6/4/14

The following went out in an email and homework can be found at the bottom:

 

Dear Sixth Grade Families,

Your child should be coming home tonight with a "Fact Packet".  Please sign your child's planner so that I can make sure that you received it.  This is the curriculum that was going to be discussed in class, but instead is being sent home so that parents have a chance to have their hands on the materials and be the primary educators of their children.  This curriculum will look a little different next year, but we will still be using it, so this is a great warm-up for families.  If you have any questions or concerns, please email me. 

Today we had a guest speaker, Mrs. Vanek, come in and talk to us about the Lymphatic System.  It was extremely insightful and enjoyable. Please ask your child what they learned.

Tomorrow we are hoping to have a "Prince and Pauper Feast".  With MId-Summer Nigh't's Dream happening we will be short on clothing fun, but if students want to bring some bling for the feast they can.  If you are available and want to join us, we will begin the feast at 11:45 and watch the end of our movie.  Thank you in advance for helping/allowing your child to participate and bring in food.

Also, tomorrow we will be cleaning out our desk and bringing things home.  If your child thinks it will not fit in their backpack, they should bring an extra bag.  They will still want to bring their bags on Monday for "Diffendoofer Day" aka Teacher Station Rotation Day, because they will be making things and will want to take it home. 

Many students are forgetting their water bottles this time of year and should still be bringing them, please help them remember the importance of hydration.

Lastly, while I will have the students working hard to clean tomorrow, it would be nice to have someone come in to  make sure nothing needs cleaning Thursday after school and Tuesday anytime(as it is field day and student should mostly stay outside) of next week.  I have not had a parent clean my room in over a month, so please take pity and check in to see if you could be the one to save the day.

Have a wonderful evening,

Miss King

Homework tonight:

• P & P read ch 27
• Write a letter to the incoming 6th graders, it should include in 1 paragraph the positives of 6th grade then the second paragraph should have the challenges and advice for next year.
• Bring in food for the feast
• Take home the facts packet and talk to Mom/Dad/Guardians about this

6/3/14

Didn't push publish on this yesterday, sorry...

Tuesday.....yesterday we had a substitute Mrs. Bean.

• We began our day by doing our perception survey in the computer lab.  Parents should now have a link to do theirs as well.
• In math we began our End of Course Exam, many finished and others will finish tomorrow.
• We took our Greek and Latin root final exam today, we also corrected it in class.  Students who did not pass have a chance to retake the exam tomorrow.
• World Language
• We read Chapter 24 in class in the Prince and Pauper and Chapters 25 & 26 are homework.
• We also watched about 20 minutes of the film.
• Lunch
• We worked on our rough draft of our letter to Mrs. Barrett and the final draft is due in cursive italics, in pen and on Riggs paper tomorrow. 
• Talked about the Feast on Thursday and five names were drawn for Pauper food and then students wrote on the back whiteboard what they thought they would be bringing.

That's the gist of it!

5/28/14

Good afternoon,

The week is not over, as we have an outstanding hiking field trip tomorrow.  Students need to remember to pack their water bottle.  They will be doing a creek walk, so they can bring or wear water attire under their regular clothes. Mr. Weaver has sent many emails so hopefully you are aware of this field trip.  Water bottles and an oversized lunch are a must, as well as sunscreen applied if your child tends to burn.

Looking ahead:
Students have a big test over all the Greek and Latin roots we have learned this year on Tuesday, they should be studying this weekend and not save it for Monday night.

We are currently reading Prince and Pauper and we would like to do a Prince and Pauper feast on Thursday for lunch.  It is fun to have parents come if possible and play the prince portion where they are served by the Paupers.  If you can make it please come.  This is our last potluck of the year and students will come up with the feast food list next week, unless you want to pick something up this weekend while out shopping!  Again Prince and Pauper feast on Thursday June 5 at 11:45. 

This weekends homework is:

Math has a packet to help them prepare for their exam next week, it consists of 60 questions.
Students should read up through Chapter 21 in the Prince and Pauper book
Some students have not turned in their last IEW paper and that is due on Monday as well.

That's all for now,

Miss King

5/27/14

• We began our day with our map of Asia.
• In math everyone got back their End of Course Exam and most didn't pass with Mastery so we got out white boards and went back to the practice sets of the lessons we need to review.  Tonight there is no homework, although there will be over the weekend.
• After taking a few moments to clean our gross room, we began language arts by watching the Prince and the Pauper by Mark Twain with the actor Errol Flynn.  The students are enjoying it and it's even in black and white! Then we went over the questions from chapter 11-14 to make sure we were all understanding the story.
• World Language
• Students silently read a book of their choice for about 10 minutes, then we reviewed chapter 16 which was assigned as homework.  Then we began reading chapter 17 together, but did not finish. 
• Lunch
• P.E. and Music
• We got into our groups and based on our group plan from yesterday, following these teaching objectives: Must have a visual respresentation, ask and answer three questions (quiz worthy), be at least 3-5 minutes in length but not more and use at least three different types of mediums,. students executed their plan and presented to the class.  There will be a quiz based on questions tomorrow.
• For homework students are to read chapter 17 & 18 in Prince and Pauper and their final draft of their IEW persuasion paper is due tomorrow.

Thanks,

Miss King

Tuesday 5/26/14

Settling in after a long and lovely weekend.......

• We started by finishing our Europe maps and beginning our Asia maps.
• In math some students finished their End of Course Exam and all students received their grades from the gradebook.  Their job is to study and make a study guide this evening to help them begin to retake exams and quizzes bringing up any grade book grades below a 3, which shows mastery.
• We did CPR, then our District Greek and Latin Root game.  There will be a quiz next Tuesday over all the roots we have had this year.  We finished our language arts time by learning about underlining, italics and quotation marks from Warriner's Grammar.
• World Language
• During reading time students were given a set of questions from Prince and the Pauper, chapters 11-14. Some finished it in class and others will have it as homework tonight.
• Lunch
• We worked on our persuasive writing pieces, looking at a few student papers and figuring out what persuasion strategy they were using.  Then students were to get their paper edited by two different peers.  The final draft is due on Thursday.
• After P.E. we came back and worked for a few more minutes on our papers, then began our group jigsaws on our astronomy objectives, with each group being assigned a kind of star or galaxy to present and teach the class about.  This will all be done in class.
• Depending on how we cleaned up we will or will not begin our Prince and the Pauper movie.

Students are still forgetting their recycling boxes for our constellation boxes, please try to bring these in.

See you all tomorrow,


Miss King

Thursday and more

Thursday was a bit crazy and full, but that just sums up sixth grade!

In Language Arts we are working on reading and understanding the language of the Prince and the Pauper.  Playing our district rounds to learn our Greek and Latin roots seems to be working well and we are gearing up for a final in roots (not just memorizing them, but knowing them before seventh grade). We will wrap up Warriner's Grammar with some knowledge of punctuation and students will be bringing home a full grammar notebook in June!

We wrapped up Immigration this week and began our Astronomy unit, although it took a back seat because of OAKS testing.  Now that testing is officially over we will dive back in next week.

Student should have their latest Orthography score written in their planner for you to see when you sign it.  If they were missing their Prince and Pauper questions that will be written in their planner as well.  Some students were missing their papers and more were copied and put on the front table.  I know some students will try to say "Miss King never gave me the paper", that is because I announced twice that it was on the front table :)!  I tried!

So this weekends homework is not a huge, but does require writing.  We are working on our last IEW unit of persuasion.  Students were given a Persuasion Map (on pink paper) and instruction, as well as an example written by me off of my persuasion map about how to go about their introductory paragraph and the body paragraphs.  We spent two different days in class working on this.  They did have class time and some students even finished their writing in class or got almost done. They should come on Monday with four paragraphs written.  It would be most helpful if their paper was edited by an adult before coming on Tuesday.

They are also to read Prince and Pauper up to Chapter 15 for Tuesday.

Some students forgot to bring a box from recycling, like a cracker box or something small and similar on Thursday and should bring one on Tuesday.

Enjoy the long weekend,

Miss King

Wednesday 5/21/14

Good afternoon,

Today ended not as lovely as it started and I am saddened to admit I think my face changed colors as a clanked the cow bells.  The class as a whole could not be respectful, turn off their voices and just pack up.  I do not enjoy those moments.  It will be a better day tomorrow.

Ask your child about our guest speaker this morning.

• Mr. Mitchelldyer came in and wowed us with his job and all of its possibilities. In his job I thought it was great that he talked about how he uses a lot of math, and even grammar for captions!
• For math many students had to go and finish OAKS testing.  Everyone got their test back and based on their scores and their needs, some began their "End of Course Exam".  Some need and want to study more before taking the exam.  We will finish the exam next week and then work on mastery of any struggling concepts to improve our grade book grades.
• For language arts time we worked on our Persuasion Map and began our rough draft in class.  We will continue to work on this tomorrow and into next week.
• World Language
• Students read Chapter 10 in Prince and Pauper for silent reading, then they were given a packet of comprehension and critical thinking questions for chapters 5-10.  There were some hard questions and we will go over a few of them tomorrow together.
• Lunch
• P.E. / Band  We will see everyone for band and orchestra tomorrow at 6:05 with the show starting at 6:30.  Remember concert attire is required.  If nice dress means a uniform that is fine too!
• Back in class we studied again for our Immigration quiz and then took the quiz and corrected it in class.  It sounded like everyone did a great job.
• We began our astronomy unit by going over all of the objectives we need to learn, realizing we know many of them already and then watching a Space School video on the Milky Way before packing and trying to clean up!

That was all for today, have a wonderful night,

Miss King