards making the wish of a kid like Miles come true!  I'm so proud of our 6th graders, and look forward to seeing how many letter they write before the December 9th deadline.  

New Work up in the Gallery!

Our students have been working hard this month, so I decided to give them a couple of "Art Breaks."

Our first project was a Prehistoric Cave Painting to finish out our Early Humans unit in Social Studies, and to compliment our literature unit on Boy of the Painted Cave.  I was very pleased with how these turned out!  Extra points if you can find one student's prehistoric "shout out" to Star Trek.  :)

The art project we did this week was just a fun project for Fall.  We drew owls and colored them in crayon.  Then we painted over them with a black watercolor wash.  The paint bubbled away from the crayon, creating the effect of an owl at night.  I love how each child's owl is unique and how many of the students got creative with backgrounds.  I believe these paintings will decorate our room nicely throughout the Fall!

Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF

Our class is working on a service project with UNICEF to save lives and help kids around the world - children who need food, clean water or medicine, or who have been caught in natural disasters. UNICEF works to give these children healthier lives and brighter futures.

Your child can make a difference this October by Trick-or-Treating for UNICEF, or by bringing donations into class.  Money raised during this project will buy lifesaving supplies for children in need, like Nirmala in the video below.  For more information, please visit http://www.trickortreatforunicef.org.

Our Donors Choose Project has Been Funded!

A month ago, I wrote a grant on Donors Choose to get a set of four iPad Minis to add to the six we currently have in the classroom. These iPads would be used for research, educational games, and team tasks to enrich the school curriculum.  This week, I received the exciting news that two parents (THANK YOU) and Chevron have donated funds to our project, and iPad Minis are on the way!   Hopefully we will receive them next week, just in time to use for our Mesopotamia Flip Book projects.  As part of the thank you package for Donors Choose, I am required to send in 6 photos of students using the iPads in the classroom, in addition to thank you letters from the kids.  In order to do this, I need you to fill out a Donors Choose Photo Permission Form that will go home with your child sometime this week or next.  This will allow me to send photos of our students to Chevron to show them the impact their gift has made in the classroom.

I have also created another Donors Choose project for a subscription to DynaMath for my math class.  This project qualified for the SPARK Program, which means that any donations made by October 18th will be matched by Donors Choose!  If you would like to donate, search for the DynaMath project under my name on Donors Choose.  Then, enter the code, SPARK, on the payment page, and your donation will automatically be doubled!

Fingers crossed, our Donors Choose luck will hold, and we will be able to get more great resources for our students.  If you have any questions, feel free to contact me via e-mail or phone.  Thank you!

Mesopotamia Flip Book

As part of our unit on Ancient Mesopotamia, each student will create a flip book showing what s/he learned.   There are 12 sections to the flipbook including the title page.  For each of the other pages, students are to answer the questions about each aspect of Mesopotamia (geography, economics, religion, government, contributions to the civilizations etc.) Answers should be short, but written in complete sentences and in their own words.

·         For each section they also need to include an illustration that relates to that section.  For example, if  writing about the economics, the picture might include the food, jewelry they traded, and metal.  Only three pictures can be computer generated.  All others are to be hand drawn.

·         On the back, students must include the sources they used to find their information.  The sources need to include at least 2 books and one encyclopedia.Students 

           

·   Students do have time in class to work on this, but they should also be working on it at home each night.

·         When it is graded, I will be looking at the following criteria: 

       *All 12 pages are complete

 *All questions are answered in complete sentences

 *An illustration that relates to the subject is included for each section

 *Spelling and neatness counts

 *Complete bibliography

 *Writing needs to be in their own words.  Plagiarism will not be allowed.

This project is due on October 30, 2015.

Picture Day

This is a reminder that Fall Pictures will be taken this Thursday, September 24th.  If you would like to purchase school photos, please either put through your order to Lifetouch online, or have your child bring in payment to school on the 24th.  If for some reason your child is absent on Thursday, or you are not happy with the photos, picture retake day is scheduled for November 5th.  Please let me know if you have any questions!

Back to School Night and 6-word Memoirs

For a mini-writing project, students created 6-word memoirs in class.  This is a piece where writers use 6 words to sum up their philosophy about life, an event that happened to them, or their ideas about the world.  Our 6th grades did a fantastic job with this project, and a few examples of their work have been posted in the Gallery section of this blog.   The rest are on display in class, and you can see them this evening at Back to School Night.

Back to School Night begins at 7:00 pm, with classroom presentations at 7:20 pm and 7:50 pm sharp.  The purpose of these presentations is to let you know what your child will be learning this year, and what the expectations are for class.  We will talk about field trips and other school events as well.  Unfortunately, I will not be able to answer specific questions about your child at Back to School Night, both because of time constraints and because of confidentiality concerns - there will be many other families present in the classroom.  However, if you would like to discuss your child's progress so far, feel free to e-mail me or set up an appointment either before or after school.

I look forward to meeting you all in person this evening!

Hitting the Ground Running

The school year is definitely in full-swing now with students getting back into the routines of classwork, homework, and group projects.  Our first unit theme in Language Arts is "Our Stories."  During this unit, we learn about how and why people share their stories.

Our 6th graders seems to be adapting well to the new math curriculum, and we are making steady progress in working with decimals.  Some of this is review from last year, but other skills are new.  We are adding to our interactive notebooks on a regular basis and working to make sure all students feel confident mastering these new skills.

In Social Studies, we did a quick unit on World Geography, and are now jumping into Early Humans. This is a fascinating unit, showing how human civilizations developed from prehistoric times.  To provide some hands on learning for this unit, students will participate in a short simulated learning experience, and we will look at images from the archaeological record.  In this way, students are not only learning, but working cooperatively and teaching each other.   We will do several simulations and group projects this year with both an emphasis on learning the subject matter and learning to work effectively with others.  This is a huge part of the Common Core State Standards and will help students grow into adults who can collaborate effectively with coworkers and colleagues.

A reminder that Back To School Night is Tuesday, September 15th at 7:00 pm.  I look forward to meeting many of you and giving you information about what we will be doing in 6th grade this year.

Welcome to 6th Grade!

Hello, and welcome to our class blog!  This is the space where I will write brief posts and generally keep you updated about what is going on in class.  Be sure to check the tabs above for more information.  Upcoming Events provides a list of important dates throughout the school year.  Current Units will tell you what we are studying each week.  Under the Gallery tab, student work will be displayed.  Probably the most important tab is the Homework tab.  Each day, I will post the homework for the night on this page.  If your child is anything like my kids, then he/she may "forget" to write down homework occasionally.  I find that this system helps keep parents in the loop about what assignments and projects their child should be working on at home, and when those long-term assignments are due.   In the sidebar, you will see links to some educational sites and resources, as well as a banner for Scholastic Books.  Clicking on this banner will take you directly to the sign-in page for our class orders.

Since this blog is public, I make sure to keep all posts anonymous, and will never post a picture of your child's face online.  The privacy and safety of your child are extremely important!

If you have any questions about the blog, or have difficulty accessing it, please feel free to email me directly at my school address, which is listed at the bottom right of our class newsletter.  I look forward to working with both you and your child this year!

Back To School!

It's nearing that time again... the time when Summer Vacation is over and a new school year begins!  I know for me, this also means a lot of back to school shopping.  To help you out when selecting items your child may need for school, I have compiled the list below.  We do a lot of interactive notebooking in my class, so spiral notebooks, colored pencils, and glue sticks are a must!

1. Water bottle that closes tightly - I discourage my students from getting up for drinks during the instructional day, so having a water bottle nearby is handy.
2. 4 single-subject, college ruled spiral notebooks
3. 2 pocket folders - one for homework and one for classroom "work in progress."  You may want to get a separate folder for each subject if your child's organizational skills could use some help.
4. 3 boxes of Kleenex - you would be amazed how quickly we go through this!
5. 1 dozen #2 pencils - regular or mechanical are fine
6. 2" binder for science
7. 1 pair of scissors
8. 1 box of colored pencils
9. 1 ruler
10. 2 packages of binder paper - college ruled
11. 2 highlighters
12. 3 glue sticks
13. 1 package cleaning wipes
14. 1 box band-aids - we ran out of these last year
15. Pencil pouch - I prefer a soft pencil carrier to the hard boxes because they take up less space and are quieter.

I look forward to meeting you all on August 26th!