Wow! October’s here already! I’ve been having so much fun with this year’s group of wonderful 6th graders!

Conferences are coming up in two weeks! We’ll be holding 6th grade drop in conferences in the LPMS library on Wed Oct 9th & Thurs Oct 10th from 3:15 – 7:15pm. Hope to see you there!

Also, HAT DAY this Friday $1.00

In language arts this week we are continuing to read our novels. We will be having small group discussions about our novels as well as answering vocabulary and comprehension questions related to the novel. We’ll also keep working on our understanding of common and proper nouns!

In social studies we’ll be continuing to learn about early humans in the stone age and discussing hunting & gathering. Some students may have brought home a timeline of their life that they had not yet finished that is due Monday.

As usual, students will have homework on Wednesday! I had considerably more students turn in homework this week and hope to see even more this week! Don’t forget that Parent Vue is now active so you can easily access your child’s grades online! Click on the following link to check and see how your student is doing so far! 

Students brought home homework tonight!

They needed to write down examples of 5 COMMON nouns & 5 PROPER nouns. It’s not due until FRIDAY SEPT 27th!

This link leads to a video that explains what nouns are AND the difference between common and proper nouns!

This week we’ll be having Spirit Days Wed, Thurs, and Fri!

Wed: “Go Pro” (professional wear) Thurs: Superhero Day Fri: Blue & Gold Day

We’ll also be attending the all schools assembly at LPHS on Friday to celebrate Homecoming!

In language arts this week we’ll be starting morph spelling. Students will be learning the morphographs that make up words! This will be a year long activity happening almost every day. We will also be starting our first novel. Students will be reading in class and only bringing a book home if they get behind. However, they have the entire trimester to read their two books at their own pace so I am expecting most students to only be completing reading in class. They will be reading two of the following Jerry Spinelli books: Loser, Crash, Stargirl, or Maniac Magee. Also, look for Wednesday Homework! My homework is generally due on the Friday after it’s given. It will be something having to do with nouns or verbs depending on how far we get Monday & Tuesday! Students need to make sure they are doing a quality job on their homework, some may not be too happy with their grade in LA because of their homework score!

In social studies we will be starting our week with a comprehensive pre test of all the ancient civilizations we will be covering this year. We will be beginning with a study of early hunting and gathering tribes and moving into the stone age later in the week.

In Math Lab, we will be continuing to work on our basic skills such as identifying prime/composite numbers, factoring, and multiplying two digit numbers. Some websites that may be helpful for practicing those skills are: Fruit Shooter (Greatest common factor) Factor Trees (prime factorization) & Factor Dogs (factors, prime, composite)

For those students in BLUE social studies. Here is a copy of a blank world map as well as a checklist if you’d like to study tonight!

World Map

World Map Checklist

Happy third week of school! It’s flying by already!

Thanks to all the families who came to Open House and made it a lovely experience!

Remember, this week 1st period all students will be switching into a math lab class that will provide them with the best instruction for their math needs right now! We will be working on building our basic skills so we can be successful in our core math classes!

In Language Arts this week we are taking our reading easy CBM tests. I encourage students to bring water bottles and snacks to help activate their brains! The easy CBM test measures where students should be at the END of 6th grade so this first score will just be a jumping off point. We use the data to see where our students need the most support and focus. It is only a starting point from which we can measure growth throughout the year!

In Social Studies we will be learning more about world geography and the themes of social studies. We’ll also be beginning our study of hunters and gatherers and the Stone Age. Students will have a world map test on Wednesday and will be bringing home their maps to study on Monday! They need to know the continents, the 4 major oceans, the 4 largest mountain ranges, and a selection of seas as well as the Equator and the Prime Meridian. This website provides a clickable world map quiz for continents & oceans.

What a great first week! I’m looking forward to a second full week with my new classes! I love that I have all three groups of kids this year, it’s been so exciting meeting them all! So far I have been so impressed with their excitement for learning and ability to build a positive classroom community!

This next week in language arts we will be continuing to learn how to use our iPads for learning. Check out edmodo by clicking here. We will be experimenting with our school based google drive accounts as well as editing photos of ourselves for a project to be displayed during parent night! Students will also be taking a pretest to show their knowledge of parts of speech, grammar, and sentence structure. Students should have their 3 subject 8 1/2 by 11 notebooks by Monday! Please let me know if you need help acquiring this for your student!

In social studies we’ll be starting our study of ancient world civilizations by “tearing our world” and starting with some basic world geography. We have also started reading a short story called While a Tree Was Growing. 

This week I hope to see you at PARENT NIGHT! It’s from 5-7 on Thurs Sept 12th at LPMS and will let you live a day in the life of your 6th grade student!

It’s also picture day on Thursday Sept 12th!

Welcome to 6th Grade!!!

I am so excited to have a brand new crop of students to meet and learn with! I cannot even begin to say how happy I am to be back at school! Although the summer was filled with fun weddings and road trips, I’m ready to be back at my LPMS 6th Grade home.

This week we’ll be setting up our classroom expectations, getting to know each other as learners and peers, as well as introducing some content!

Parents! Look for a letter coming home that we’d love to have just the bottom section returned to us! If your student returns it by Friday they’ll get a $3 Hawk Buck Reward!

This year we’ll be using iPads in my classroom as a helpful learning tool. Along with the iPads we’ll be using edmodo, a learning media platform. If you’d like to know more contact me or ask your student! If you’d like to set up a parent edmodo, ask your student to show them your parent code (located on their edmodo homepage)

Coming up: Parent Open House 5-7:00 PM Sept 12th 2013                                                                       Picture Day Sept 12th 2013