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

Next week is the last full week of school!

Reminder from the library: ALL LPMS library books are due back Friday, May 3

Next week is also Spirit Week! 

• Dress Up Days are as follows:
• Monday – Nerd Day
• Tuesday – Crazy Hair Day
• Wednesday – Wear Pink Day
• Thursday- 80’s Day (80’s dance that night 4-5:30)
• Friday – Blue & Gold Day

In Language Arts we are finishing up our Reading Race and all last books are due Thursday June 6th. The party for the winning class will be on Friday June 7th. We are also working on our last writing sample of the year this week and next week. Students had a list of 14 prompts to choose from and are currently working on an outline!

In Social Studies we are finishing up our study of Greece this week and next week. Students will have their final Greece assessment on Thursday June 6th or Friday June 7th. We’ll see where we get this week 😛

I can’t believe these are my last few weeks with your kids! They’ve been an amazing group of kiddos to have for my first year of teaching. I am going to miss them next year!!

The countdown has begun!

In Language Arts this week, we have been continuing our Reading Race with Blue Block holding a slim lead over Green Block. It’s going to be a close call in the end! Students need to finish their second book by June 6th. We are also reading Greek Myths this week. Comparing and contrasting a Medusa cartoon with a short story version of Medusa happened earlier in the week and we are starting “The Apple of Discord” today and tomorrow. Coming up next week, we will be writing our final writing sample of the year!

In Social Studies we are continuing our Greece study. Students have been experiencing a lot of group work in their city-states, and it has been great to watch them delegate and work through building a column in the Doric, Ionic, or Corinthian Style! We have also been learning about daily life in Athens this week.

Coming up!

• June 3rd through June 7th is Spirit Week at LPMS!
• School Dance Thursday June 6th from 4 – 5:30
• Last day to turn in missing work in Ms.Turrell’s class: Friday June 7th
• Last day of school, June 12th (a normal Wed schedule!)

Summer is sneaking up on us! The last day of school is June 12th!

We are going to be having a busy couple weeks! We are currently finishing up the second round of OAKS testing and should be done by the beginning of next week.

In Language Arts we wrote letters to next year’s 6th graders assuring them that 6th grade isn’t as scary as they think! The kids have done a wonderful thoughtful job on their letters. I’ve been so impressed with their writing recently! We are continuing our Reading Race with Blue Block just holding a lead over Green Block and the girls still beating the boys soundly! Encourage your boys to read! 🙂 We are also starting the story of “Medusa’s Head” to go along with our Greece Unit.

In Social Studies we are continuing our study of Greece. This week we have been trying out a new way of note taking as well as doing an interact to simulate democracy in Ancient Greece. We divided up into city-states last week so ask your student which city-state they are loyal to! It could be Athens, Sparta, Corinth, Megara, or Argos! They will be doing a simulation on Friday to gain points for their city-state.

Coming Up:

• Mastery in Motion Assessments
• Last Day of School June 12th

It’s midterms this week! Grades will be updated for midterms Friday afternoon.

This week in language arts we are exploring the theme of adventures and disasters through “The Springhill Disaster”, a song by Peggy Seeger about a mine collapse in Springhill Nova Scotia. We’ve watched a youtube video, listened to the song, and analyzed the song lyrics. We are going to perform a reading of the poem for ourselves over the next two days with Ms. Turrell accompanying on the violin! It’s always an adventure (and never a disaster) in language arts! 🙂

In Social Studies we just completed our final assessment on Ancient China. I have a hunch students did outstanding based on their effort and concentration today! We are starting Greece tomorrow and dividing the class into City-States for the remainder of our year. Yikes! Less than 30 days of 6th grade left!

Coming Up:

• OAKS reading Retesting. If students did not meet they will be retesting in reading this week. If they did meet and you would like to have them retest, I have a letter they can pick up from me that a parent/guardian needs to sign. If your student exceeded, they are done with OAKS for the year!
• I will be gone Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday next week for a funeral in Idaho. Students will be in good hands with Mrs. Vaughan, and if you or your student needs to get ahold of me I will be checking in through email and edmodo!

Can’t believe it’s snowing right now! Hope you all are staying warm!

This week is a busy one with Math OAKS testing and moving around happening in our Reading Lab classes. We’ve switched up 5th period Reading Lab this week so students are getting the interventions and techniques they need to continue to support their reading comprehension. Find the new 5th period roster here.

In Language Arts this week we are continuing our reading race. The girls are leading the boys with 160 points and Blue Block is just squeaking by Green Block. Keep up the great reading, I’ve been so impressed so far! We also are finishing up a short story and continuing to practice perfecting our writing.

In Social Studies we are continuing our study of China by reading and exploring different aspects of Ancient China.

Making sure students are getting good night’s rest is extra important this week as we continue to OAKS test. Math is especially challenging and the more awake and alert they are the better they’ll do! If they’d like to bring a water bottle in the morning please encourage them to do so as water helps get your brain going!

As always, any questions or concerns, email or call!

Make sure students get lots of rest this week so they’re alert and ready for OAKS testing! If your student would like to bring a snack to have before or after OAKS testing that is fine with me!

This week in language arts we are starting a reading “race”. Students have to read at least two books by the end of the school year and complete the accompanying assignments and questions. We are having a competition between blue block and green block to see which class can read the most books by the end of the year.

In social studies we are continuing to study China. This week we constructed our Great Wall that is 55 feet long in the hallway. Each foot stands for 100 miles of wall! We are also OAKS testing during the social studies period.

Coming up:

• Math OAKS testing next week (April 15-19) during first period Math Lab.

This week in Language Arts we are continuing to fill up our personal dictionaries with sensory words and sentence patterns!

In Social Studies, we’ve started our 4 week long study of China. We’re starting with a map of China showing the main geographic features. This map is due Tuesday and if students don’t finish it in class it is homework due tomorrow. Many of my blue block kids did not finish and should be bringing that map home to finish up!

We have also been practicing answering OAKS type reading questions in reading lab as OAKS testing for reading will start next week on Monday April 8th. Getting a lot of rest is especially important next week!

As always, if you have any questions or concerns, don’t hesitate to call or email!

Upcoming Dates:

• Track started Monday April 1st
• OAKS reading testing week of April 8th-12th.

It’s a new trimester! Y’all are 2/3 of the way to being 7th graders, yippee!

One more week until spring break! Yikes!                                                                               I loved seeing everyone who came to conferences! If you missed and would like to schedule for another time, call or email! 🙂

This week in language arts we are continuing our writing samples from last week by peer editing another student’s paragraph. We will turn our edited paragraphs into final copies on Thursday. In the mean time, we are also continuing our sentence pattern study as well as adding to our personal dictionaries. We have also started a new read aloud called  Boys Without Names about an eleven year old boy in India who moves to the big city of Mumbai.  

In social studies we are continuing our brief study of India for the rest of the week. We will be studying China after spring break!

Coming up:                                                                                                                                                  

•  Spring Break: Mar 25 thru Mar 29
• Reading OAKS testing week of April 8th
• Math OAKS testing week of April 15th

Wow! The end of the trimester really snuck up on me, can’t believe we’re already less than two weeks away from spring break!

This week we are holding drop in conferences from 3:15pm to 7:15pm both Tuesday March 12th & Wednesday March 13th. Hope to see you all there!                  If you can’t make it, send us an email or call if you would like to schedule a conference at a time more convenient for you!

In Language Arts this week we have been experimenting with edmodo and haiku deck (an app that pairs pictures with words) to create brilliant sentences! Have your student show you their work on edmodo! We are also going to be tackling another paragraph writing sample Tuesday and Wednesday using an online graphic organizer as well as some prompts that students will have to argue for or against!

We’ve started our unit on Ancient India in Social Studies this week by completing a map of India and will also be tackling vocabulary review for our school-wide vocabulary program. Tuesday and Wednesday we will be learning more about how the geography of India affected its development and created one of the largest advanced ancient civilizations, Mohenjo Daro!

Enjoy the four day weekend off with your student! Remember, no school Thursday AND Friday! I’ll be missing them, though 🙂